Finding Gratitude For the Non-Stop Rain

That Carpenter's song keeps playing in my mind -- Rainy Days and Mondays. We've had a lot of rainy days in June this year. I'm trying to see the positives instead of the dreariness of these dark, cloud-filled days just as I'm expecting summer to begin. So, here goes.

• the rain barrels are full once again. I had emptied 1  1/2 of the 2 barrels in April and May with watering the garden
• the yard and garden got a good watering without any effort on my part
• our garden vegetables and fruits may grow more with all of this rain
• June showers must bring something, just like April showers
• rainy weather here means cooler temps, which are great for sleeping at night
• I can bake all I like without overheating the kitchen
• some of the electricity in our area is hydro, so lots of water is a good thing for power supplies
• little chance of wildfires, which means no smokey skies
• a rainy day is a good excuse to not weed the garden, wash the car, mow the lawn, power-wash the driveway, paint the deck railing, trim the hedges
• the sky looks clearer and trees greener just after the rain stops
• abundant water supplies for my whole area
• I'm not worried about not having enough rain. In some places, people are really worried about not enough rain this year/decade.

Intellectually I know that the rain will go away. But in the moment I need to find the positives in a rainy day month. And you know what? It does work. Trying to find the positives restores my gratitude even for those things that I thought I didn't want.

Fig Trees Are Not Just for the Mediterranean

I thought I'd show you something else that we grow, here.

These are our two fig trees. They were both supposed to be a variety called Brown Turkey. Our experience with the figs tells us that only one is Brown Turkey and we don't really know what the other one is.

Our trees produce two crops per year. The first crop will ripen in mid July, and this crop will continue for about 2-3 weeks. We typically get about 30 to 40 ripe figs in this first crop.

I had never had a fresh fig before growing these trees. My daughter-in-law tells me that our tree-ripe figs are more firm than figs from the market. My guess is market figs have been sitting around for a few days. My son and daughter-in-law were thrilled when we gave them the leftover fresh figs last summer when they were over for a late lunch one afternoon. 

Some folks cook with the ripe figs. We just eat them fresh because they are simply that good.

The second crop doesn't ripen in my yard, instead it leaves us with an abundance of green figs in late September or early October. They are full-sized, just not ripe. I make the green figs into jam, sweet pickles, and whole preserved figs. In a pinch, we've substituted green fig jam for sweet pickle relish on hot dogs. Otherwise, the jam is delicious on soft cheese, like cream cheese or brie, along with some crackers. The sweet pickles are a nice accompaniment to a meal. And the whole preserved figs are a dessert, very nice alongside rice or tapioca pudding, or with a slice of plain cake.

This is a bowl of sweet fig preserves. Their flavor goes well with lemon, cloves, and cinnamon. I made several jars of these preserves last October and have been enjoying them this winter and spring.

Our two fig trees are planted up against the house on the south side, where they benefit from the sun's warmth. That particular spot is just outside the laundry room. I'm sure the dryer vent helps with the warmth a bit in winter. Our house is situated on the highest part of our lot. In winter, the cold air slides down the slope into the lower parts of the yard. So the spot up against the house is likely the only spot figs would grow on our lot. 

Figs don't like  temperatures below about 10 degrees F. Most years, we don't go below 20 degrees F. In colder areas, folks have had success growing figs in large pots, then bringing them indoors during winter. 

Of course, figs also have value for their leaves. In addition to making impromptu clothing or for pasting onto a statue, the leaves can be used for steaming fish, meats, rice and vegetables in place of sheets of parchment. The leaves can also be used as wraps for baking cheese or fruits (apricots and plums). The leaves are edible and good sources of Vitamins A, B1, and B2, calcium, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, and iron. The flavor of the cooked leaves has been described as a bit like coconut. And lastly, the leaves are large and flat, making them ideal to place decoratively under meats or cheese on a charcuterie tray.

You know, I never would have guessed that you could grow figs in the Pacific Northwest. There is so much that we can't grow here, so this one was a surprise.

My Version of an English Walled Garden on a Suburban Lot

The Garden 2021

The Garden 2013

When my daughters were girls we read Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Little Princess together. I was intrigued by the idea of a Victorian English walled garden, with its brick pathways and formal bed design. We never built the "wall" part of the walled garden but we laid the beds out in a formal design and paved the walkways with brickwork between the beds.

Having the vegetable garden a thing of beauty in itself was important for my gardening motivation. There are days when I really don't feel like weeding the beds or checking for slugs. But having something attractive to look at while I'm in the garden keeps me coming back outside, even in the rainy and dreary days of spring.

All of the coverings and contrived fences this year are less than attractive. Hopefully, the plants will grow quickly as the weather warms and won't need to be so heavily protected for all of summer.

I included a photo from this year as well a one from 8 years ago. In this time, we've replaced the gravel side walkways with brick and added a couple of flanking beds in the far section of the garden. We also added a bird bath at an intersection.

