A cat has started meowing around our house (it even tried to dart in the door when I went outside one day). Dog is going nuts-- absolutely bonkers trying to get the cat. Which means every so often we hear a loud crash that indicates our dog's head or paws have hit the glass window in the door. We still aren't sure if he wants to play with it or eat it (I'm leaning towards "ohhhhh squeaky toy" which starts as play and ends as *chomp*). My apologies to all my friends with cats, I love kitties, but they are not safe in my house. I'm glad I have friends to visit where I can visit with kitties.
I have the best husband in the world. He brought me my nectarine from the fridge instead of scarffing it down and going "nah nah nah I ate your nectarine". Because I am a doufus who never thinks to eat fruit until someone (cough TheHusband cough) is eating fruit in front of me. And he patiently leaves fruit in the fridge trying to be nice and not gobble it all up.
I am crafting, sort of. I'm in the middle of an ironing board project that will not end. And I really want it to because I'm itching, simply itching to buy some Amy Butler fabric to sew a cute summer dress. I'm also working on several gifts that cannot be mentioned until I know they have been received. Speaking of gifts, today I learned of the 8th baby that I know who will be born this year. With all these babies I will never manage to knit myself a sweater. Not to mention there are 3 babies born last year and I never managed to make a gift for them. I just cannot keep up. (We shall not speak of the baby blanket for the 2 3/4 year old).
Fauxmiddlechild alerted me to the existence of Epicurious's Seasonal Ingredient Map. It seems pretty cool, although it isn't quite matching what I'm actually seeing at the Farmer's Market. For example swiss chard isn't listed, and supposedly Washington State has produce during March but Oregon State is dormant-huh? She was lamenting that she was unfamiliar with seasonal produce. I want to say, don't feel to bad about it. The supermarket culture of the past who-knows-how-long has separated us from this knowledge - so unless you are a gardener (of the edible varieties) this stuff is no longer common knowledge. I'm still trying to get a handle on such things in my new locale (previously I was a lucky duck who got the excess from Mom's garden).
Farmer's Markets are a good guide (if yours doesn't allow trucked in stuff like the one near our old house- no FM in the Midwest should ever be able to sell kiwis or mango or pineapples, I'm still irritated by it). Of course some vendors have things like large greenhouses up their sleeve and I think that confuses things, I know I was confused when I saw cucumbers two weeks ago, before I had even seen strawberries.
I'm really excited that we finally were able to subscribe to a CSA this year (I've been wanting to since I learned of their existence like 9 years ago; of course previously we moved every summer and would just get the overabundance of our parents gardens so a CSA didn't quite fit our life). We had to subscribe/join in early April and even then a couple farms I contacted had already filled all of their subscriber slots. And due to the crappy "spring" we haven't gotten a share yet, my fingers are crossed it will happen soon. I've been toying with the idea of taking a picture of our weekly shared bounty.
I also have 4 plants on my patio since this is a want-to-garden year in my want-to/no-way gardening cycle (so far I have a year where I attempt to garden, which is generally a bust wrt to all but a couple hard-to-kill houseplants, followed by a couple years where I say "nope" to gardening and then a lust for gardening hits again). I planted a spearmint plant, an italian parsley plant, 3 basil plants and a 24" window box of nasturtium seeds that have been kind enough to actually sprout (they are about 3" tall now with 2 leaves each). Since I haven't killed anything yet (in the 3 weeks I've had the stuff planted) I'm considering adding a rosemary plant and maybe some radishes or lettuces.
A few notes on food The post was getting too long so now it is just about chard. And hopping onto the chard bandwagon. In the past few days I've seen mentions of chard on Finny Knits and Domicile - and these blogs are in my non-food folder of Bloglines. Last week, looking around for suggestions on what to do with that bunch of rainbow chard in the fridge, I was directed to this Swiss Chard Tart recipe from Mario Batali. I was looking for a more substantial (and just different) recipe than my usual Sauteed Tender Greens from The New Best Recipe (served with the grain of the day, perhaps with a side of bean protein of some type). It was between this recipe and quiche with chard, and I just wasn't feeling like making a pie crust (so lazy) but then I weighed my bunch of chard and discovered it was about 3/4 lb. Oops. So I used the Mario Batali recipe as a guide and did the following:
1 bunch swiss chard (about 3/4 lb)
olive oil
1/2 onion
2 cloves garlic
handful fresh flat leaf parsley
2 eggs
salt
pepper
1/2 cup finely grated fresh parm
1 square "artisan" roll turned into bread crumbs - a couple big handfuls
Preheat the oven to, um, 350F. I gave the swiss chard a nice cool soak in the clean sink, removing any bits of sandy dirt. Then I lightly shook the water off the leaves (you want a bit of water clinging*) and set them in a colander and started the chopping process. I removed the stems and set them aside (no way was I throwing away that pretty color) and cut the leaves into short ribbons. Then I cut the stems into small pieces and set them aside. I cut my onion into thin slices and crushed my two cloves of garlic. I minced the fresh parsley.
I grabbed my big 12" saute pan and threw in a couple tablespoons of olive oil. I added the swiss chard stems and the onions and cooked until nice and soft. Then I added the garlic and sauteed until it was fragrant. At this point I threw in all of my chard leave ribbons and covered the pan. After a minute or so (sorry don't remember precisely) I stirred the chard and covered it again. When the chard looked nice and wilted yet still a bright green I tossed the parsley in, stirred then dumped the pan contents back in the colander to drain and cool. In between the onion/chard cooking I was making bread crumbs and grating parmesan and oiling my 9" pie pan.
I cracked two eggs in a bowl and beat them, adding some salt and pepper as well as a couple tablespoons of the parmesan. Then I sprinkled a good handful of breadcrumbs (perhaps up to 1/2 cup) in the oiled pie pan. I also stirred the veggies to help drain and make sure it was cool. Once I was satisfied the veggies were cool enough to not cook the eggs I dumped them into the eggs, gave it a good mix cover the veggies in egg and dumped it all in the pie pan. I smoothed the top, sprinkled with another handful of bread crumbs and then parmesan. I popped it in the oven for about 30 minutes (until it looked golden and like the eggs were cooked in the middle).
Wow. Typing this all out it sounds horribly complicated but I swear it wasn't. Though it did make a few more dirty dishes than I prefer. Anyways it was quite yummy and not very eggy at all (when I started I wondered how it was different from quiche, but it turns out the eggs just coated the veggies as opposed to the mostly custard with some veggies of quiche).
*While the recipe above instructs you to boil the chard for like 10 minutes, according to TNBR swiss chard is a green that does not require blanching before the final cooking. They say that the water clinging to the leaves will provide enough moisture for wilting (along with the oil in the pan).
