La Belle's Hobby Farm: The Cutest Cucs!

It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought. 
~ James Douglas, Down Shoe Lane

A

nd that’s where I was Saturday morning ~ in my garden, keeping both weeds and the grass at bay, and sweet talking my green babies into growing bigger and faster.

Mothers aren’t supposed to have favorites, but admit it ~ you know you do.  Well, so do I.  Nothing beats a tomato sandwich in the summer, and pickled okra is pretty near heaven, but cucumbers ~ especially when the plants are just growing ~ are the cutest things ever!

If you don’t believe me, just look at these babies!  They have shot up like nobody’s business in the last couple of weeks:



© 2013 La Belle Dame de Merci Blog



But that’s not where they get their cuteness from.  No, that’s in how they climb.  They wrap their wee green tendrils around whatever you place near them ~ in this case, the walls of an old dog crate:



© 2013 La Belle Dame de Merci Blog

Seriously, how does that not make you go “Awwww”!?

Of course I would never say that to my plants.  The tomatoes and corn are right there after all.  Although the corn doesn’t have ears yet. (Bada bing!  Come on, you knew that was coming!)  But I’m so proud of them too ~ they seem to shoot up a foot every time I go out to check on them:

© 2013 La Belle Dame de Merci Blog



Yeah, not sure why this guy wouldn't upload right side up.  But you get the picture. ;)
© 2013 La Belle Dame de Merci Blog

Cilantro is growing into a bush ~ need to trim some and bring it into work tomorrow:


Same with this one. Argh!
© 2013 La Belle Dame de Merci Blog

And the basil is chugging along, although not nearly as big as I’d like:



© 2013 La Belle Dame de Merci Blog

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What are your garden favorites?  Don’t worry ~ I won’t tell them.

 

La Belle's Hobby Farm: The Garden of Fall Eatin'

You can never have enough garlic.
With enough garlic, you can eat The New York Times.

~ Morley Safer

D

ifficult to believe that it is almost September.  Where did the summer go!?

Not that I’m complaining.  Autumn is my favorite time of year and I wait for that gloriously ochre-coloured season with as much patience as a kid waits for Santa on Christmas Eve.

But time enough to enjoy shorter days, cooler nights, and the promise of pumpkins and firelight.  As a gardener who planted late, I’m focused on harvesting my tommy toes in the next couple of weeks.  They’re still going strong and growing up before my very eyes.  I just hope the deer or squirrels don't get to them before I do! 

Aphids and other winged thieves will no longer be an issue: Tia moved her web to the middle of the tomato plants and has put by a huge feast for herself.  I’m thrilled.  I was worried she wasn’t catching anything over on the skunk cabbage (don’t ask). 

The Garden of Fall Eatin’

Now is the time to start planning the fall garden.  Thank heaven for living in Zone 7!  I need to plan and order my Autumn newbies quick ~ the time to plant will be here before I know it.  Here’s my list so far: 

Cabbage (Red)

Collards

Garlic

Kale

Perennial Onions
Spinach

Garlic is one of my favorite crops.  I put it in almost everything.  Sautéing fresh garlic in sweet cream butter smells like home and comfort.  Add some spinach and mushrooms and you have a wee bit of heaven on your plate.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Have you started planning your fall garden?  What’s on your list?

La Belle's Hobby Farm: The Tommy Toes Are In!!

Gardening is a matter of your enthusiasm holding up until your back gets used to it. 
~ Author Unknown

I

should write a book about my hobby farm experience.  I would call it: “How NOT to Hobby Farm” and it would be the Dave Barry version of gardening. My landscape dude did not come as planned on Saturday.  The carburetor on his rototiller was leaking.

I didn’t even know rototillers had carburetors! 

Nor did I know that landscape dudes don’t check their equipment until the day they are supposed to be working; no, make that the hour they were supposed to be already unloading said rototiller and munching up my soil.

Roar.

That roar is understated.  I was not understated when I called up Landscape Dude #2 with the sexy Australian accent (what? I failed to mention that before. My bad.  Yes, very sexy accent.) I practically cried on the phone.

I think I scared him.  He didn’t even return my call.  No sexy Aussie to till my land.

Sigh.



In their real bed at last!!

Meanwhile, in tiny nursery beds, my tommy toes were wilting.  So against all conventional  wisdom and my own better judgment, I dumped out three bags of organic mushroom compost and planted the majority of them in the old flower bed, behind the basil plants (which as still going strong!), and in front of the mulberry weed.  This little patch has very rich soil and gets sun, but not eight hours of it, and it’s in part shade, thanks to said mulberry weed. 
  