Every year, I get so excited over the prospect of harvesting a variety of vegetables. And every year there are disappointments. Here's what I've planted:

• lettuce
• spinach
• kale
• radishes
• Swiss chard
• Brussel sprouts
• corn
• potatoes
• garlic
• tomatoes
• summer squash and zucchini
• acorn squash
• pumpkin 
• cucumbers
• carrots
• bell peppers
• green beans
• turnips
• beets

In the disappointment category, so far:

• cool and wet weather pretty much killed off my basil seedlings. I've reseeded in two pots indoors and am hoping for something or anything. When the weather warms for the summer, I'll move the pots outside.
• rabbits ate part of my kale seedlings right down to the stems. I've covered the bare plants with translucent coverings made from milk jugs and am hoping to save some of them.
• the cold and wet weather may or may not do the corn in. I don't know if it will survive.
• slugs have eaten several tiny pumpkin seedlings. The cold weather is keeping the plants from growing.

The good, so far:

• planting salad greens in baskets and pots was a good move. Not a single rabbit or slug can reach them.
• the turnips are recovering from the bunny buffet, since covering the plants with bird netting.
• the green beans are under insect row covering and a plastic tunnel which is helping to keep them warmer and safe from rabbits. Last year we didn't get a single green bean. I'm hopeful we'll get some this year.
• Rabbits got to half of the carrots. With the other half, I transplanted some of the thinnings into the soil where the rabbits had their snack. The rain actually helped the thinnings survive transplanting. And the rabbits seem to have lost interest in the carrot seedlings now.
• all of the protection that we've now put around and over the vegetable garden beds seems to be working as a deterrent for the rabbits. The cute bunnies are staying cute on the lawn these days and leaving the garden alone. 
• the weather is forecasted to improve tremendously this next week. This may be just what my garden needs to turn around and start flourishing.

Yum!

Do you know what this is? This is what's left of a jar of homemade caramel topping. Ice cream toppings are super easy to make, keep refrigerated for several weeks, and are much less expensive than commercial ice cream toppings.

A week from Sunday is Father's Day. I thought we'd do make-your-own ice cream sundaes for dessert. My family has 3 favorite homemade toppings: "magic shell" topping, caramel sauce, and hot fudge topping. I'll make 2 of those and add chopped nuts and a fruit sauce (using frozen berries). 

While I was thinking about the ice cream, I searched the internet for making sugar cones and waffles bowls. There are several websites with instructions and recipes for making both. What excited me is they don't require a special iron. The cookie part can be made in a skillet and either formed around a cone or over the back side of a muffin tin to make ice cream bowls. I don't know if I'll get to making these for Father's Day, but this was intriguing.

Back to the caramel sauce, I made this as a dip to get us to eat the apples that are quickly passing their prime. I only hope that the sugar and butter in the caramel didn't negate the health benefits of the apples. It was delicious, though.

Ways to Incorporate More Fruits and Veggies in Our Diet

Continuing from yesterday's post . . .

Can we discuss different ways we have found to incorporate more fruits and vegetables each day?

I thought through some of the things that have been helping me to increase my own intake. Here's what's been helping me:

• preparing vegetables in a variety of ways -- steamed, pureed, oven-roasted, grilled. Changing up how I prepare the veggies keeps me interested in eating them.
• using different sources of pureed fruits and vegetables -- baby food, canned pumpkin, applesauce, tomato paste/sauce,  canned vegetables to be pureed at home. 
• I use my food processor, immersion blender and pitcher blender regularly. Each appliance has it's best use. The immersion blender is great for soups, sauces, and gravies. The food processor is my best appliance for thicker purees, like hummus and cooked vegetables. The pitcher blender is what I use for smoothies, with lots of expansion room and a lid to prevent splatters.
• To any dish with a smooth, pureed, or creamy texture, I add pureed or powdered fruits or vegetables. This would be soups, gravies, sauces (cheese sauce for mac and cheese), smoothies, dips/hummus.
• Baby food fruits or vegetables can be used in place of some of the fats in baking.
• Dips can be made healthier by adding a spoonful of pureed carrots, squash, or spinach to the sour cream base.
• In the afternoon, when I might have a cup of tea or coffee, if I haven't had enough produce that day, I "drink" a cup of vegetable soup instead.
• I add vegetable powder or pureed vegetables to many dessert items. Chocolate and cocoa powder can hide a few tablespoons of pureed spinach or carrots. Cinnamon and other sweet spices can hide the taste of pumpkin, carrots, yams, and zucchini.
• Also, I choose fruit or vegetable-based desserts often.
• Pureed vegetables are great to help thicken the broth in soups.
• I try to include a vegetable (or fruit we eat as a veggie) with breakfast. For example, if having an egg for breakfast, I add a grilled tomato on the side. I add a spoonful of pureed pumpkin or carrot to hot cereal, yogurt, or smoothies. I spread toast with avocado instead of butter, when in season.
• Grated fresh carrot or apple can be mixed into peanut butter.
• Bean spreads with pureed veggies added make nice sandwich spreads.
• When making sandwiches, I'm liberal with the addition of vegetables -- roasted sliced veggies, chopped fresh greens, and sliced tomatoes. Grilled sliced eggplant is almost meaty on a bean-spread sandwich.
• I try not to think of it as 5+ large piles of fruits or vegetables. Instead, I think in terms of small amounts of fruits and vegetables many, many times per day.
• We top rice, potatoes, pasta, and vegetables with dips, salsas, and pestos instead of butter or gravy.
• I sometimes use vegetables as the base for pasta sauce.

