Clean-up crew

My rosemary plant from two years ago died and dried out but I just got around to tossing it in the compost pile. After two years of growing in the house, the roots of the plant had firmly adhered to the inside of its pot. Not feeling like scrubbing it out at that moment, I set the pot on the back steps hoping the rain would do some of the cleaning for me. While sitting at the computer one day, back door open, I heard a strange ceramic clinking sound coming from outside. I was surprised to see this chipmunk earnestly chewing away all the rosemary roots from inside the container. Nature's clean-up crew had arrived! Who knew this cute, efficient, (and sometimes destructive!), little furry creature loved rosemary so much?

Thanks for the help, now please stop eating my strawberries!!

Wordless (sunless) Wednesday

fading memories of the sunshine

Gilding the Radish

The radish. Some would say it has a taste only a mother could love...or in my case, a grandmother. I remember my Nana loved a good radish, plain and unadulterated. Though I tried to enjoy this colorful little vegetable numerous times, the peppery taste always stopped me from eating more than one or two at a time, and usually in a salad with lots of dressing for disguise. Yet radishes are worthy of a second - or third, look because their roots and leaves are packed with nutrients like vitamin C, potassium, and trace minerals.

Since radishes have been included in recent CSA farm shares, and I just pulled the last of them from my garden, I was determined to find a way to enjoy this often overlooked veggie. While browsing through some online recipes, I came across one for glazed radishes. This sounded like an intriguing way to camouflage the radish's peppery bite. Then my thoughts naturally turned from glaze to maple glaze, which then flowed to maple pecan glaze. Hence, the recipe Glazed Maple Pecan Radishes was born...but would it meet my dreamy expectations?

I am happy to report that I was very pleased with the resulting taste. Even my vegetable-skeptical family ate this concoction and enjoyed it. By cooking the radishes while reducing the glaze - actually an accidental effect of adding too much water, their peppery harshness was tamed to a pleasant, light accent. The cooked radishes had the texture of less-crunchy water chestnuts, which contrasted nicely with the crispness of the toasted pecans. All-in-all, this pairing made a delicious topping for the steamed salmon we had, though I can imagine it would also be great over grilled chicken breasts. I reduced it a little more than I would have liked, so there wasn't very much liquid glaze to coat the fish. Next time I will stop the cooking process before most of the water has dissipated to leave more glaze for the meat.


The recipe:

Glazed Maple Pecan Radishes

1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans, toasted
2 cups chopped or sliced radishes (mine were peeled and sliced)
2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Coarsely chop ½ cup pecans or use 1/2 cup pre-chopped pecans. Lay pieces in a baking pan in a single layer and toast in a 400 degree oven for about 4 minutes or until pecans start to brown. Set aside.

Peel and slice or coarsely chop radishes to make 2 cups. (I peeled mine because they were large and the skin was a little tough.)

In a saucepan or medium-sized frying pan, melt the butter on medium heat. Add the radishes, maple syrup, water, vinegar, sugar, and salt and stir to coat. Cook on medium until the liquid starts to bubble, stirring periodically. Continue to gently boil until the liquid has reduced in volume by about two-thirds and the radishes are starting to get translucent. The glaze will be thickening. You can cook until there is as much or as little liquid left as you prefer. Reduce heat to low, add the pecans, and stir to coat. Cook for an additional minute or two. Remove from heat and serve over your main dish of choice, or eat as a side dish.

A sweet glaze remains after reducing the water

Served over steamed salmon and with oven-roasted broccoli

To roast broccoli:

preheat oven to 400 degrees

clean and trim broccoli into small florets

coat bottom of small baking dish with olive oil

place broccoli in a shallow baking dish and
drizzle with olive oil

sprinkle with salt, pepper and onion powder

toss broccoli to coat with oil and spices

roast in oven for about 15 minutes
or until broccoli is lightly browned

Enjoy!

