Tag Archives: vegetables

Orange and yellow and coziness.

food and cooking, winter, ,

One reason I haven’t baked any Christmas cookies yet is, I have so much other cooking to do! I’m trying to eat vegetables, and they take time. I like to make bread, but I admit that is not a high priority. I must learn to prioritize better. I’m always telling other people that “We can’t do everything all the time,” but I guess I don’t listen to myself. Or more to the point, I’m not willing to say No to myself.

This picture is after the sponge had been sitting on the counter for several days. You can see how it rose up the sides of the bowl and then fell again, before I added the zest and the caraway and anise seeds.

I made such a big batch of dough for my Swedish Sourdough Rye, I hadn’t bought enough oranges from which to get the zest. So I put in some lemon zest as well. This dough had a total of five days to ferment, because it kept being “not a good day” for finishing it. Today when the computer guy was here setting up my new computer, I planned to bake it, but I think I was still trying to do too many things at once, and one of the loaves didn’t work out, shall we say. I don’t want to talk about it.

I got fat yellow carrots in my farm box, and leeks, both of which I cooked. There was a head of Savoy cabbage in there, which I put away for later, after taking out the last head of regular cabbage from a farm box last month and roasting it in the oven with the carrots.

The beautiful loaf of bread baked for 50 minutes in the Dutch oven at 500 degrees, so I’m confident it’s well cooked. I put it in the freezer for a time one of these winter nights when I have someone else at my table, maybe along with a pot of soup. Roasted vegetables are comfort food, but more coziness is coming!

Shopping with pani puri.

family, food and cooking, travel, , , , , , , ,

Tom took me along on his shopping trip yesterday, to a few stores and shops including a multi-story big box that had features of a Super Wal-Mart, Costco, and a department store. The escalators were ramps that accommodated shopping carts, and we visited all the floors and departments, but never found a C-battery or anyone who knew what that was. Tom wasn’t very sure himself, but some new baby equipment wants them. Oh well.

I was fascinated by the many varieties of basmati rice, both packaged and in large bins where women in pretty clothes were scooping up their favorite type. I love basmati rice and used to buy it in 25# bags myself; I came home with a jar of the Brown Basmati.

The packaged rice is one of many products and ads that feature a photo of a famous movie star, often a Khan, or the “Big B,” Amitabh Bachchan. I don’t have a hope of keeping all these celebrities straight, but a couple of them have leading roles in an unusually good Bollywood movie we are currently watching here (over the course of three nights, because it’s close to four hours long): “Lagaan.” Oh, and on the route between the different shops, whose car did our driver point out but that of the very Aamir Khan himself. Mumbai is the center of Bollywood, did you know?

Women were also filling bags with large-crystal sugar from a great bulk bin.

 

 

We ate several pani puri snacks and another type of snack at a stand in the food department of the store. For us to take our fill of those savory treats cost less than 100 rupees which Tom said was about $1.10.

 

From this store we drove to that quiet neighborhood Tom introduced me to on my first day here, where is found their favorite market.

The shopkeepers know at least the names of vegetables and how to count in English so I was able to complete the purchase of some carrots, zucchini, peppers and broccoli while Tom went to the next stand where we found leeks and potatoes from which he is going to make soup.

Are those red carrots really carrots? I’ll cook them today and find out.

We brought all our loot home and then Tom cooked up a big delicious dinner featuring mutton chops, pesto green beans, tomato salad and more. It was the first meal of not particularly Indian food that I’ve had in ten days.

Baby “Raj” had stayed home with his mama. They are eating well and building strength and we are all enjoying the early Getting to Know You period. Well, not quite all: Huckleberry Cat has led a very sheltered life until this point and he doesn’t feel entirely positive about the strange creature who suddenly showed up.

As I write, it is a lazy Sunday afternoon. I’ve been holding a sleeping baby for an hour while chatting with Kate and Tom about so many things India, seeds that could germinate into future blog posts. Now I’m back here typing with two fingers to finish this one. My mind will immediately and irresistibly start gathering threads of images and impressions to weave into the next scrap of cloth I hope to share with you, of this colorful tapestry that is Bombay.

Sunny flowers and vegetables.

my garden,

 

I’m way behind on gardening, and now that the weather permits catching up, I’m off on a short trip to see grandchildren, planned when I couldn’t envision anything but rain. Yesterday I did manage to fit in a very few tasks such as weeding and feeding and even harvesting.

 

 

 

 

 

I think these would be called carrot thinnings, of the sort you end up with when you put off thinning too long. Some of them are sweet enough. What I didn’t eat last night will make good snacks on my journey.

For dinner I made a tiny stir-fry using all the pak choi and snow peas that I had picked. Hope leapt up for my vegetable gardening future.

Helianthemum are blooming, starting with the yellow ones in the front garden. I’m a little sad having to leave all my plant children right now, but I will entrust them to God and come back soon!

Back to my happiest place…

food and cooking, my garden, , , , ,

gl2 P1040417This afternoon I returned from a short road trip, and within a few minutes I’d taken a stroll around the garden to see what changes might be evident. I hoped that the newly planted items had made it through the weekend without my attentions, and they had.

The Terra Cotta yarrow has begun to bloom, and it looks pretty against the blue pincushion flowers nearby. In a month the rows of lavender bushes will all be flowering in contrast as well, but already one variety is starting to open enough that a fat black bee was checking it out.P1040414

 

The vegetables have not stopped growing huge — just what magic is in this custom mix of dirt for planting boxes? I’ve never grown or even seen such lush and large leaves of kale and Romaine lettuce.

 

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Just the day before my trip I had set out  a flat of flower and vegetable starts, including this feathery fennel and two zinnias. I always like some zinnias mixed in with vegetables. In the garden, that is.

That’s rice straw mulching the fennel; another task I had completed the day before my trip was to wrangle a bale of the stuff out of my Subaru and into the back yard so that I could at least tuck it in around the tiniest plants for protection against drying out while I was gone.gl2 P1040422

 

 

It’s surprising how several of the Iceland poppies are still flowering even in the warming weather, no doubt encouraged by having lately enjoyed several spells of cool rain, and by the well-drained soil that they reportedly appreciate. Usually they don’t make it through the summer around here….

 

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Lovage towers above leeks and parsley.

The happiness of being home in my garden again gave me the energy to actually use some of my produce; I picked a dozen kale leaves and cooked a mess of greens in the pressure cooker, to go with my eggs for dinner.

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