Well I guess it's no surprise that I just got tired of writing about rain. It has finally stopped, for now (and we are already holding our breath for winter and what all this precip would look like in white!) But if the rains did one thing right, it is that it grew our apples to a new level.
We've had apples since the day we moved in. The first weekend I was here, almost two years ago (as of 10/31, officially) I gathered apples and made applesauce. But the apples are not "pretty" and they were always small. This year, however, they are nearly twice the size, if not three times the size of that first year's crop. Don't know how sweet they will turn out to be. Rain = size...sun = sweet...but now I need to start getting some apple butter ready.
Dropped by Elmer's to pick up some corn for Bill's birthday dinner tomorrow (Creamy corn with Poblano Chiles) and got to talking to him about my onions and I asked him when I should bring them in. He said he was pulling all of his tonight to avoid the rain that is coming with Hurricane Irene. So I came home and pulled all mine!
Some nice Yellow Cranes...Red Zeppelins...Red Globes...I forget now which varieties I actually got in. But I am happy with the haul.
My recalcitrant beans have finally made their debut. I started seeds in peat pots weeks ago and one...one...came up. So after some advice from my brother-in-law George, I soaked the beans and just pushed them in the ground. Et voila! Beans! After about a week in the ground and a thunderous rain storm. And everyone talks about how easy beans are to grow...
Weather has been odd...we finally had a rain, a torrential downpour...buckets of rain...that broke the heat. we were never as hot as New York or Chicago...about 10 degrees cooler and the house was ten degrees cooler still. But that last blast of heat and the wetness finally coaxed my beans out of the ground. And coax it did...there are nearly 60 plants. I'm probably going to have to thin them out.
I'm pretty excited about the broccoli. I've never grown broccoli. And it seems to be doing well. Everyone says the deer like to pull it out of the ground after eating the leaves, but we haven't seemed to have had much in the way of a deer problem. Dogs help.
They mowed our meadow this week. But then they did something we've never (in the two summers we've been around this meadow) seen...they plowed it. By all indications it means they will be planting it. In two years the only thing that has grown in the meadow, save for my dandelion greens (and the magnificent carpet of yellow they offer) has been alfalfa; feed for the cows. Stay tuned. The change is quite drastic.
"God spede the plow/And send us all corne enow/Our purpose for to mak/At crow of cok/Of the plwlete of Sygate/Be mery and glade/Wat Goodale this work mad."
It was 21 degrees this morning and there was still frost on the meadow. Nevertheless, the garden plan so far: zinnias, basil, thyme, tarragon, chives, sage and rosemary, various lettuces, bush beans, "Champion" radishes, "Contender" peach tree, "Golden Rave" tomatoes, "Twilight" Italian white eggplants, "Rocky Ford" muskmelons, "Royal Marvel" Brussels sprouts, more tomatoes of various kinds TBA, peppers, squash of some sort (perhaps more Marina di chioggia and some butternut and five kinds of onions: Ailsa Craig, red marble cippolini, red zeppelin, Walla Walla and yellow granex. I moved the Jersalem artichokes and the rhubarb (put the rhubarb up by the strawberries. Not sure where I will move the Jerusalem artichokes yet.) The garden is about twice the size it was last season. In the middle of the plowing, a red fox ran across our meadow. Many thanks to our neighbor and friend, Elmer, for plowing with his brand new $27,000 tractor and plow.
Last year during ramp season we had such an abundance of them that we thought we'd see if we couldn't get them to take root, as it were, on our land.We planted them in two different places along our access road, which gets sort of swampy in the spring.
And lo...they took!
That's a ramp...right there in the middle of the picture, with the spaliate leaves that look sort of like lilies of the valley. We only have four plants in, so we probably won't be harvesting them (there are plenty available from friends in the area). But they self seed (right Pat?) so we may have more next year.
Now all we need to do is locate the morels!
Japanese Pickled Ramps (Sukemono)
1 pound ramps, cleaned
¾ C sugar
¾ C rice wine vinegar
¾ C water
1 T kosher salt
1 T Japanese seven spice (Shichimi Togaroshi*)
1 to 1½ tsp Korean crushed red pepper (kochukaru) or other mild crushed chile pepper
If the ramps are young and tender, you can leave the green tops on; if they are mushy or dried out, slice off the tops about ¼-inch above where the stem turns white. (If the ramps are more mature and have a large bulb, blanch them briefly in salted water before pickling.)
Trim away the roots. Peel away any dried or dirty layers and rinse several times to remove dirt and debris. Place ramps in a large heatproof, nonreactive bowl.
Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then pour over ramps.
Let the ramps cool to room temperature, then transfer to a smaller nonreactive container, cover tightly, and refrigerator overnight.