Confessions

I am here to admit that I am a foodaholic. Yes, I confess to thinking about food way more than I should during the day, especially now that summer is here (almost), and the fruits and vegetables are coming in at local farms and in our garden. On Thursday we had our second CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) pickup from Rabbit's Dance Farm in Cumberland, RI. I am splitting a summer share with a friend; a whole share would be too much for me to eat because we have a large home garden. Even though we grow a lot of different fruits and vegetables at home, I still like to receive part of a CSA share to compensate for crop failures we might experience, and also to support local, organic agriculture. The weather is so variable from year to year that we can't depend on all our own plants producing an edible yield. It is nice to have back up.

Excited about cooking with my CSA produce, I recently joined the "Cooking Away My CSA" Challenge started by Heather on her Flour Girl blog. Beginning June 22, we are to blog about our culinary creations based on CSA fruits and vegetables as a way to inspire each other to break out of our eating ruts. For any of you localvore CSA-lovers who would like to commune with other like-minded folks, she created a group at Google so we can exchange recipes and photos. If you have ever wondered, "What the heck do I make with kohlrabi?" this group may be for you.

I'm starting a little before the challenge begins because I so enjoyed my breakfast that I wanted to share it with all of you - ok, not literally, because I ate it, so there is none left! Here's what we received in our CSA share this week:

beets
kale
mixed baby lettuce
garlic scapes
peas
thyme
and the infamous kohlrabi

How they will be used:

beets - steamed and sliced
kale - blanched and possibly added to soup
mixed baby lettuce - salad
garlic scapes - chopped and sauteed with shredded kohlrabi and Parmesan cheese (see below)
peas - eaten raw and slightly boiled
thyme - given to share partner
kohlrabi - shredded and sauteed with chopped garlic scapes and Parmesan cheese (see below)

The peas were you-pick, in the rain, but still fun none-the-less. I re-discovered that there is nothing like the crisp sweetness of a freshly picked pea right out of the field. We ate a few raw and blanched the rest, which were so much better cooked than their canned or frozen cousins.

This morning, for breakfast, I made a one-egg omelet which included the kohlrabi and some garlic scapes. Fresh and mouth-watering strawberries from nearby Cook's Valley Farm added a touch of sweetness to my meal.

How it was prepared (a quick, unofficial recipe):

wash and remove stems & leaves from one small kohlrabi
(save leaves for another meal)
peel kohlrabi and shred
rinse and chop garlic scapes (I used four)

sautee kohlrabi using approximately a tablespoon of olive oil and
a teaspoon of butter until it is softened and starting to brown

add chopped scapes and a drizzle of oil
cook for a couple of minutes

in a small bowl, fork-blend one egg, salt, pepper, and a tablespoon of water
add to scapes and kohlrabi, still in the pan on the stove
stir to mix

sprinkle grated Parmesan cheese - about 1/4 cup on top of the egg/veggie mix
let cook until the egg starts to set
carefully loosen sides of omelet and slip a spatula under it
flip over and brown the other side

remove from pan and eat before anyone else comes into the kitchen!

As I post this, I realize that I do a lot of vegetable and egg scrambles with my CSA items because they are quick to make and a great way to use up odds and ends. You can add any vegetables, meats, or cheeses that you have leftover too. But I need to break out of this one-lane road and try something more exciting. I am looking forward to the Challenge posts for further inspiration!

Some days...

...it's all about the visuals. I can understand the attraction of the "Wordless Wednesday" feature that has become so popular around the internet. By the middle of the week you get tired and you decide to let pictures do the talking. While not an official Wordless Wednesday post (being a wordy person I can't go without saying something about each photo), this is a close approximation.

Please enjoy a quick peek at what's happening in the garden today.


I never realized how delicate and lovely a chive flower was until I accidentally broke one off and brought it inside to beautify my windowsill.

The sage bed that started as a few seed-grown plants two years ago has exploded into a hedge of flowers and a paradise for bees of all kinds.


