Lasagna and rambels September 24, 2009

We got to see the Blue Angels perform last Sunday.  Those guys are nuts but supper exciting to watch.  Meme and Jon came over and we had the best seat in the house, well, on top of it.  We actually put blankets up on the roof and watched from there.  Lot of trees that got in the way for some of it, but they did fly bys directly over the house so it evens out.  Amazing to watch.  Not going to miss the crazy traffic tho.  Stead gets supper crowed that week.

Garden is doing pretty well.  Most of it’s winding down and being put to bed.  We’ve been working on new garden beds for next year, our soil in the side yard is awful.  So we did the bale gardens this year http://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/strawbales.htm  The straw from those is now being used to make our lasagna garden beds. http://organicgardening.about.com/od/startinganorganicgarden/a/lasagnagarden.htm 

And on a related note, I made an awesome veggie lasagna for dinner the other night.  Here’s the recipe

Lasagna noodles

2 jars of your favorite spaghetti sauce

15 oz ricotta cheese

2 eggs

1/2 cup of parmesan cheese

Mozzarella cheese, shredded (I used about a pound and a half)

Veggies!  (I use a whole bunch of spinach, without stems, a half an onion, and a large yellow squash)

1- Boil noodles according to package.  Wash and dice all veggies.  Mix ricotta, eggs, and parm completly.

2-Drain cooked noodles.  Spoon some of the sauce on the bottom of 9x 13 baking dish.  Cover bottom with noodles.  Layer, cheese mix, veggies, shredded mozzarella, and sauce.  Cover with noodels and repeat.  (this made three layers of noodels for me)

3- Top the last layer with sauce and shredded cheese

4- Cook in oven at 350 until cheese is browned and everything is bubbly and hot.

Wonderful with a leafy salad and the leftovers are great for lunch.  I’m not sure how this would work with freezing, but I’d bet it’d be wonderful.

Back at the grind May 26, 2009

So I’m getting back to work and am totally lost.  Lol.  After having an extra long weekend I can’t seem to focus properly.  But it was a very nice weekend.  Planted out a bunch of our peppers.  Still need to finish seeding the garden bed out back, plant the tomatoes, eggplants, and others.  I feel like I’m getting a slow start this year but I suppose it’s better than freezing my poor plantlings like I did last year.  

Matt’s truck is working beautifully with the new engine.  It’s good to have the truck back but paying it off it’s going to be fun.  Mums in town visiting.  It’s nice to have her.  A little odd to have someone else in the house again but it’s still good.  I’m thinking I might make black bean tacos for dinner tonight and lunches this week.  Supper easy.

Black bean and Potato tacos.

2 or 3 potatoes

1 or 2 cans of black beans (not drained)

1/2 to 1 onion, chopped

1 to 2 packets of taco seasoning

A few cups of prepared brown rice

Tortilla’s or taco shells

Cheese, Sour cream, Tomatoes, hot sauce, what ever toppings you like.

Microwave the potatoes until they’re just soft.  Let them cool abit and cut into small cubes.

Add a little oil to a pan, saute chopped onions until translucent, add cubed potato and let brown a bit.

Add black beans and taco seasoning.  Adjust the amount of liquid from the beans.  I recommend starting small and adding to get the consistency you want.

Simmer for maybe 5 min to let the flavors come together.

Serve on a hot tortilla or taco shell with a layer of rice, then taco mix, then add cheese and fixings. 

These are really easy and between the beans and rice you have a complete vegetable protein.  And it’s cheap

Experiments in garden and a dish cloth May 7, 2009

So I’m attempting a gardening method called straw bale gardening.  Basically I’ve hunted down some cheap hay bale and I’m doing to be using them as a growing medium.  The bales are placed on cardboard to keep the weeds down.  Then you water them to encourage decomposition.  Once they’ve cooled off you plant your transplants directly in the bales and grow them there.  The benefits are sort of like with a raised bed, good drainage, easy to reach, not alot of weeds (tho if the bales have seeds they’ll grow and you have to trim them back).  So far I have 13 bales.  I’ve gotten cardboard under several of them.  I’m bringing home some boxes from work today and my little sister works in recycling so she brought me some yesterday.  Once the cardboard is under them I start watering (don’t want them to get too heavy and then add the cardboard).  Since nitrogen speeds up the process I’ve added some fresh horse manure to the tops of the bales and watered that in.  So I guess we’ll see how it does:)

A couple of months ago Matt and I stopped buying paper towels.  Mainly we did it to cut out an expense but so far I only miss them when I’m working on a craft project or when  I want a napkin.  I had some left over cotton thread so this last week I’ve crocetted up some napkin/wipe up towels.  This was the pattern for the one I liked the best.

