We put the chickens outside!

This weekend was a big first for everyone in the CitylovesCountry household: friends, family, felines and fowl. On April 1, we kicked the chickies out of the house and showed them their new (outdoor) digs.

Here's a video of this momentous day!




They're a little over 4 weeks old, so for the first few nights we brought them back in at dusk. But tonight they're outside all night (with the heat lamp, of course) like big girls.

Spring?

I wore shorts outside today for three minutes.

There is less snow in my lawn.

I am not currently drinking tea.

The neighbors have tucked away their Christmas lights.

Could it be (almost) spring?

Yes, I did plant some stuff last weekend in a fit of optimism. Then we were blasted by arctic air and two feet of snow. Some humble-Eskimo-pie for this upstart gardener here in Massachusetts. But I am so ready, so achingly ready for things to be green and a little warm again.

True confession: I just sat on my behind for fully 20 minutes trying to decide which picture of last summer's garden to put on the desktop of my computer. This is pathetic for two reasons.

1. I gave up "e-idling" for lent, even though I'm Jewish.
2. The real reason I want to look at this picture is because I don't believe that anything will grow out of my lawn again after this frozen recession winter.

This is the picture that's currently on my desktop:
Taken last September 9. Not an overly exciting picture, but like childhood pictures, saturated with sentiment and funny, poignant-only-to-me stories. Like, ha ha, that time when I accidentally cut the main vine of my favorite squash plant. Or that night when I set beer traps for the slugs, and then sat vigil for hours to rescue them before they fell in.

Ah, summer.

What silly things will happen in this season's warmth and abundance? That's a happy reverse memory. To contemplate what will be when the sun returns, and I can smell the earth again for longer than a brief thaw.

Tonight when I returned to my house after a wonderful dinner with friends (thank you, Liz and Jason), I stood on my porch and leaned into the breeze, quiet all around. It was one of those moments when nothing belongs to you, not even yourself, and you see your life from 30 feet up and a million miles away. I looked up at the moon, which was hidden behind the fir branches, and had the funny sensation that I was seeing it from below -- that I was seeing it from a particular vantage point that didn't define the moon, only my direct experience of it right now, in this life, in this body. I looked down at the two front gardens, which are covered only partly right now by snow. I tried to imagine them as they will be in July, absolutely realized green glory. Everyone on my block is asleep, I decided, judging from the dark windows. And the wind was so soft, and not cold, really.

This is my life. I feel so grateful.

And so ready for spring.

Halloween Party Pumkin Carvin'!

That would be: Wiqan and little Kai, me and Erik, Laurie and little Mahala, and Theo and Mandy in this silly composite picture.

Not pictured: two huge pies and the gallons of (very) spiked hot apple cider.

Fall should be celebrated!

Not-a-pumpkin pie

Toot tooot!! Arrruuuuuuggaa! Beep beep!

That, dear friends, is the sound of me honking my own horn.

This is because just this past weekend, I sucessfully transformed this:into this:(Thank you, Ramona)

That is to say, I harvested our not-pumpkins and turned them into the most indescribably delicious not-pumpkin-pie I've ever, ever had.

Backing up here. You see, these are not pumpkins:I know this because the seed packet sent to me by my mother described them as "really good acorn-type squash I forget the name." However, there are doubters in our midsts.

Laurie, for one. She swears it's a pumpkin. Now would you believe her?

Erik doubts, too! (this is his best skeptical look)But the real kicker is that my own mother is thowing me under the bus. She claims to have planted the same seeds, and, voila, out popped things that really really resemble pumpkins.
Thanks a lot, Mom.

So here's how to make it, in case you come across any not-pumpkins wherever you live. I've based this recipe loosely off of the Maple Pumpkin Pie recipe I found on Epicurious.com.

Phase 1: prepare not-pumpkin (or use canned pumpkin, but really, what's the point?)

1. Admire not-pumpkin2. Then get someone else to cut it in half. (I couldn't bring myself to do it.)3. Scoop out seeds (I saved mine for you...more on that later)

4. Bake face-down in oven at 400 degrees until soft.

5. Gather ingredients for crust:

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

6. Mix dry ingredients in blender/food processor.

7. Add cold butter chunks and pulse until coarse meal forms. Add only enough ice water to help form dough. Do not over blend. (You can also use iced orange juice if you want.)