If you're just starting to increase your fruits and vegetables, do so gradually. I've gotten too enthusiastic in this area before and paid for it with terrible digestive pain.

The tastiest thing I've made this week that had extra veggies added was hummus with some leafy greens pureed into the garbanzo beans.

How about you? What are your best ways to sneak in a few extra fruits or veggies? What's been your tastiest extra veggie creation?

Enjoying Beet Powder

Vegetable powders have been around for a while. They were mostly for the hardcore health nuts. However, lately I am running into more and more mainstream folks who are using them or know someone who is. Earlier this week, I was remembering Jerry Seinfeld's wife and her book that talked about sneaking more veggies into family's meals by cooking and pureeing them first. Well, vegetable powders are the next generation for undercover attempts to get families or selves to eat more vegetables.

About a year ago, I became serious about eating more produce on a daily basis. The official recommendation is 5 or more servings per day. Did you catch that -- or more. So, I figure I can use all the help I can get when it comes to my health, so I'm going for the "or more." 

The problem with adding more fruits and veggies is that I end up eating much more food than I want. This is where veggie powders are very helpful. I don't create new foods to make to eat the veggie powders. I simply add the powders to foods I would ordinarily eat.

I've discussed my use of carrot powder. Mostly I use this in my morning yogurt. I'm currently out of the carrot powder and need to make another batch. In the in-between time, I've been using more of the beet root powder in the last couple of weeks.

I've used the beet powder in my morning yogurt. I mix a rounded half-teaspoon of the beet powder, honey, vanilla extract, and dried fruit into plain yogurt. I can taste the beet in the yogurt if I don't add enough honey.

I like smoothies for snacks and lunch. Here's a current favorite: banana, orange juice, beet powder (a teaspoon), water, and vanilla protein powder. I don't even notice the beet powder in this drink. 

I was in the mood for chocolate pudding the other day. I decided to make it Red Velvet pudding. I added 1 tablespoon of beet powder to a batch that made 4 servings. (I made my own batch with soy milk and the family's with dairy milk.) Anyway, half way through dessert, I asked my husband if he could guess the mystery ingredient. He had no clue. When I told him beet powder, he was really surprised -- said he'd never, ever have guessed.

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. So I aim for 1 serving of beetroot powder every other day, just to be cautious. More on side effects from eating beets, here.

Beets are high in potassium, folate, manganese, beta carotene, and nitric oxide. Beetroot may improve blood pressure, immune response, prevent heart disease, and increase stamina in exercise. [WebMD: Health Benefits of Beetroot]

I am definitely getting more servings of fruits and vegetables in my diet these days. I can't put my finger on exactly how, but I do feel better overall when I'm eating more produce.

I wonder how kale powder (using our surplus garden kale this summer) would taste? Hmmm . . .

Quick and Easy Cream of Any Green Soup -- Great For Those Throwaway Greens

This is an excellent use for throwaway greens like radish tops, celery leaves, beet or turnip greens, broccoli stalks/stems (peel first), or excess garden kale, broccoli, chard -- those green vegetables that either you seem to have no use for or that have always been "throwaways". I even use leafy greens that are about to go to seed and the tender stems from leafy greens we use in salads, like spinach stems.

extra ingredients that make the
soup thicker and more palatable

What I use:  

(yields about 4 cups)

about 2 quarts of greens, washed and chopped

½ an onion, chopped

vegetable oil

3 cups water

2  1/2 to 3 teaspoons chicken bouillon (sub seasoned homemade chicken or veggie stock for bouillon and water)

⅔ to 1 cup of instant mashed potato flakes

butter (about 2 tablespoons)

Sauté the onion in oil until translucent. Add the chopped greens and cook until limp. Add water, bouillon, bring to a boil. Add instant potatoes and stir. Remove from heat and purée until smooth. (I use an immersion blender. A pitcher blender or food processor would also work well.) Stir in butter. Adjust seasonings. Add salt and pepper, if desired. Thin with water or stock as needed.

Depending on the types of greens used, I may add a dash of nutmeg and/or Parmesan cheese, or top with bacon or ham bits.

You'll notice that there's no milk in this "cream of" soup. I'm lactose intolerant. This soup can be made vegan by subbing margarine or olive oil for the butter and veggie stock/bouillon for chicken bouillon. 

Instant potato flakes are great for quickly thickening soups. Leftover cooked mashed potatoes could be subbed -- reduce the water by ½ cup and use about 1 to 1½ cups of cooked, mashed potatoes.