A friend gave me a sad little cutting of comfrey a couple of summers past. Her husband was going to kill it because it wandered into the lawn, but she rescued it and gave it to me. I wondered if the poor thing would survive. Guess it did because now it's four feet tall!

Comfrey flowers in variegated shades of purple create a haven for bees. Besides being an amazing herb for healing skin wounds and mending broken bones, comfrey also has beneficial qualities as a garden fertilizer when used either as a green manure (mulch), or stewed into a liquid amendment. For more about how to use comfrey to nourish your garden, see this article.

I looked out my kitchen window to see this female wild turkey perched on top of our garden arbor. Below, at the bird feeders, was the male who made the daily visit with her. After a few minutes, he wandered off towards the edge of the woods and gobbled persistently for her to follow. The female seemed to be ignoring him as she remained on the arbor, surveying the landscape. Eventually the male gave up and returned to the feeder to wait for her, at which time the female hopped down and enjoyed her afternoon meal.


Who are you calling a TURKEY?


Remember those little seedlings I showed you on April 23? They are all grown up and getting used to being outside prior to transplanting this weekend. Wish them luck.


Little drops of water pooled in the leaves of a lupine plant become exquisite jewels. I was taken aback at how much it looked like crystal beads had been attached to the plant as if by the hand of a magical garden sprite.


Have a gem of a Thursday!

A little of this and that

Where does the week go? Is universal time becoming faster these days? I think it is. At the beginning of the week I noticed that my blog had just celebrated its one year "blog-aversary." There was no fanfare, there were no party hats, and sadly, there was no cake. Sigh. There was only a casual nod to the passing of internet time and some reflection on the way blogs capture little segments of our lives and cast them into the larger sea of thoughts and commentary that form this web community. By making my life - or at least a little bit of it, publicly viewable, I have stepped into the current and become part of the online din that whizzes past our eyes and ears every day. I can only hope I have contributed to the stream in a some small, positive way.

Now on to the rest of the week. With the monthly meeting of our local spinning and knitting group, I returned to my patient, and sometimes lonely, Kromski Sonata spinning wheel to tackle a new wool and mohair roving dyed a delicious melange of pink and yellow. After much groaning and struggle, I had finally dispatched the sticky and persnickety blue wool that looked so pretty but spun with such difficulty. Oh it was not all the beauty it pretended to be! The fibers were long but stuck together with some sort of super bond that tested my patience. However, after heavily drafting it, I did spin it down to the end. The result was one bobbin of embarrassingly overspun and kinked yarn that I wound into a center-pull ball for plying.

Let me tell you that plying an overspun yarn this way - taking yarn from the inside and outside of a center-pull ball at the same time, was an exercise in frustration for me. Only later, after having stopped plying and removing the offending yarn from the wheel forever, did I learn (at my spinning group), that there is a trick to plying this way which involves some clever manipulation of the ball and the yarns within the non-plying hand. ( Actually, the description sounded like a third hand might be needed!) As I was itching to spin something new, I followed my weaving teacher's advice and unwound the remaining single yarn in the ball and wrapped it on my warping board, after which I gently hung the hank on a peg with a small weight to release some of the overspun twist. At some point, I will use this as a weft yarn on my Ashford Knitter's Loom, combining it with some 5/2 perle cotton in blue that I have hanging around, to make a scarf.

In contrast, this latest roving is a dream to spin and the color is a yummy fuchsia-lemon blend that is a nice change from the blues and browns I have been spinning. It's almost a pencil roving and it needs very little pre-drafting before spinning. (Hooray!) I purchased this 50-50 wool and mohair blend from Friend's Folly Farm of Monmouth, ME, while I was at a fiber fair weekend months ago. The mohair lends a fuzzier effect to the finished yarn, so it will be interesting to see how this looks once plied and washed. I am already envisioning it woven into something soft and comforting to wear. I just need to find a coordinating warp yarn, probably in yellow.

It's coming along nicely, don't you think?

