Neighbors

The Living Room

The Living Room

They called it their temporary living room.

Chairs, table, phone

Chairs, table, phone

Really, what more did they need?

Ye Olde Rotary Phone

Ye Olde Rotary Phone

Someone discovered that a rotary phone worked while the up to date touch tones didn’t. Without Internet access, the old fashioned phone book came in handy.

Camp stove and tea kettle

Camp stove and tea kettle

Camp stove plus tea kettle for boiling water equals coffee and social time!

It wasn’t the most beautiful day in the neighborhood, though. At the other end of the driveway, the next door neighbors’ house looked like this. They were still gracious and friendly shared their hot water with me every morning. Thank heavens for good neighbors.

'Nuff said.

‘Nuff said.

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Carrying Capacity

Yesterday, I introduced you to this bag.

Made from recycled plastic water bottles

Made from recycled plastic water bottles

I use it for berries and other potentially messy purchases. When it’s time to harvest from my own backyard, I need containers, too.

Lettuce! For people and rabbits!

Lettuce! For people and rabbits!

I bought the basket from a rummage sale for $1. My intention is to use it for a planter, but until I do, it’s the perfect size for harvesting the latest in lettuces. That’s a lot of lettuce; I see chef’s salads in our future. And BLTs. And maybe taco salad. And – happy bunnies.

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To Market, to Market, with all the right bags

The smaller midweek market has been growing as of late. In this display, you can see two kinds of beans (purple and yellow), two berries (blue and rasp), and lots of cucumbers waiting to be pickled. There’s more, but those are the highlights.

Food stuffs, midweek market style

Food stuffs, midweek market style

Despite the view from the deck railing, I do use cloth bags and reuse plastic. My favorite vendors recognize me and know I’ll hand them a bag for reuse.

Reuse. I reuse a lot of bags.

Reuse. I reuse a lot of bags.

At the Saturday market, the one that takes up most of our town’s main avenue, we bring cloth bags and the bag on wheels. The shiny bag in front is made from recycled plastic water bottles. I like it for berries and other messy purchases because it’s easy to clean.

It was only $0.99, too.

It only cost me $0.99, too.

Ah, the marketplace. I go through withdrawal when the major farm markets are done in October. Then I start reaching into the shelves and serving the foods we’ve put up, and all is well in the O.K. Chorale kitchen.

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Pantry Raids! Creative use of leftovers

We’re fairly efficient in the O.K. Chorale kitchen. We make planned-overs and we use leftovers well. After watching an episode of “Chopped” with a theme ingredient of none other than leftovers, I’m inspired to share a recent pantry raid. Leftover grilled bratwurst: no buns, no problem. Pull up a few of the huge walking onions and chop up the bulbs.

Leftover brats + onion bulbs

Leftover brats + onion bulbs

Next, slice leftover corn off the cob. Mix in the corn along with leftover green beans and asparagus.

Stir Fry a la Leftovers

Stir Fry a la Leftovers

A side dish comes from the freezer and the last jar of applesauce. Cherry mush leftover from a cherry compote drink (tart cherries, a local crop) mixed with my own applesauce yielded a tasty local fruit sauce.

Apple Cherry Sauce

Apple Cherry Sauce

How productive was this meal? How creative?

  • used up two leftover vegetable dishes
  • opened the last jar of applesauce just in time to get excited about the new batch
  • used up two grilled brats
  • validated my instinct to save the cherry mush!

Not bad – not bad at all. By the way, that pot behind the cherry apple sauce? It’s a shrimp stock in progress: shrimp tails & shells with the naked corn cob (see above for the kernels) boiled with some extra green onion. My soup stocks are never the same twice, but they’re always tasty.

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What to do On a Cool Saturday

On a cool Saturday, when the heat wave finally broke, Chuck had a weather headache. He toughed it out and accompanied me to the Farmers’ Market anyway. What did we buy, you ask? Readers, you’re way ahead of me. Of course I took a picture of the goods!

To Market, To Market

To Market, To Market

The most important pieces in the picture are the peas falling all over the center and the cucumbers on the right. It’s time to freeze more peas and make pickles!

Peas! Peas!

Peas! Peas!

As long as I was prepping peas and pickles, I pulled a few bulbs. Remember the magnificent walking onions? They produced some decent bulbs, too. I yanked these from the ground, cleaned them up, diced them, and added them to a batch of sweet bread & butter pickles.

These onions were made for walking

These onions were made for walking.

To summarize, I spent much of Saturday sitting on the deck doing food preparation. The breeze was wonderful, I felt productive, and the pickles were (and still are) delicious.

 

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The To-Do List never goes away.

Subtitled: One thing leads to another.