When I use chunkier veggies, like chopped broccoli, I cook the chunky ones for about 5 to 10 minutes (until tender) with the onion before adding any leafy veggies. 

Even though this soup will be puréed, it's important to chop the veggies before adding to the pot to avoid any stringiness.

Come with me out to the garden while I pick some throwaway greens for today's soup:

The sorrel stalks are growing tall. I'll pick the tender leaves off of the tough stalks before I cut the plants back.

I harvested a dozen or so large leaves from the sorrel.

Next to the sorrel is the patch of garlic that I grow for the greens. (Okay, truth time -- several years ago I missed several bulbs of garlic when harvesting. The plants are now dense, so I harvest the leaves and curly scapes.)

I added a fistful of garlic leaves to the basket.

Lots of chives right now. I might as well use some.

I cut a bunch of chives and added those to the basket.

Up to the deck, next. This is one of the pots of baby spinach that I've been harvesting to go in our gourmet salad blends. See those stems with no leaves still on the plants? I'll use scissors to clip those out.

The spinach stems are still tender. I'll chop them to add to the soup.

I've been using the radish greens growing in the hanging baskets to add to salads. Radishes are fast growers and go to seed quickly. I'll clip a bunch of radish greens before they've fully gone to seed.

I saved the celery tops from several stalks when cooking over the weekend. I'll use those in today's soup.

So, this is what I've got for this pot of soup. I pressed it all down and it looks like about 2 quarts of leafy greens. It looks like an odd assortment, but it will make delicious soup. The strongest flavor in this batch is the sorrel -- a bit lemony. After cooking, I'll add a couple of pinches of nutmeg. Should be delicious!

10 Ways to Use Chive Blossoms

By late spring, I'm about out of the onions that I purchased in a 50-lb sack in the early fall. While I wait until the new crop of onions makes it into the stores before buying another large sack, I am supplementing the last of the onions with chives and chive blossoms. 

I have a couple of patches of chives in my garden. They grow well here and would spread themselves freely if I didn't keep them in check. Anyway, the chives have been blooming for about 3 weeks. I've been using the blossoms in addition to the leaves to add an onion flavor to many dishes. The blossoms only last a few weeks in late spring, so I try to make the most of them while I can.

The stems for the blossoms are tough, so I break the flower heads off and toss the stems. This is in contrast to the chive leaves, which are very tender and usable. The chive blossoms are milder than chive leaves. Blossoms are rich in calcium, potassium, beta carotene, vitamins C and K, and folic acid. Chive blossoms (like other members of the allium family) are high in sulfur compounds (thiosulfonates). Traditionally, the blossoms were used to stimulate the immune system. 

Here's a list of 10 ways to use chive blossoms:

• make chive blossom butter -- wash and pull apart 3 or 4 chive blossoms, crush with a pestle or back of a spoon, blend with soft butter. Refrigerate overnight for the flavor to develop. Delicious on baked potatoes, rice, pasta, and vegetables.
• make chive blossom cream cheese -- similar to chive blossom butter, just use softened cream cheese in place of the butter. Good for spreading on crackers or crostini.
• chive blossom vinegar is both beautiful to look at and flavorful for vinaigrettes. Wash and pull apart a cup of blossoms. Crush with the back of a spoon or a pestle to begin releasing the chive flavor. Place crushed blossoms in a glass jar. Cover with a light vinegar and macerate for a few weeks. Strain and use in place of standard vinegar in dressings.
• use as a flavorful garnish in salads and soups, either whole or pulled apart. 
• Also delicious and pretty in pasta or potato salad, in cottage cheese, in chicken or tuna salad, or sprinkled over savory casseroles.
• Blossoms add a delicate onion flavor to smashed potatoes. Nearing the end of smashing a batch of steamed new potatoes, I toss a handful of blossom pieces into the pot and mix together.
• I also like to add a small handful of blossom pieces to steamed green beans for their delicate flavor.
• make chive blossom and Parmesan biscuits. To a standard savory biscuits recipe, add a small handful of blossom pieces, 1/3 cup of Parmesan cheese, and a dash of black pepper to the dough just after cutting in the fat but before adding the liquid.
• add a tablespoon of chive blossom pieces to the yolk portion of 3 or so deviled eggs. After filling the egg white shells, sprinkle a few more pieces as garnish.
• sprinkle into scrambled eggs or add to omelet fillings.

Once the chive blossoms are beginning to fade on the plants (before they dry or shed seeds), I cut back the plants to about 3 inches high. The chives regrow new leaves and sometimes a second, smaller harvest of blossoms. And then I get to repeat many of the uses above!

Your Summer Meal Favorites

I'm always looking for suggestion on what to make for dinner. I think most of us feel this way about cooking everyday meals from time to time. So, here I am, begging for fresh ideas for summer meals. 

I'll share one meal that I've made a few times since the warmer weather hit our area. In fact I made this for our family dinner last night. I made a tuna and macaroni salad served over a bed of garden greens.