So why not use this yummy yarn for knitting, you ask? Well, it is a possibility of course. But there's that weaving business that seems to have taken over my brain and woven itself into the fiber of my thoughts. (Sorry for the puns!) I am starting to dream in warp and weft rather than knit and purl. The advantage of weaving is the ability to make cloth a lot faster than I can by knitting. Plus my hands don't go numb when weaving like they do while knitting. Of course, the loom set-up time is considerable, and my back curses me after leaning over the loom for hours while putting on and threading the yarns. But like people say of childbirth, you forget all that once you are throwing the shuttle and watching your fledgling fabric grow by the minute. The magic of actually weaving overshadows the preparation time.

Now that my weaving class has come to and end for summer vacation, I am working on two weaving projects at home. First, I have twill cotton dishcloths in pale blue and white on my Leclerc floor loom. I would have made more progress on these by now if not for the mistakes I made while sleying the reed: in two places I put four rather than two yarns per dent. I had already woven 32 rows before I decided that this error was going to be noticeable (at least to me), and that I needed to correct these areas. It really didn't take long to fix (just like the weaving teacher predicted), but I feared the effort and thus, put it off too long. Procrastination, you are my middle name.

Second, I have a scarf on my Ashford rigid heddle Knitter's Loom that was working up fairly quickly until I had to take a break to take care of some jewelry business and also to plant some vegetable seeds in the garden while the timing of the moon was right. (I am attempting to follow the Gardening by the Moon method posted on the Farmer's Almanac site.) The scarf has a warp of deep blue 5/2 perle cotton, a free yarn from the Weaver's Guild stash, and a weft of a white and blue synthetic chenille of unknown fiber content, which was received through Freecycle. I am tempted to throw in a narrow stripe here and there of a multi-colored ribbon yarn, just for a bit of color, but I have not made that executive decision just yet. I can see how scarves to weavers can become like socks to knitters; they are both addictive little projects which can be completed relatively quickly and with small amounts of materials.

7" done so far
Add a stripe or not, what is your vote?

Then there are the lovely polymer flowers from ZudaGay waiting on my crafting table to be made into necklaces and bracelets. But here I am writing a blog post rather than working on jewelry and it is already 10 pm. Will someone please slow down the universe so I can catch up??

Moody Tuesday Musings

I took a little walk around the front yard yesterday with my camera to see what was popping up in the garden beds nearest the house. Watching nature always reminds me that life is filled with change and that things are often not as I expect (or want) them to be. I may plant that flower over there to the right, under the holly bush, but it comes up next year on the left, by the front steps. That herb that I planted two years ago that looked quite dead the second year, suddenly appears, full of life, in the third season. Yet, something that was robust last year at this time hasn't even poked a single leaf out of the ground this spring. Unwanted weeds will grow much better than any cultivated plant. Does this mean if I choose to grow weeds that they won't flourish? (Hmm, perhaps a good theory to test!)

Change is nature's way of keeping me on my toes. Nature is a source of infinite fascination because I never know what I might see at any time, day or night. Just when I think I know what birds I'll see in a certain area, some unusual avian delight flutters in - just for a moment. Better keep my eyes, ears, and heart open or I might miss that once-in-a-lifetime message from the Universe that conveys the meaning-of-it-all.

Ok, perhaps I am exaggerating just a little! Or maybe not. That is the point. You never know what unique insight might be standing there, three feet from your back door unless you venture outside on occasion, outside the ordinary, outside the routine. Look to your left instead of to your usual right when you glance out the window. Take a walk on the wild side today and get outside yourself. That is, stroll through nature's ever-changing scene and see if anything is blooming in a place you wouldn't expect it to be. Let me know if you happen to find the answer to the "meaning-of-it all" question while you are out there because I can't watch everywhere all at once. We need each other to get a 360 degree view.

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Where did this lovely Lily of the Valley underneath my window come from? I don't remember planting it. I think they were growing wild under a tree next to the house. What magical little creative transplanted it during the night?