Chain 22, Turn and single stitch in one back (would be the 21st chain). 

Single stitch all 21 back to end

Chain one to turn. Single stitch in one, chain and skip the next stitch, single stitch in 3, ch skip, single in 5, ch skip, single in 7, ch skip, single in 9, ch skip, single in 11, continue to end of row. 

Chain one turn and repeat on rows until you have the lenght you want.  Then Single stitch 21. 

Work around the edges as you want.  The pattern that I like to add to the edges is a simple ruffle.  Single stitch, chain three, single stitch in next place.  Shells are very nice too.

This pattern is really easy once you get it going and very quick to make.  It comes out looking a little lacy.  Something that really helps me keep the stitches in the right place is that after you’ve done the first row of single chain skips, the yarn of the single stitches will look sort of like a downward v.  Those downward V s are where you put the singles for the rest of the pattern.

New tree and a recipe May 4, 2009

I’ve been looking for a dwarf fruit tree for a while now.  I’ve been trying to be very logical and reasonable and pick my variety then buy.  Yah.  That fell apart on Saturday.  Matt and I were at Walmart and found a semi dwarf apricot tree for $20.  That little voice in my head said ‘this one’.  So I got it.  Turns out my little voice was right as usual.  It’s a Blenheim Apricot and apparently it’s fruit is wonderful.  I think it’s going to be in a pot for this year.  At least until I can get a spot prepared for it.  I’m planning on buying some gooseberry and current bushes too.  Planning on using them as a bit of a hedge. Have to make sure the nursery is still shipping them for this year.  Yay plants.

And now for something completely different-

Supper easy cobbler/dump cake-

2 cans of pineapple or fruit of your choice (I like 1 can of chunks and 1 of crushed pineapple)

1 box of cake mix (I’m very fond of french vanilla)

1 ish sticks of butter.

Heat oven to 350.  Pour canned fruit into a glass baking dish (maybe 8×12?  You want the fruit to be about an inch and a half to 2 inches deep).  Sprinkle the dry cake mix evenly over the top.  Don’t break up lumps or smooth it out.  Cover the top of the cake mix with thin slices of butter.  Place in oven and cook until the top is browned and the fruit very hot.

This turns out so good.  The pineapple gets caramelized, the topping gets beautifully browned and crisp and the section where cake meets fruit is fabulously soft.

Signs of life April 28, 2009

Even with the cold that we’ve had lately there are signs of life in the garden!  W00T!  The arugula is sprouting.  The lettuce and spinach is looking good.  Some of them got a little sunburn when it was really warm one day but they’re ok.  The lemon balm got a bit of that burn too but looks like its recovering nicely.  We have the first leaves of the potatoes popping up and the peas are starting to come out of hiding. 

We also planted out rainbow chard, more mustard and kale and some lettuce.  Sunday we stopped by Moana nursery to meander.  I know I shouldn’t do that but it’s so prettful there.  Anyway we ended up with a peppermint and catnip seeds.  Planted the mint in a pot for now.  I do have one bed where it cant escape that I may put it.  And Matt wanted to take over the catnip so he planted those in a window box and some in the escape proof bed.  The cats are going to love it.  The trick will be keeping the neighborhood cats from killing it

I planted some garlic that had sprouted in the fridge and it’s growing beautifully.  I have to say that green garlic (leaves) have to be one of the most under used and under talked about ingredients ever.  They are so good!  Very garlicky but with a sweet green bright kind of taste.  I don’t think I’m describing it very well but I recommend that everyone try planting some garlic and using the greens.  It’s also nice because you can plant them in spring (if like me you forgot last fall;)

Matt chatted with one of our neighbours last night while he was watering.  They live a couple houses down from us and have just put in a chicken coop.  They were supper impressed by the green garlic and want to do trades for produce once we get things growing.  Fresh veggies for fresh eggs.  Oh Yah!