What I liked about this meal:

• I was able to make it early in the day and keep it in the fridge until just before dinner time
• it was easy and required very little cooking -- just the pasta -- didn't heat up the kitchen.
• the salad was economical. I used TVP to stretch one can of tuna. I do this as much for flavor as for cost. Canned tuna can be overwhelmingly fishy to me. The TVP adds protein and dilutes the fish flavor. Also, I used the cheapest pasta -- macaroni noodles, some homemade pickle relish (garden veggies pickled last summer) and garden chive blossoms, added to the tuna, TVP, celery, and mayo. A bonus -- I used the whole stalks of celery, leaves and all in the salad. And of course, I served this over garden greens.
• it could be a complete meal by itself as it has vegetables, protein, and grains. 
• it was a cold meal for a hot day, always appreciated in summer.

Last night, I added some crackers on the side and dishes of rhubarb sauce (from the garden, of course). 

So, tell me, what are some of your favorite quick & easy, frugal summer meals? Bonus points if they don't heat up the kitchen! Share in the comments.

May 2021 Grocery Recap

I shopped twice in-person and once online in May. I used Walmart online for a large supply of coffee before prices went up, spending $66.38. I shopped at WinCo twice in May, once early in the month, spending $101.75. This includes convenience food groceries to make Mother's Day brunch for 6 people ($31.14) with lots of leftovers. And the second time in late May, spending $117.40.

My total spending for the month of May -- $285.53

Here's what we've been spending for the last year:

Aug 2020   $92.18

Sept 2020  $182.30

Oct 2020   $304.52

Nov  2020  $189.45

Dec  2020  $77.98

Jan  2021  $54.07

Feb  2021  $184.66

Mar 2021   $152.77

Apr 2021  $447.19

I think I'm good on what we've spent. It averages out to about $197 per month over the last 10 months. We are still using some of the supplies that I bought last summer, items like meat, pasta, peanut butter, applesauce, raisins, TVP, rice, powdered milk, dried beans, and some canned veggies.. So the $197/month is in addition to the value of the items bought last summer. Also, our garden is beginning to produce for the season, so we can get by with fewer produce purchases for the next few months.

What I bought this month:

10 lbs fresh carrots
3 bunches bananas
fresh tomatoes
celery
cabbage
bag of apples
frozen peas
banana chips, bulk
dried apricots, bulk
dried papaya, bulk
5 cans frozen orange juice
5 frozen apple juice
3 frozen grape juice

4 lbs cheese
12 lbs butter
7 gals milk
3 dozen eggs
Parmesan cheese, bulk

3 big bags toasted oat cereal
4 boxes bran flake cereal
17 boxes assorted crackers
mini chocolate chips, bulk
5 bags butterscotch baking chips
salt, bulk
sunflower seeds, bulk
popcorn, bulk
dry roasted peanuts, bulk
ground cinnamon, bulk
cocoa powder, bulk
corn starch, bulk
1 bottle mustard
2 jars mayonnaise
20 lbs whole wheat flour

hot dog buns

6 jars instant coffee

6 jars instant decaf

for Mother's Day:

chicken Cordon Bleu entree

cantaloupe

frozen roasting vegetables

broccoli slaw

dinner rolls
frozen peach pie
chocolate candies, bulk

canned cinnamon rolls

Items I noticed price increases on from April to May: orange juice concentrate, apple juice concentrate, sugar, chocolate chips, Parmesan cheese, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, mayonnaise, milk, eggs, bananas, popcorn, vegetable oil, crackers, cookies.

I am still in stock-up mode. I've been watching entire categories of foods for price increases and remembering recent price paid on several items. The crackers probably looks crazy. I noticed some of the house brand crackers had been marked up, but not all of them. So, I bought many boxes at the old price. I expect to see these same items priced 20 cents more per box the next time I shop. Another example -- I had bought bulk Parmesan cheese in April and early May. I noticed by late May the price per pound had increased 20 cents. I'm glad I bought when I did. The butter I found on sale for $2.48/lb. That's about as good as I think I'll find for a while. And I've finished stocking up on whole wheat flour for the year.

I mentioned to my cracker-loving family (that almost sounds like some sort of euphemistic insult, doesn't it?) that when the crackers and dry cereals are gone, we'll go the homemade route again, meaning oatmeal and granola for breakfasts, and snacks like homemade muffins and popcorn in place of crackers. My husband is trying to gain some weight, so I like to keep nuts and dried fruit on hand. You can really bulk up the calories in a bowl of cereal or oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts. The least expensive nuts/seeds for snacking seems to be peanuts and sunflower seeds. We like them well enough, not our favs, but good in a pinch. 

Chocolate chips went up by almost 50 cents a package in early May. I had been buying a few packages each time I went to WinCo, then stopped when I saw the price increase. Late in the month I saw butterscotch chips for 98 cents/package. I bought 5 packs. To supplement our chocolate fixes, I stocked up on cocoa powder. If chocolate chips are going up in price, I expect cocoa powder will too. 

