Up to my neck

Yes, it's that time of year again when all things fresh and fruity, leafy and green, beautiful and bountiful parade before my eyes. One would think there would be comfort found in the bushesl of corn and green beans yet to come, the jams to make, the fruit to freeze...
And there is.
Sort of.
But first I have to fight the fear.
No, it's not a fear of fruit.
Not even of broccoli.
No, I believe my fear comes from some genetic glich, a holdover from my prehistoric past.
You see, every year, about the time the strawberries are due to ripen, I start to worry.
What if I miss them?
What if I don't buy enough?
I've been dogging the produce people at the farmer's market, each week asking the same, "When will you have strawberries? Will you have a large crop?"
I can't begin to express the relief I felt yesterday when on my morning romp through Craigslist I came upon those magic words "pre-picked strawberries are ready now!"
I called immediately, placing an order to be picked up later that morning.
Whew! I hadn't missed it!
I'll take four flats.
No, um, make that five!
I joyously called a friend, offering to pick up a flat for her as well - I like to share the wealth - and went to gather my bounty.
Each flat holds about 8 quarts, I believe, a good deal at $28 a flat for fresh, just-picked, luscious and local berries.
I psyched myself up for a massive strawberry cleaning mission, turned over dog care to the girls, and dug in. I finished the first flat in about 25 minutes, the second in 35.
When my youngest saw me lying on the floor, stretching my aching back between flat number 2 and flat number 3, she asked, "Why did you buy so many strawberries if it's so much work?"
I jokingly replied, "So we don't starve this winter."
At least, I think I was joking.
Her eye-roll indicated a lack of fear on her part, so at least I'm not scaring my young.

With a short break for a piece of cheese and a diet coke, I finally finished the ordeal work in about 3 hours. The girls split the strawberry tops amongs the chickens, the worms and the compost pile; I thought about giving them all to the chickens, but was a little too worried about diarrhea.

Do chickens even get diarrhea?

Before lying down to ease my stressed back muscles, I popped a quick little cake into the oven for a dessert of strawberry shortcake.

Michael, thank god, smooshed, bagged, and froze all the berries for me, ending up with 28 quarts. Lest you think I can rest easy, however, I'm planning on another flat or two for fresh eating, pies and of course, jam.

Oh, and we still have these in our garden:

Sarah picked this delightful dish-full yesterday afternoon.

Stawberries, anyone?

Who needs restaurants?

With food like this at home, I certainly don't.

This past year, Michael has taken on the task of making Saturday breakfasts.

And boy, does he do it with style!

Above was last weekend's breakfast: a spinach-egg frittata, with chevre and garden fresh strawberries. He used spinach straight from our garden, our own eggs and strawberries from our own patch.

I can't wait to see what he cooks this weekend!

BLTs and a teaser

Last weekend bore witness to two significant events.

We had our first BLTs of the season, complete with homemade bread, lettuce from our garden, local greenhouse tomatoes, and local bacon. "Yum" doesn't even begin to describe it.

The second event was the harvesting of our first ripe tomato. Actually, it had fallen off the plant and needed another week to ripen to perfection. Oh, and it wasn't blurry in real life, either.

This morning Michael, the girls, and I divided the little gem into four equal pieces. While local greenhouse tomatoes are much better than those picked green and shipped in from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away, nothing compares to the tangy flavor of vine ripened.

We can't wait...

Daisy, Daisy

Looks like Sarah found a little genetic abnormality lurking in our seemingly innocent flower patch...

From what I could find online, this doesn't happen very often - and there were several flowers on multiple clumps of daisies that either grew together, as the flower above, or developed flower faces back to back on the same stem, as in the first photo.

Sort of makes you wonder what's been going on out there...

One Local Summer - Week 1

This is my second year participating in one local summer. At first I thought I would forego the "obligation" of the photos, the blog post, etc. Then I went to the farmer's market and saw all that wonderful, fresh produce and knew I'd be making several local meals each week anyway, might as well share, right?