*Shichimi Togarashi
2 T sansho (or 1 T black peppercorns)
1 T orange peel or tangerine peel
1 T ground red chile pepper
2 tsp flaked nori
2 tsp black sesame seeds
2 tsp white poppy seeds or black cannabis seeds
2 tsp minced garlic
Combine 2 T sansho (or 1 T peppercorns), 1 T dried tangerine or orange peel, 1 T ground red chile pepper, 2 t flaked nori, 2 t black sesame seeds, 2 t white poppy seeds or black cannabis seeds, and 2 t minced garlic. Grind together to a chunky consistency. Store refrigerated in an airtight container up to 1 month.
Dan and Pete are coming up from Washington D.C. for Thanksgiving. It's been a rainy day. It's a raw day...not so cold as I had expected, but rainy. I found this copper urn that is meant to serve hot beverages...at the dump, where else?...and I cleaned it up. I've been anxious to use it so today I am serving my guests mulled cider from it!
Dinner tonight is mushroom and merguez ragout on creamy polenta with orange, fennel and olive salad.
Put up about twenty pints (and a few quarts and a few 12-ouncers) of green tomato relish (aka Chow-Chow). Mark Wesner called and told me he had something like twenty gallons of tomatoes ...and would I like some green ones? Of course I said yes (our own tomatoes either ripened or rotted and we were left with very few green ones, though we did get some nice green cherry tomatoes that I made into a chutney.) So he gave Patty a bucket full of them and I went into the museum and picked them up. And when I said "a bucketful" I mean a rather large, wire bucket that must have held close to 30 large, green tomatoes. So I had my work cut out for me.
Fortunately, when I was over at Dancing Ewe making merguez sausages with Jody Somers the other day, he very generously offered me the use of their industrial grinder any time I wanted. An industrial grinder seemed the only way to deal effectively with the quantity of vegetables that needed to be ground up for chow chow. So off I went this morning with thirty or so green tomatoes, twelve large onions, and three red and three green bell peppers to go a-grinding. Boy what a difference a large grinder makes. It was done in less than an hour (and Luisa sent me home with more ricotta and a half wheel of their caciotta that had "blued"...lovely veins of bleu mold streaking through their fabulous cheese. I may attempt a quasi-gorgonzola gnudi with it.) Oddly, the recipe I used said it would make enough to fill 12 pint jars...I got almost three times that!
<---------Tomorrow...eight more quarts of spiced crab apples. I think they'll make nice Christmas gifts.
Green Tomato Relish (Chow-Chow)
24 large green tomatoes
3 red bell peppers, halved and seeded
3 green bell peppers, halved and seeded
12 large onions
3 T celery seed
3 T mustard seed
1 T allspice
1 T turmeric
1 T salt
5 C white sugar
2 C cider vinegar
In a grinder or food processor, coarsely grind tomatoes, red bell peppers, green bell peppers, and onions. (You may need to do this in batches.) Line a large colander with cheesecloth, place in sink or in a large bowl, and pour in tomato mixture to drain for 1 hour.
In a large, non-aluminum stockpot, combine tomato mixture, celery seed, mustard seed, salt, sugar, and vinegar. Bring to a boil and simmer over low heat 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Sterilize enough jars and lids to hold relish (12 one-pint jars, or 6 one-quart jars). Pack relish into sterilized jars, making sure there are no spaces or air pockets. Fill jars all the way to top. Screw on lids.
Place a rack in the bottom of a large stockpot and fill halfway with boiling water. Carefully lower jars into pot using a holder. Leave a 2 inch space between jars. Pour in more boiling water if necessary, until tops of jars are covered by 2 inches of water. Bring water to a full boil, then cover and process for 30 minutes.
Remove jars from pot and place on cloth-covered or wood surface, several inches apart, until cool. Once cool, press top of each lid with finger, ensuring that seal is tight (lid does not move up or down at all). Relish can be stored for up to a year.
Well the long delay has been due to the intransigence of my technology to cooperate. My camera, from which I have uploaded many hundreds of photos, is suddenly invisible to my computer...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr So I have no current photos to show...or at least I have no access to the photos I took for the time being...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...
And there has been much to talk about, too. Ron and JiYoung and Bodin and Reese were here for the weekend. We ate and played and hiked and toured and had a great time as always. We took Bodin to see the Fly Fishing Museum, which Mark Wenser had just taken Bill and I to see a day or so before (Mark designed the building that houses the museum, as well as restorations and updates to Hildene (left) the summer estate of Robert Todd Lincoln in Manchester, where he also gave us a personal tour.) And we drove to the top of Mount Equinox, where we hiked the Lookout Trail...beautiful views.
Let's see....what else? I spent the day yesterday making 75 pounds of merguez sausage with Jody and Luisa Somers at the Dancing Ewe Farm. We dressed out the meat, trimmed it, ground it, seasoned it and finally stuffed it into casings, tied them off in groups of six and packaged them. Handmade from stem to stern.
And I can't share a single photo of any of it...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