And finally, I got a pretty great deal on coffee online. I stocked up enough to last about half a year. The decaf had a confusing label on the website, calling it "ground" when the image and description indicated it was instant. I took a chance and ordered it. It was instant and this made the price outstanding. I think with the mixed messaging on type of coffee, the product wasn't selling, so it was marked down.  Great deal. I got it for almost 1/2 price. When I checked the website this week, the coffee was still marked down, but not nearly as low as I found it at the beginning of the month. However, it's still labeled "ground" but pictured and described as "instant". 

That's it for May's grocery purchases. I won't need to go out for groceries in June until close to mid-month, as we have enough fresh/frozen milk to last another week and powdered milk to push my shopping a little further into the month. Milk seems to be the deciding factor in our house of when to shop again.

I hope you're still finding plenty of good deals at the grocery store.

Nasturtiums in Salads, Sandwiches, Smoothies, and Pesto

We are already using our nasturtiums in salads and sandwiches, both the blossoms and leaves.

This is the basket with a nasturtium plant that I overwintered indoors (next to a  south-facing window) this past fall, winter, and early spring. Because it got that great head-start for the season, it's flowering already (began about 10-14 days ago). 

In contrast, this is a nasturtium plant that I started from seed this spring indoors (under lights) before transplanting out to the baskets. Nice, but not ready for picking. I read online that nasturtiums don't transplant well. Well, they did for me. Every single plant is thriving.

When I pick the flowers for salads, I gently wash them in the bowl with the other greens. After a light pat dry, I remove the petals from the stem. There are 5 petals to each blossom. So, that's 5 whole petals per blossom tossed in the salad. A few blossoms will add a nice touch of color to a family-sized salad. They have a mild radish flavor, just a little peppery. In addition to salads, chopped fresh blossoms are a nice addition to bean spread sandwiches.

I also use the leaves from the nasturtium plants. I pick young leaves and wash with the other greens. I remove the rest of the stem from the back side of the leaf, then tear into 3 or 4 pieces. 

The leaves can be used in salads, on sandwiches, in green smoothies, or to make pesto. They have a peppery taste, much like watercress.

In addition to adding color to my garden and flavor to our salads and sandwiches, nasturtiums are also beneficial in the flower and vegetable garden by attracting hover flies/syrphid flies. Hover flies eat aphids in enormous amounts. Planting nasturtiums in the garden can be a non-toxic part of the insect control program. Beauty, edible, pest control -- win, win, win for my garden!

A Busy Weekend

I hope you all had a nice Memorial Day weekend. 

We were busy here. 

I put the pressure washer to good use all three days. Here's a glimpse of the brick patio when we were half done.

We eventually finished cleaning the patio, so it all looks like the right side now. There's something about renewing our belongings or property that is very satisfying. This is the main patio. I still need to clean the small utility patio where we keep the grill and compost tumbler.

For "fun" we also cleaned the patio chairs that surround the fire ring.

Here they are, one before and one after. Gives me a great big "ewww" that I even would have considered sitting in the dirty chair.

I will be tackling the deck in sections this coming week and next weekend, if the weather cooperates.

The pressure washer is a lot easier than scrubbing with brushes. But this is still a lot of work.

I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh post. Tonight, my body hurts is places I didn't know could hurt. Have a great day!

And the World Was Baking . . .

2020 was a year without precedent. I wanted to record, here, some of the issues that we all confronted concerning our eating patterns during the pandemic. 

Lockdowns, school closures, work-from-home, and restaurant restrictions changed how the world ate during 2020. For those who previously habitually grabbed a coffee to-go or fast food lunch, forced stay-at-home periods meant making our own cup of joe and quick lunch. With children home all day, typical cafeteria ingredients went unsold while canned soup and SpaghettiOs flew off supermarket shelves. Easy cooking was definitely a high priority for many.

Working from home meant more free time for hobbies for some folks. One hobby was bread-baking. People who had never baked a loaf of bread in their lives bought up the world's supply of packaged yeast. Of course, this led to the next big hobby, making your own sourdough starter to bake sourdough bread. This of course was premised on being able to buy flour. I stalked online retailers for both whole wheat and white bread flour on a daily basis for close to a month. King Arthur's website had a waiting list/pre-purchase for flour at one point, with limits on how many bags each customer could purchase. For yeast, if one was truly desperate, or wildly wealthy, bags of yeast could be bought on Amazon at a triple or quadruple mark-up. Amazon promised to curtail price gouging. They must've missed the yeast department.

Institutional food purchases sunk while supermarket shelves were cleared as fast as they could be restocked. One afternoon in mid-March, my sister phoned to tell me her son just called. What was his big news? He scored the last loaf of bread for the day at his local grocery store. Meanwhile, here in Washington state, my restaurant supply store had a surplus of bulk butter, the type of butter that is sold in 1-lb blocks, not handy sticks. I was able to "score" a 30-lb case of bulk butter for about $1.50 per pound.