One indoor project, One garden project March 13, 2009

A couple weeks ago Matt and I finally got around to using the Howard Restore a finish that I’d bought a while back.   One of my coworkers had told me about it when I mentioned that we were looking at refinishing our kitchen cabinets and I really didn’t want to.  The cabinets are ok, but they’re oak so they’d gotten dinged up and a little scratched and water faded.  I was kind of sceptical that the restore-a-finish could do much by just being rubbed in. 

 I was so wrong:)!  It worked incredibly well and didn’t take long at all.  You need the finish stuff, rags or tee shirt pieces, super fine steal wool is helpful, gloves, and some paper towels.  I also laid down newspaper so we didn’t get it on the wood floor.  

Basically you pick the shade that matches closest to your finish, scrub down the cabinets so your not finishing in dirt.   Lay out the newspaper if you’re using it.  And I’d recommend testing it on the back side of a cupboard or somewhere else it wont show.  If you like it, put on gloves and use the rag to rub it into the finish.  The steel wool is helpful to buff out deeper scratches but be gentle with it.  Rub the cabinet then use the paper towels to wipe off any extra residue.  That’s it!  We did the whole (admittedly not huge) kitchen in one day.

 

Garden project.  I really wanted to build raised beds and do everything just so in our side yard this year.  Unfortunately, the economy and fate have decided that we’re going to be broke and struggling for awhile.  I’m still hoping to build some of them but I’ve needed to find some other plans.

A bunch of the areas that I was planing on putting in beds are nothing but weeds right now.  First thing I have to deal with is those weeds, and do it before they take over.  So my current experiment is to use the buckwheat to improve the soil and to out compete the weeds. 

So here’s the plan that I started on yesterday.  In the sections that are weedy and I know I’ll put in  raised beds, I’m turning the weeds over.  Basically shovel them and the dirt up and turn it over to kill the weeds with darkness and any that do turn around should be weakened.  Then in the next few days I’m going to thickly sow the area with buckwheat.  Buckwheat sprouts and grows incredibly quickly, so works really well in out competing weeds.  Most of the buckwheat I’ll till into the ground to improve the structure and add organic material.  In a couple of patches I’ll most likely let it go to seed and collect it for next year.

Gods it feels good to be in the garden again.! even if the only thing growing so far is the weeds:)

Experimenting with Buckwheat October 20, 2008

One of the things I grew this year was a small patch of buckwheat.   It’s definitely something I’ll plant again.  We planted August 5th and I harvested on Oct 10th.  I probably could have harvested a little earlier, some of the seed had already fallen off. 

To sow, I just tossed the seed on the patch and lightly raked over it to cover.  It doesn’t like too much heat so here in Reno early spring or late summer is probably best.  It seems to like a decent amount of water, I water every day til established then just when it started to look stressed.  It grows super quick with heart shaped leaves and little bundles of white flowers.  Typically 60-70 days to harvest.  If you plant it thickly (is that a word?) it’ll smother weeds.  The wild quail love to come into the yard and nibble at it.  And on top of how easy it is, it’s good for you.  Here’s a link I found on the nutrition of buckwheat. http://www.thebirkettmills.com/nutrition/nutrition_2003.htmInteresting how much protein it has but hasn’t taken off like soy.  My thought is that it’s just not a high enough yield crop for most commercial growers.  Perfect for me tho:).

Harvest and processing.  Harvest was easy.  Took a pair of kitchen shears and a towel out with me and just cut it all down.  Stacked it on the towel to make it easy to load into the house.  For most of them, Meme and I just pulled the seeds off the stems and tossed in a paper bag.  We also tried tyeing some into bundles to let dry and I’ve read that you can let in dry then thresh the whole mess in a bed sheet.  That seemed like it would be pretty messy.  We let the seeds dry for a couple of days.  Matt and I went thru and pulled them off the steams better while watching tv.  About half way thru I notice that the dry ones you can just rub between your hand to loosen the last of the stem and leaf bits (it gets kind of powdery and messy so do it over a sheet).  I’ll do it that way next year.