So far:

  • Labeled and put away jam from last night’s canning session
  • Discovered I’m nearly out of 1/2 pint jars
  • Started a shopping list for a trip to Fleet Farm
  • Had breakfast (cereal with blueberries) and made sure Amigo ate, too.
  • Put more blueberries in the refrigerator (from 10 lb. box we bought Sunday)
  • Reheated coffee from yesterday
  • Realized coffeemaker could use cleaning
  • Threw swim towels over shower curtain rod
  • Knocked down shower curtain rod
  • Replaced shower curtain rod AND swim towels
  • took Internet break and realized the rug in the den need vacuuming

Now the world was looking a little more complicated. It was time to multi-task.

  • Started the coffeemaker with water-vinegar mix, and then vacuumed the den.
  • Brought frozen blueberries downstairs to the freezer, and then laid out more blueberries for freezing.
  • Sampled a few blueberries; quality control is part of my job.
  • Used vinegar water from coffeemaker to attack a slow drain in the bathroom. Success!

And so on, and so on, and so on.

 

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Herbs! Through the grinder!

I’ve brought herbs inside for the last few winters. They don’t always do well indoors in this cold climate. This year’s herb collection is doing well on the deck – so well that I’m attempting the process of drying and crushing and storing herbs. I’ve tried two different locations in the house for drying. So far, the attic is winning out. The basil didn’t fully dry, though, even after hanging for about a week and a half. I ended up putting the basil (and its friends oregano and cilantro) in the oven on a low heat setting for about 20 minutes. At that point, I could pick up a leaf and crumble it.

The fun part was playing with my new kitchen toy: a ceramic mortar and pestle set. The set is rather pretty, and it grinds nicely. See how it works!

Oregano!

Oregano!

 

Basil! Purple basil!

Basil! Purple basil!

The poor rabbit, though. Little Krumpet, the tiny and very furry lion head rabbit, was upset when I tried to grind herbs in “her” room, the den. Maybe she didn’t like the overwhelming odor. Maybe the grinding sound was hard on her fuzzy bunny ears. Whatever it was, she kept thumping when I tried to grind.

You know me, readers. I relented and finished prepping herbs in the kitchen.

 

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To Market, To Market, and home from the Market

Last time I reviewed a table full of Farm Market purchases, I told you what I didn’t buy. This time I’ll point out the unique, the not-quite-typical fun finds that made it into our bags.

Home from Downtown!

Home from Downtown!

We’ll start on the left. The large plastic bag contains ice and two fresh, cleaned trout, ready for cooking. Chuck cooked them on the grill.

Directly to the right of the trout you’ll see two, no, three packages of pasta made in town. We enjoy their unique flavors. Last year Chuck came home with a package of fettuccine with squid ink. The noodles were black, and the taste was, well, unusual but tasty. In this picture you see two kinds of fettuccine: roasted beet, spinach/garlic and finally, a mix suitable for soup or salad.

Peas, corn, carrots, and then wine. There’s an upscale deli in City Center Plaza, right next to the ramp where we like to park. Chuck picked out a Spanish wine to bring home and serve with the spinach-garlic pasta and grilled trout.

So there you have it, folks. And if you’re wondering just how fresh those trout were, see below. They were still flopping on the scale. For a small fee, the vendor prepped them and cleaned them.

Fresh trout for supper! And I didn't have to bait a hook.

Fresh trout for supper! And I didn’t have to bait a hook.

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Rhubarb BBQ Sauce

I stumbled upon a suggestion one day – rhubarb BBQ sauce. I looked over the ingredients and said to myself, “Self, we have all of these ingredients in the house, including plenty of rhubarb.” Chuck was skeptical at first, but I made some anyway. He tasted it before I went to the trouble of canning, and he pronounced it good.

This recipe uses a lot of rhubarb. I took a look outside to see how much rhubarb we might have, and if I might have enough to make another batch.

Will there be enough?

Will there be enough?

I needed at least 8 cups of diced rhubarb. Did I get it? Here’s the after shot.

After picking

After picking

I have about 6 and a half cups of diced rhubarb now. The dilemma: do I go back outside to pick right now? Or do I set aside the current harvest, maybe freeze it, until the remainder fills out a bit more? Or – cue the ominous music – do I buy a few large stalks of rhubarb at the Farmers’ Market?

Decisions, decisions.

 

 

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To Market, Back to Market

Chuck was busy cooking lunch, so I posed the produce on the table instead of the kitchen counter.

What didn't I buy?

What didn’t I buy?

Well, I bought lettuce, but no spinach. I bought strawberries, and just a few blueberries and cherries. We’ll wait until later, when they’re ripening closer to home. I bought eggs, but no cheese. I bought asparagus, but no peas. We could have had sugar snap peas, but I thought I’d wait until I could get a larger quantity for less money. It could happen this weekend!

Chuck complains that I bring too many bags to the market. He’d better look out; I might just feel I must prove him wrong by filling them all. Sneaky snicker. 

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