Fears of virus contagion also changed how many of us shopped and ate. In the early weeks, fearful of catching or spreading coronavirus, I made my grocery purchases online, most of the time to be shipped to my home. Foods that are easy to ship are non-perishable. My family ate a lot of canned vegetables, canned tuna, canned chicken, powdered milk, dry Parmesan cheese, jarred applesauce, raisins, and peanut butter in spring of 2020. 

By late spring/early summer I was getting curbside pick-ups, which opened culinary possibilities to fresh produce, fresh eggs, fresh dairy, and fresh meat. Possibility is the key word, as some of these items were often sold out at my local grocery store. All of the inexpensive brands of eggs were quickly snatched up, leaving me with organic brown eggs for several weeks -- not a bad thing, but more expensive. I wondered, why eggs? My thinking is that for many who normally would buy take-out for meals, now had to cook for themselves and eggs are an easy to prepare main course.

For a while, there were limits on how many gallons of milk I could buy at a time. This was such a contrast to what I saw on the news where farmers were having to dump their excess milk. It seems without institutional users of milk, these farmers had no way to repackage dairy products for home consumption.

Grocery store scarcity was not only a result of folks eating at home significantly more. There were poultry and beef shortages due to virus clusters in meat packaging plants. I am normally somewhat selective about the meat that I buy. I like to see it in person and choose for myself. (This means I don't send my husband to the market to buy meat for me.) I have specific brands of chicken that I prefer. In late spring of last year, chicken was in short supply at my local market, even with strict purchasing limits imposed. When placing my curbside pick-up order, the store was sold out of a brand that I would find acceptable. I took my chances on an unknown brand. That was a mistake. My whole family agreed that this was perhaps the worst chicken we'd ever eaten. It was tough and had a heavy chlorine taste.  I didn't even know that this was a "thing." Here's a shocker -- the USDA allows poultry plants to use chlorine as a rinse to reduce bacteria. Luckily for us the consumer, only about 10% of poultry processors use chlorine. My family got unlucky. After dinner that night, I went online to discover that many other folks had similar poor experiences with this brand.

Another interesting bit I noticed was how much my family ate when at home all day, every day. They must have been picking up snacks while out and about before the pandemic, as they were gobbling everything I baked or set out as quickly as I produced. And yet, no one but me gained any extra weight. A side note, I spent more of my day in the kitchen in spring and summer of 2020 than I had for many years prior. Not only did our eating change, but my daily activities changed, too. Speaking of my family's eating habits, one of my daughters was frustrated by the Cheetos shortage. Yep, Cheetos. Salty snacks must've been popular with people working from home or laid off young adults (like my daughter). While I stalked retailers for flour and yeast, my daughter was stalking online sources for her beloved Cheetos.

A side effect of the pandemic was the rise in homeowners building up their own emergency pantries, more after the fact of the other food shortages (count me as one of those folks). At one point, I went online to find dehydrated potatoes and there were none to be found for many weeks. Ditto with powdered milk. When I finally got a notice that instant mashed were now in stock online, I bought 9 boxes. I think panic buying became a real thing for grocery shoppers like me. And we're still eating instant mashed potatoes. 

This may be something to which you can relate -- our dinnertime practices changed, too. We not only began eating dinner at an earlier hour, but we were all home every single night to eat together. No late stragglers or missing members because of work, classes, meetings, or other relationships. We had actual conversations as a family and lingered at the table longer after eating. This is one aspect of pandemic dining which has already begun to shift back toward previous patterns.

I do wonder, how many of these changes in eating habits will remain with us as we go forward into the post-pandemic world of gastronomy. Will I continue to keep my emergency pantry super well-stocked in future years? Will I buy instant mashed potatoes on a regular basis? This quick and easy side dish was a first for my family this last year. While we never ate in restaurants a whole lot before, I'm now even less inclined to dine out. It's not just Covid fears, but I've discovered that I simply like my own cooking. In addition, I'm now more aware of all kinds of infections that can be passed on to diners in public settings (norovirus, hepatitis). Plus, I've adopted healthier eating habits this past year. I don't want to slide back into eating foods that may taste great but be bad for heart-health. So, for those reasons, my family may not dine out much at all going forward, maybe for special occasions or when traveling. 

Some of our changes likely won't be permanent. While I loved the flavor and texture of my homemade sourdough bread, it really was a lot of work to make. I'm not eager to bake more any time soon.

So tell me, how did the pandemic change your food habits? What changes do you think you'll keep for the future and what do you never want to try again? Please add your own stories, struggles and observations about eating and shopping practices during the pandemic.

Portioning Out My Big Chocolate Bars and Other Snacks

I'm going to hazard a guess, here. There are some of you who have way more self-control when it comes to chocolate than I do. Please, don't lecture me on developing discipline when it comes to chocolate. I've been trying to refrain from wolfing down entire chocolate bars in one sitting for decades. I'm a hopeless case of no self-control when chocolate is involved.