Saturday we took the buckwheat seeds with the chaff outside.  I set up a small house fan and then poured the buckwheat slowly in front of it.  This will blow the lighter bits out and let the seeds drop down.  You have to do it a couple of times but it works like a charm.  From all the reading I’ve done I can’t find a way to get the husks off without a commercialhuller but I can still make flour.   To make the flour you grind up the seeds in a blender or a coffee grinder or a mill.  Don’t worry about the husks in there.  You pour the flour into a flour sifter and sift.  What you end up with is the flour below and the husks in the sifter.  The more you grind the husks into the flour the darker it will be and the more fiber it will have- tho the husks can get bitter if you add too much.  For left over husks, they can be used like a mulch, tossed in the compost, or saved and stuffed into pillows with dried lavender blossoms.  From what I hear the husk pillows are really comfy.

Seeds- I bought mine thru Johnys seeds.  $11 something plus shipping.  My Mum found buckwheat for sprouting for 1.69ish a pound.  Just make sure you don’t buy groats or other cooked buckwheat.

Plants for next year October 3, 2008

It really looks like fall today!  The sky is gray and cool.  My gardens are running down now and before too long I have a feeling I’ll have to bring in the last of it.  I still have a couple bulbs to plant, some Queen of Night tulips.  There’s a little planter bed in front of the living room window.  It has some gladiolas that need to be separated and some of the most horrible clay soil ever.  I’ve been working in organic matter every fall and spring to improve it.  It’s time for my to do it again (it is a lot better than when we first moved in).

Matt and I are planning to tear out the grass in our side yard next year.  We don’t have kids or dogs and it seems such a waste to water a lawn in the dessert.  We’re planning on doing a cottage garden.  It’s going to be a mix of flowers and edibles all happily higgeldy-piggeldy.  My kind of garden plan.  So I thought I’d share some of the plants that I want to put in next year.

Asparagus- it needs a permanent bed because it’ll stick around for a couple decades.  I think I’m going to go with one of the Jersey all male hybrids.  That way you don’t have to deal with berries from the females.  I’m thinking this is going to go in the back yard by the hot tub.  Asparagus is really quite a cool looking plant.

More beans.  Mine didn’t do too well this year because I didn’t give them the right kind of support.  I’m also thinking about adding a trellis where the back yard leads into the side yard.

Daylilies-  I am so in love with these plants its not even funny.  There are literally thousands of varieties and so beautiful.  From what I’ve read they’re also really hardy.  Only problem is deciding which ones to buy, some of the plants are really expensive.

Squash and pumpkin.  I really don’t know how I missed these this year but I wont next year.

Black radishes.  They just look really cool.

A sponge.  Sounds weird huh?  Here’s the link I ran into on this one http://www.groovygreen.com/groove/?p=689.  I figure since it’s a gourd type plant it should be happy here. 

Fig in a pot.  This one’s Matt’s baby.  He really wants a fig tree but our cold then warm then cold in the fall and spring would kill it.  Apparently, you can grow figs in large pots and they’ll still bare fruit.   It’ll be an experiment.

Corn.  I’m thinking this should go by one of the fences.

Hollyhocks.  I think these are one of my favorite flowers.  They remind me of my mother and summers spent running around in the forest and reading books up on a tree branch and daydreams.  Definitely need that in my yard:).  I think I’m going to mix some of the traditional colors with the Watchman (near black) and put some of them near the composter.  Make it look more interesting.

Fruit tree.  I’m thinking apple or apricot, semi dwarf.  Don’t know what does best so I’ll probably talk to the university and to Moana nursery, they’ve always been helpful.

Sunflowers.  This is an other one that I’m just not sure how it escaped me this year.  I’ve seen them growing all over the place tho and they look so happy.

So that’s my little ramble.  Before long I’ll be putting the gardens to bed for the winter and start working on inside the house projects.  I’m hoping to put a couple tile back splashes in the kitchen this year.  Still have a bathroom to paint, and the on going crusade against clutter.