At least they are in the ground, and not lost to the tiny plastic bins that were quickly becoming their caskets.

All I can do now is water them in the morning and in the evening and pray to St. Isidore, the patron of farmers, for a harvest.

This coming weekend, I look for a spot for the cucs and the watermelon.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Want to take bets on whether these guys make it through the Virginia summer and actually produce tomatoes?

Top Five Friday: The Meatless Maven

A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age.

~ William Shakespeare

Ah the first Friday in Lent.  And that means basically don’t overeat and don’t eat meat.  Which are two really good pieces of advice for any day of the year, actually.  Ok, I confess.  Although I am trying to get back to my 80% raw eating lifestyle [I refuse to call it a diet], it is only 80%.  The rest of the time, I eat organic, lovingly-treated meat.  And potatoes.

So today’s edition of the Top Five Friday is all about what to make when you need, or want, a meatless dinner.  You can also check out some of the salads I posted.  Or even the Oysters from last week.  

Crab-Stuffed Flounder

Not really the spirit of the fast, is it?  Well, at least it meets the letter of the law!  I’m not really sure why fish makes the grade [note to self: google that]; I always thought it had something to do with blood in the meat.  But then when I gutted a fish for the first time, I discovered, much to my chagrin, that fish have blood too! Ewwww!  Anyway, this recipe from the queen of butter, Paula Deen, is pretty awesome for any day of the week, but it makes a Lenten Friday a little easier to bear.  Especially for the non-Catholic friends of ours who bear the brunt of our meatless grumpiness.

Spinach Mushroom Tarts

Two of my favorite veggies: spinach and mushrooms come together in one amazing and fabulous looking entrée.  And yes, it’s raw.  I love Susan Powers’ recipes ~ she makes living the raw food lifestyle look, well ~ stylish!  And the food truly is raw-mazing.  Not to mention really, really good for you.  I saw these tarts and went straight to Whittingham’s to buy the little stainless steel molds.  Totally worth it! 

Spicy Glazed Salmon

I love my salmon.  Especially when it’s wild caught in Alaska.  I’m surprised at how many people don’t know that farm-raised fish is not the healthiest way to get your Omega-3s.  They swim around in little [or big] pools.  Which, yes, may get cleaned.  But still.  How would you feel is you had to swim around in your own…yeah.  Now you understand! 

Now that we've got cleared up ~ this is a super yummy recipe that I’ve made for dinner countless times: both for just myself and for dinner guests.  Always a winner.  And in the summer, I’ve substituted basil for the cilantro.  You can also use dill.  Just take out the soy sauce.

Veggie Chili

Tofu is not my friend.  And probably not yours either.  Process anything is not good for you.  I have given in before, but generally I stay away from soy products.  Another post for another time!  So I forgo the veggie crumbles in this recipe and put in red wine, green peppers and regular diced tomatoes.  And my shredded Daiya “cheese” of course.

Pan-Seared Scallops

I stopped ordering scallops in restaurants because they were always overdone and just plain wrong.  So there’s no recipe to link to because mine is the best and the simplest ~ IMHO.  Buy scallops.  Rinse.  Melt butter in pan.  Put scallops in.  Salt and pepper to taste. Watch very closely, turning with tongs every so often until lightly golden.  DO NOT OVERCOOK. 

Make pesto out of fresh basil or spinach.  Serve the scallops on a bed of pesto. Voila!  A little bit of heaven!

Happy Friday!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What are your favorite meatless dishes?

Accenting the Positive: Giving Up and Getting In to Lent

[Penance] does not mean sacrifice and self-denial in the first place, but a “change of heart,” a victory over sin and a striving for holiness.  The sacrifices of fasting and self-denial are only means and signs of this spiritual penance.  If people understand this well, they will not put the main effort in Lent on technical feats of abstaining from pleasures (which sometimes make them proud or vain), but in sincere contrition, prayer and humble fight against their faults.

~  Fr. Francis X. Weiser, S.J



"In Ictu oculi" by Juan de Valdes Leal



Ash Wednesday.  Time to dust [no pun intended] off those New Year’s resolutions and try, try again!  Lent is less about doom and gloom, and more about changing one’s heart.  Unplugging from the world for forty days and re-aligning one’s spirit with what is really important in life: Love, Faith, Generosity, Authenticity.