I most fortunately received a few large chocolate bars for Christmas and my birthday this past year. I've been reluctant to even open them as I know myself, and I'll eat the whole thing in a day or two. 

However, I've come up with a "fix" for this problem for me. I have been making my own prepackaged chocolate squares. I break a large bar into about 15 small portions, then wrap in bits of plastic wrap. For some reason, pre-portioned snacks work for me where trying to have self-control doesn't. It's true, I could eat bunches of pre-wrapped chocolates. But I don't. Having to unwrap those squares makes me more mindful of how much I'm eating.

I love the idea of those 100 calorie bags of snacks and cookies. I just don't like the big mark-up just to have someone help me with self-control. So, I've also been portioning out crackers into baggies, just for my own consumption. Here's a price comparison on 100 calorie cheese cracker snacks. At Walmart, you can buy a 6-ct box of Cheez-It 100 Calorie Portions Right Bites for $2.50, with a total weight of 4.62 ounces. That works out to $8.65 per pound for these snacks. 

In contrast, I buy store brand cheese crackers for $1.58 for a 12.4-oz box. That works out to $2.04 per pound. This size box yields 16 snacks comparable to the Cheez-It 100 calorie snacks. We reuse our zip-top sandwich baggies many, many times each, washing in between uses. But if I had to add in the cost of bags for the portions, that would add 32 cents, total (Great Value sandwich baggies). So, I'm able to make 16 portioned snacks for $1.90. My cost for 6-ct homemade snack packs is 71 cents. The Cheez-It product sells for $2.50. 

While I would probably not buy the pre-portioned snacks, I like that I can portion my own and get the same result for no extra expense.

More On Keeping the Bunnies Out of Our Veggies

When are those critters with long ears and cotton ball tails called bunnies and when are they called rabbits? I think I'm beginning to sense when.

I felt something like the fictional Scottish farmer Mr. McGregor the other night, chasing not one but four bunnies around the yard. I don't think I'll be baking any of these cute critters into a pie for supper (as Mrs. McGregor did). I am, however, actively trying to dissuade them from gobbling up my vegetable garden.

So, how do you keep bunnies/rabbits out of a vegetable garden? I'm not sure they're paying attention to my lectures on choosing grass instead of vegetables. For the most part, I feel we're lucky that the rabbits haven't done more damage to our garden. They've eaten the leaves off of strawberry plants and last year they chewed the pea vines right off at the base. So far, that's it. This year, we skipped planting peas altogether. No use devoting precious garden space to something so tempting to the animals. So, that's one thing we've done to save the veggies for ourselves.

Another thing that has worked for us is this year, after transplanting tender young zucchini plants into the garden, I protected them well with empty gallon milk jugs with the base cut off. Last year, it was a bit of a battle between us and the bunnies with the zucchini. I had to reseed the summer squash, as the rabbits chewed the seedlings down to the soil after the first attempt. This year, so far so good. I think the milk jug protection has been working. As the plants grow, the main stem should become too tough to chew through. 

When the zucchini seedlings grew too large for the milk jugs, I moved those containers over to protect some tiny Romaine lettuce seedlings that were in the garden.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we made a couple of primitive stick fences to enclose the strawberry beds. Those appear to be working. Although an earnest rabbit could jump these low fences, the thought is they might just be deterred enough to move on to another planted area, hopefully one that the people don't plan on eating themselves.

When I transplanted the Brussel sprout seedlings into the garden, I covered that patch with insect cloth and secured the edges with stones. I transplanted these about 3 weeks ago. I checked on them today and they appear to be doing well under the cloth. Again, like the zucchini, I hope the main stems become too tough soon and I can lift the cloth for the rest of their growing season.

But I think the best move we've made is to grow foods that are tender and appealing to rabbits raised off the ground. I've shown you the hanging salad baskets we have growing across the back side of our house. 

We've also utilized space in our trough planters for beets and lettuce. 

I planted a shallow bowl planter with the remaining lettuce seedlings from planting the hanging baskets. The bowl planter is currently sitting on the deck table  along with planters of basil.

I seeded spinach in pots which I set on top of the tall and narrow terracotta pots, just high enough that the rabbits can't even peak over the edge to see what's there. And, I planted the carrots in deep pots this year instead in the main garden beds.

I think mostly we're improvising on the fly and using what we have on hand. So far, the salad greens are working out fine with these efforts. I'll be seeding green beans over the weekend and I'll cover them with insect barrier like I did the Brussel sprouts. I've started seeds in the main garden as well. So far the slugs are more of a problem there than the rabbits. 

As for those 4 rabbits the other evening, after about 15 minutes of bunny craziness, I caught a glimpse of something in the air at the front of our woods. Next I saw what I think was a Cooper's hawk swooping down. I didn't see him nab any rabbits. But then again, I haven't seen those 4 bunnies in a few days. Perhaps they're hiding out someplace safe. Oh well, it's the cycle of life and all.