These gorgeous, black-purple Johnny Jump-ups jumped up about five feet away from where they were planted last year. One plant decided it liked the shelter of the stone stairs, while the other preferred life in the open, springing up on two sides of a garden fence and in between the walkway and the garden bed. How reflective of the differing personalities of living things; even plants have preferences.

Chocolate mint moves forward with its plot to take over the world...or at least my front garden. Before you get too excited by the word "chocolate," this herb only has a hint of that beloved flavor and is mostly still mint. I also have pineapple, orange, and apple mints, plus spearmint, and peppermint in the back garden. All of them must have been in communication with the chocolate variety in the front yard as they are refusing to stay within the bounds of their allotted territory.

Ever notice that each yard seems to favor one color or another of violet? Some friends of ours only have a white variety, while our previous house only had a medium-dark purple type. This year our yard is inundated by this delicate and delightful pinkish-purple violet. I don't remember there being such a profusion of them in past seasons. I am not sure where they come from, but they are certainly always a cheerful presence in my yard.

This chive plant has had the benefit of a full southern exposure and is already making blooms, whereas its cousin in the north-facing back yard is just now receiving sunlight, so it is still in the small, green stages.

Sprouting

It's about time I got back to blogging, and a lot of other things that have been in deep hibernation these past few months. Lots of seedlings have been sprouting here, and I'm not just talking about young plants. Ideas have also been growing in the back of my mind. Some idea-seeds have fallen on fertile soil and are taking root, while others never broke out of their protective shells to find nourishment and grow. Alas, such is the precarious life of a seed. Here's a quick look at what is sprouting at the moment.

"Hello, I hope to be a grown-up tomato plant some day."

At this time of year, the subtle caresses of spring sunshine and the melodious songs of mating-hopeful birds awaken the gardener in many of us. I finally stopped hitting the snooze button on this seasonal alarm clock and started some vegetable and flower seeds in flats indoors under fluorescent lights. In an effort to pare down my starts to manageable levels this year, I limited my indoor veggie plantings to tomato, pepper, broccoli, basil and celery seeds. The rest of the seeds will be going into outdoor beds very shortly (weather permitting). In previous years I started too many seeds indoors and then struggled to pot them up into larger containers and keep them under the lights until it was time to transplant into the garden. Inevitably I had to give away lots of plants...not a bad thing, but I felt the need to be less overwhelmed this year.

My husband has been able to arrange my indoor plant lighting so that it is powered (mostly) by energy collected from two small solar panels stationed in the yard, next to the greenhouse.

On the crafting front, I have been weaving! It's only taken me about...um, 16 years, to really pursue my interest in creating textiles via a loom. I may be slow, but I get to almost everything eventually! Thanks to a wonderful "weaving buddy" and teacher from the Weaver's Guild of Boston, my Leclerc Nilus floor loom is now "dressed" (yarns put on and threaded) and ready for action. Looking back at my previous post on the loom's arrival, I realized that it had been almost a year since the loom came into my life. I was feeling a little guilty every time I passed it, sitting alone and untouched, in the corner of the bedroom. But in March of this year, a switch in my inner workings finally flipped on and I found myself calling the Guild for help in learning to weave. A teacher came to my home and spent six hours showing me how to plan a project, measure out the yarns, get them onto the loom, thread the heddles which are attached to the harnesses, "sley" or thread the reed which also is used to beat the weave in place, and finally, to tie the yarns onto the loom where weaving takes place. Oh yes, and then there is the weaving process itself to learn. Making textiles is a complicated process!

While I began to work at home on my own floor loom, I decided I needed to repeat the "dressing" process again so that it would be clearer in my mind, which was reeling from the input of too many details in too short a time. So I jumped into a weaving class at the Guild which was taught by the same wonderful mentor that had come to my home. Taking the class really helped to imprint the weaving process a little further onto my brain cells. I also encountered a problem or two which served to teach me even more about what not to do; our mistakes often teach us much more than our successes do. At the end of three weeks, all that leaning over a borrowed Louet table loom and determined concentration resulted in my being the proud owner of my first handmade textile: a yellow, green and white, plaid, cotton dish cloth/table runner. (It started out as a dishcloth but I can't bear to use my first woven child to wipe up anything messy! So it has graduated to a table decoration.)

