As the Garden Grows

The radishes are ready, but not much else. We have pea and bean shoots galore, but no signs of blossoms yet. I told the boy that if we really want a reliable crop of greens, we should just plant 20 different types of radishes since they seem foolproof.

Not only are radish roots delicious sliced thin and spread atop a baguette slathered with sweet butter, but the greens make a mean pesto. Using this recipe, I made a pesto that went into an orzo, roasted tomato, and roasted gypsy pepper salad. Subsequent radish greens are going to get an Indian saag treatment.

For our winter garden, I want to start planting spinach, although I'm a little worried that the leaf miners that are attaching my beet greens are going to go nuts over the spinach. Oh well, only one way to find out.

Remember the miso pickle experiment? No? Well I didn't remember it either until I was trying to make space in our refrigerator. These have been doing the pickling/fermenting thing since August 2010, and I was going to throw them out until I read that several miso pickles sit for years. So, I rinsed one off and ate it. 20 minutes later, I still didn't feel ill, so I ate another one. And another one. And a few more. They are so good, albeit really salty. I'm going to serve the rest of them with some egg noodles or soba to dilute the saltiness. Next time, I think I can indulge in them after a few months, like my original intention.

No, this does not belong in a wide mouth Gatorade bottle

Another forgotten kitchen experiment, one I was less concerned about killing us, was this lemon zest infused vodka. My fear with this concoction was that since I never strained out the lemon zest after a few months, I was going to end up with lemon extract. Luckily, my laziness and forgetfulness paid off and this stuff is lovely! It's a good thing, too, since I have 4-bottles worth of lemon vodka. Between the vodka and all the homemade beer, we're doing our best to not only make pickles, but to pickle ourselves. (Mom, I jest!)

I got confirmation from our chicken lady that we have overwhelmed her with spent grains, so she is crying uncle. Today's task is to list our grains on Freecycle in the hopes that someone will take them off of our hands. I hate to put all that stuff in the garbage since it can get a second life, but because spent grains sour quickly and need to be chilled, they end up filling our freezer in a hurry. When it is summer and I don't have room for my ice cream maker, things get ugly around here.

For all of those people who mistakenly thought subscribing to my blog would lead to many pictures of cats and instead have to skim posts about food, I'm sorry. But, I'll throw you a bone: here's Greaseball and Fifty acting like they love each other. What you don't see are the hissing fights that ensue when Fifty, troll of the 2nd cat tree shelf, won't let Greaseball pass her shelf to get the 3rd food shelf. It's not pretty.