Many people give up eating a certain type of food, such as chocolate, or literally unplug by giving up Facebook or personal email.  While good, those things miss the point and don’t really go far enough.  My friend Terry [who is the most awesome tenor eh-ver!] said it best on Facebook the other day:

“Think it matters if you stop using Facebook for 40 days…it doesn’t.  How about 1 posting a day about something that matters…perhaps there’s a charity you care about.  That might be something to post instead of cats wearing bowler hats.  Giving up meat? So?  Do it…but maybe spread the word about sustainable, small independent and local farmers while you’re at it….”

There’s a great story in Scripture where Christ talks about a man possessed by a demon, who gets rid of the demon, and sweeps the interior clean; but then the demon gets bored wandering around, finds seven more demons worse than he is, and comes back inside the guy.  What?!  That’s not fair!  The guy got rid of the demon and swept his house clean!  Yes, but he didn’t put anything in the space left by the demon’s absence.

It’s not enough to stop eating fast food [the evils of which is a post for another day!] or sweets.  It’s not enough to stop watching so much reality TV or spending so much time on the computer or the internet.  Getting rid of those behaviours is a good and laudable thing!  But put something in its place.  Otherwise the bad habits will come back stronger then before! We have enough negativity in our lives; do something positive!

Personally, I haven’t finished taking stock yet to see where I need to clean house.  But in one area is definite: after my gall-stone cleanse, I fell off the 80% raw-vegan-juicing lifestyle wagon I had been riding for so long.  My bank statement alone is enough to accuse and convict me!  So one thing I’m giving up is eating out ~ healthier for my wallet and my body.  And in place of eating out [where in the world does that food come from anyway!?], I will be making my own fresh smoothies and juices and eating only organic, sustainable foods.

What about you?  Do you observe Lent?  What are you giving up and getting into? 

Oremus pro invicem,

 ~Mikaela

Top Five Friday: Gettin' Your Green On

Salad "freshens without enfeebling and fortifies without irritating."

~ Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)

Last week I highlighted my top five favorite soups. This week we look at salads.  I know ~ you don’t like to eat your veggies. I understand that salads are easier to munch on in the summer time when the tomatoes are red and juicy and warm from the sun’s caress in your garden, and your hands smell like the crisp and spicy basil leaves you just plucked.  But salad has its place in the winter too.  And even if you haven’t had a mild winter like we have had so far here in Virginia, you can still enjoy the energy and pick me up you get from eating your veggies.

Cornbread Salad

Also known as layered salad, I make this for summer BBQs and it is a great way to get those veggies down!  The recipe I have actually used is in one of my coveted Southern Living cookbooks, but this one has most of the ingredients and the point of these salads is to play a little.

Fig and Goat Cheese Salad

I discovered this sexy little salad while searching Epicurious for a 4 course dinner for fourteen friends I hosted a couple of weeks ago.  Actually, I took this recipe as a suggestion and made substitutions all over the place.  Figs are not in season, so I used dried instead; raspberry and run raisin goat cheese instead of the yogurt; arugula instead of pepper cress; and I topped it off with balsamic vinegar and EVOO.  Wow.  Now I know why figs are known as nature’s candy.  Even my friends who do not like salad ate it up!

Heirloom Salad

Okay, I agree: this salad really is better in the summer when everything is straight from the garden.  But it still makes the list as one of my top five salads.  I adore fresh tomatoes and basil still wet with dew.  If you are dairy-intolerant like me, forgo the cheese altogether or use Daiya’s Mozzarella ~ love that brand!  It’s not only non-dairy, it’s non-soy.  Yay!

Panzanella Salad

This is a great winter salad because it has bread in it.  And although I try to eat as little gluten as possible for health reasons, fresh French bread is my weakness.  I have used a variation of this recipe several times and each time it’s a hit.  The key is to let the salad sit for a little while so that the bread absorbs the juices from the tomatoes, cucs, and the EVOO.  This one can be an entrée.

Warm Beet Salad with Bacon

Growing up I hated beets.  Now I love them.  Especially in the juicer.  Ahh!  My favorite café in North Arlington is Cassatt’s Kiwi Café and they serve a simply amazing beet salad with goat cheese and honey.  This recipe has the same idea (brown sugar), but with the added yumminess of bacon.  And as we all know, everything is better with bacon!

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What are your favorite salads ~ for winter or summer?