Both warp and weft are 5/2 perle cotton

I was fairly pleased with this first completed weaving project. Of course, the selvages are a little uneven, but I was told that it might take years of practice to get these right, and even then, they might not be perfect. One can always stitch the sides rather than leave them exposed; sewn hems cover a multitude of errors!

The pattern is a plaid, but I learned that there is much more to a pleasing plaid than meets the eye. Apparently there is a certain mathematical set of proportions required to create a balanced plaid or stripe pattern. My teacher explained that Italian mathematician Leonardo Pisano, better known as Fibonacci, and his sequence of Fibonacci Numbers provided us with a simple way to plot out stripes and plaids in a way that mimicked balanced patterns found in nature, thus making them pleasing to view. I admit, my eyes grew wide and a feeling of panic washed over me as she jotted down lots of numbers and looked at me for some glimmer of understanding. In the end, I got the general gist of the concept but I will rely on others to fully explain how these number patterns are calculated and used. A couple of useful sites about this topic are:
http://leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com/2007/05/my-fascination-with-fibonacci.html
http://www.fuzzygalore.biz/articles/fibonacci_seq.shtml

My current project, still in process, is to make fabric yardage for a handbag or two (my current plan, always subject to change) using my new rigid heddle Ashford knitter's loom, a lucky, discounted find that I had purchased on eBay earlier this year. There are so many types of looms and I would love to try them all at some point. The rigid heddle loom is different than the floor and table looms that I have been using in that it does not have multiple harnesses that move the heddles up and down to create a complex pattern. The rigid heddle has one reed which keeps the yarns separate, acts as a beater, and is moved up and down to create an opening called a "shed" through which a shuttle is passed, drawing the weft yarns to cross the warp yarns, thus creating a plain over-under weave. On a harnessed loom, the harnesses are moved up and down to create the shed while the reed is used more as a beater. (For more about weaving and looms, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loom, http://mktag.org/projects/cassandraChoosingLoom/content.html, and http://www.fibrecrafts.com/resource/fact_file/looms/types_loom.asp)

Four feet made so far. Only five more to go!

The Ashford Knitter's Loom has several great features such as portability, a wide range of reeds including one with large eyes that accepts handspun or bulky yarns, and the ability to fold down into its custom carry bag. It was easy to take to class, where I put on yarn, then closed it with yarns in place to take home for further weaving. My loom came with a matching floor stand which is useful for holding the loom when no table is available against which to lean the loom while working.

What I am weaving:
Plain weave
Warp is an older cone of Maysville 8/4 cotton carpet warp in natural.
Weft is Schachenmayr Nomotta Safari; 35% cotton, 20% viscose, 15% flax, 15% acrylic, 15% polyester - a blue-gray and natural toned boucle made in Italy and received from a generous Freecycler (thank you!)

My Ashford is a 20" wide loom but my actual weaving width measures about 18".

This combination of yarns is making an interesting texture. I wonder how it will look and feel when washed?

At the last weaving class, my teacher showed me how to use an inkle loom and she put the notion in my head that, if I had one, I could make matching straps for bags made from my handmade fabric. Hmmm...dangerously interesting idea! When the Guild holds its silent auction next month I might be lucky enough to get a bargain inkle.

Lest you think I have abandoned jewelry-making, I am still slowly making a few new pieces here and there, trying to catch up on the backlog of designs I started and have strewn about my work table. I am hoping to achieve some sort of balance between jewelry creation, weaving and gardening in the coming months. I find it incredibly easy to come up with project ideas for all these pursuits but very difficult to follow through on those ideas in any organized way. If anyone has found a solution to this problem I would love to hear it!

Hearts and Flowers Necklace

Tiger Lily Bracelet