Scenes from the Garden

Tonight...

Tom watering the plants with the water I'd left in the car from driving back from Michigan this weekend. I figured the plants would be fine with any plastic leeching into the sun-heated liquid. Sylvia accompanies him doing I don't know what.

American Gothic.

The little 8 X 4 raised beds I made this spring. Please don't scrutinize the craptacular workmanship.

Phil and Sylvia working on their circus act.

Beets, carrots, and kale. I love the color of beet greens.

Welcome, little out-of-focus cayenne pepper. Max will be so happy to see you. He's currently obsessed with the idea of feeding hot peppers to unsuspecting folks.

Hey, there, whatcha knowin'? I've come to watch your pea pods growing...

I'm seeing kale chips in my near future...

Wow! This alien carrot is as big as a grill!

...or smaller than a five-year-old's pinky.

Our neighbor took out his circa 1920s cast iron front rails and gave them to us. I think they lend a Grey Gardens vibe to the original, appropriately overgrown, little garden plot.

The end of the rhubarb and the start of the sweet peas. I froze the rhubarb to pull out mid-winter for Angry Chicken's rhubarb hand pies. Man, those things are delicious.

I keep thinking the little lettuce patch, which now has a couple zucchini plants interspersed, is exhausted and ready to be tilled over. And then I cut more greens. Here's tonight's cutting; we're a very healthy family:

Oh, dear. Is that a leftover Cinnamon Poptart in the background?

Pretend you didn't see that.

Kale Chips

The little 8 X 4 garden box I planted in the spring is exploding. Pea pods, beets, onions, and carrots are about ready to be picked. The radishes have been eaten and replaced by tomatoes. And we've got kale. Oh, do we have kale.

My favorite two ways to eat kale are either sliced very thinly and eaten raw on salad, or sauteed with garlic and olive oil. But a friend told me about kale chips, and with the kale regenerating what seems like nightly, I tried them the other day. I like them. Phil wasn't even in the mood to try one. So you'll have to trust me when I say they're good.


Kale Chips

Just pick (or buy), wash, and dry a big bunch of kale. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Fold each leaf in half and cut out the thick vein running up the back. Then rip the leaves into about 1-inch squares. Spray cooking spray on a couple big rimmed cookie sheets. (You can also cover the sheets with parchment paper.) Put the kale pieces on the sheets, drizzle lightly with a little olive oil (and spread it around if it's uneven -- try to get some on each kale piece), sprinkle on some kosher salt, and pop in the oven for about 10 minutes. When they're done, they're crispy and golden on the edges, but not burned.


You won't mistake them for potato chips, but they have that same salty, crunchy thing going. And they have a unique greeny flavor. I loved them. I made my chips a little large, requiring biting into them, which was a mistake. The variety of kale I planted (Red Russian) came out very thin in chips, and biting into them meant a sprinkling of green tiny kale pieces. But Phil's got band practice tonight, the kale exploded again while I was gone for the weekend, and I'm in the middle of a great book (Twelve by Twelve), so I'm seeing some chippy goodness in my near future.

The Taxman Cometh, with Recipe

Last night I found myself again staring at TurboTax, watching it rack up how much money we owe. Which is ludicrous as we live modestly, make a relatively modest income, claim no deductions, and have two kids. I was tempted to put off the task for yet another night, but Phil had taken the boys to dinner specifically to give me time to finish them, so I felt it would be in bad form to be reading a novel, eating risotto, and drinking a martini when he got home. I buckled down, tried to ignore the mounting debt in the upper left corner of the screen, and got through another April. I only learned later that night that the due date this year isn't Saturday, April 14, as I'd thought, but was moved to the next Tuesday. Had I known there was extra cushion, Phil likely would have come home to me with a martini.

For comfort, I made a super-simple, low-calorie, low-fat, low-fuss cauliflower recipe my friend Kim made up. Cooking cauliflower down to the consistency of mashed potatoes got trendy, I believe, with the emergence of The South Beach Diet. The cool thing is that cauliflower really does taste like mashed potatoes, on some level, when cooked down. So this recipe is comforting, lets you get in one of the purported superfoods, and can get you through tax time without alcohol. We both make it (of course) in a pressure cooker, but I'm sure you could also just boil the cauliflower on the stove for about 30 minutes or so.

Faux Mashed Potatoes Cauliflower

1 head cauliflower, preferably organic
2 cups water or vegetable, chicken, or beef broth
A couple sprinklings of paprika
A little butter or buttery spray (like Earth's Balance spray), if you're so inclined

Break the cauliflower, by hand, into big chunks and place those in the pressure cooker. Pour in the water or broth. Sprinkle with a couple shakes of paprika. Cook on high pressure for 5 minutes. When the timer goes off, use a slotted spoon to get out the cauliflower, and, if you want, add a bit of butter or spray on some buttery spray. Enjoy while deciding if you have a receipt for the sweaters you gave to Goodwill last summer.

In meatier news, Phil is heading to a local parking lot tonight to pick up our meat order from Nicki Royer at Royer Farm; I imagine there will be Sopranos-like looking around and talking on pay phones. Nicki and her husband are local farmers who are regular fixtures are our local farmer's market in the summer. During the off-farmer's market months, they make monthly or so appearances around town to sell meat from a vehicle. I called her around dinner time to reserve some stew beef and thick-cut bacon, and asked her if it was a bad time to call; they have twin boys around two years old who I figured might be eating or needing some attention. She said it was a great time to call -- the boys were out feeding the animals with their daddy. That almost made me misty; farms have become such huge, industrial organizations viewing animals as simply commodity, it's nice to think of some ruddy-cheeked toddlers helping their dad feed the pigs their corn.