This week's meal was locally raised baked chicken breast. I dipped the breasts in beaten egg (from our own backyard flock), then dredged them in a mixture of breadcrumbs (from homemade bread), local goat Parmesan, salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano. Oh my, were they ever good! And the aroma while they baked was out of this world.

A fitting accompaniment was Asparagi alla Parmagiana, made with asparagus from one of the many local farmer's markets. First, I steam the asparagus until just tender, about five minutes, then refresh under cold water to stop the cooking. Place the asparagus spears in a large baking dish, dot with butter and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese - both local, of course, if you can. Sprinkle with salt and a fair amount of pepper and bake at 450 degrees until the cheese and butter form a browned crust.

Still, there would be a hole in the plate; I needed to make something else to accompany the meal. A whole grain would be nice, but what? There aren't many grains grown locally here in Iowa. Since there was a lot of Parmesan in this meal, it seemed only fitting to turn to a favorite cookbook The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook for inspiration, and wa la! Broiled polenta, sprinkled with pepper and oregano, rounded out the meal.

Then dessert - oooh, dessert!

I always leave room for dessert, but this one was not only luscious, but healthy, ripe and red.

Fresh picked strawberries from our strawberry patch.

There is nothing like the taste of a homegrown berry, still warm from the sunshine, popped straight into your mouth.

These were served sliced, with or without sugar, according to taste.

The freshness, tastiness, and satisfaction of an early summer meal.

There's nothing quite like it.

Pick a peck...

of pitas?
I love making homemade bread and have some terrific whole grain recipes, including this one for pitas. They really are quite simple to make and taste oh, so much better than store-bought.
The pile you see above, however, was merely but a third of the pitas I made the other night.
Were we having a party?
Family coming in from out of town?
Expecting an army encampment in our front yard?
Um, no.
Despite the fact that the recipe makes more than two dozen pitas, I decided to double it.
This usually isn't a problem except that I'd been on my feet already for a couple of hours, making hummus, pies, etc., and my formerly broken foot still hasn't let me forget that I broke it twice in the span of 1 1/2 months this winter.
It tends to complain.
A lot.
In the hubbub of baking, making hummus from scratch, doing up dishes, and general dog maintenance - which mostly consists of removing various items, such as the mail, the newspaper, any stray Kleenex box, etc., from Ivy's cavernous maw, and keeping the dogs from sneaking samples of whatever is sitting on the counter.
Both my dogs, the St. Bernard and the mutt, seem to have inordinately long tongues. They both like to sidle up to the table or the counter and literally cast their tongues, a la fly-fishing, toward the food. If I'm not careful, we'll end up with soggy, pre-slurped entrees.
This also happened to be one of the days - I think we had two in May - when the temperature hit the 80s. Not a good day to have the oven on all afternoon, nor to be in the kitchen with Ivy. When she's hot, she pants.
When she pants, she drools.
When she drools, small ponds of slobber form all over the kitchen floor.
Small ponds of slobber = slippery, slidy puddles to dodge.
Oy, did you hear my foot complain?
Anyway, by the time Michael got home, it was already past 6 p.m. and I'd been rolling out and baking pitas for about 45 minutes already. I was hot. I was tired. My foot hurt and I just wanted to be done.
Whew, the last three pitas went in the oven, Michael pitched in to do the dishes, and I was just about to take my leave with a nice Merlot, when I noticed a dish-towel covered bowl on the back of the stovetop.
What the heck was in there?
I decided to grab the bowl so Michael could wash it, when I peaked inside.
The kids all claim to have heard my exclamation of dismay.
Only they called it a scream.
Inside that bowl was the other half of my pita dough, waiting patiently for me to divide, roll, and bake.
It was too late to refrigerate or freeze the dough, as it had already risen too much. There was no choice but to put my apron back on, dust the butcher block island with more flour, and roll away.
But I did take a fortifying swig sip of wine first.
It helps me cope.

Farmer's Market 5/28

This is what the girls and I gathered at the Valley Junction Farmer's Market last week. The tomatoes, cucumbers and red peppers all were greenhouse grown in Iowa. Along with our own lettuce, we've had some awesome salads this week!