8. Turn out onto lightly floured surface, gently form into a ball and cut in half. Cover with plastic wrap, press into disks and refrigerate. The recipe said for 2 hours, but really, just do it until it's cold if you don't have time to wait. 

9. Once chilled, roll out and place into pie plate. Pinch edges, poke surfaces with a fork (to prevent air bubbles from distorting the crust) and bake for about 10 minutes at 400 degrees. Set aside to cool. 

 10. Gather pie filling ingredients:

• 2 eggs
  
• 3/4 cup half and half (I didn't have any, so I used whipping cream and milk)
  
• 6 tablespoons pure maple syrup (use a little more)
  
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (use more)
  
• 1 1/2 cups not-pumpkin
  
• 6 tablespoons (packed) brown sugar (use a little less)
  
• 3 1/2 teaspoons all purpose flour
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

11. Blend wet ingredients well in large bowl. Whisk dry ingredients in second bowl and add not-pumpkin. Add dry mixture to wet mixture and blend well.

12. Pour into pie crust and bake at 400 degrees for about an hour (a touch more) until it's all puffy and doesn't jiggle much when you shake the rack. Allow to cool. (Ha. We didn't and it was still amazing.) Serve with generous portions of fresh whipped cream sweetened with a tad of honey and vanilla.

Tomatoes down and brown

Summer is over -- the tomatoes told me so. I walked out to the garden this weekend and found them, all yawns and elbows and bad posture, asking to be put to sleep for the winter.The cold nights are getting to them, and I'm pretty sure I prompted their early demise by inadequately supporting them throughout their growth.

Lesson learned: invest in those loonly-looking circular support thingies and don't rely on posts and twine to support indeterminate tomato plants.
So I harvested all of the red ones and am mentally preparing to bring down the whole crop pretty soon. Here's the haul + some basil and a few pole beans:
Garden eats are usually cheap as well as delicious, but tomatoes are the gateway fruit. Beautiful, fresh tomatoes and their bully friend, Basil, scream "turn us into a caprese salad!" and who am I to argue with the harvest?So I run off to the store to find some bufala mozzarella imported from (where else?) Italy to slice up and sandwich in between layers of ripe tomato flesh and basil leaves.

(this is not my picture:)Tomatoes? free. Basil? free. Bufala mozzarella? about $17.00/lb (about 2 of those balls). Makes about 6 caprese salads. That's crazy.

But oh, my, god. The flavors. Incomparable. They should use this to ease people off heroin.
In honor of my grandparents' visit this weekend past, we had a little dinner party with some of my favorite people. We had a garden meal of caprese salads, fresh spinach pasta (rolled out by little Ramona) tossed in garden pesto (see recipe), roasted pole beans with smashed garlic and served with no-knead, hot fresh bread (see recipe). And Matt brought a divine chocolate angelfood cake. It was a fabulous evening!-- Complete with dancing and somersaults.
Recipe for caprese salad:

(serves 2-3)

1. Grow/borrow/find/buy/steal:

• 3-4 gorgeous, good-sized tomatoes.
• 1 ball bufala mozzarella
• small handful of basil leaves
• good-quality extra virgin olive oil
• good-quality balsalmic vinegar
• coarse salt/pepper

2. Cut the stems out of the tomatoes and slice into rounds, about 1/2 inch thick.

3. Lay largest of rounds flat on serving plate (if making three salads, lay down three)

4. Slice mozzarella in rounds, slightly thinner. Lay one slice on top of each tomato slice.

5. Cover the mozzarella with 2-3 basil leaves

6. Drizzle with a little olive oil and then a little balsamic vinegar.

(The order is actually important, I've found, because without the barrier of the olive oil, the mozzarella takes up too much of the balsamic vinegar and gets soggy. You'll get a more pleasant separation of the flavors if you pour the olive oil first.)

7. Repeat until you've used up all your tomatoes and cheese, Top with a sprig of basil, oil and vinegar, sprinkle a touch of coarse salt on top and serve. Have pepper on hand in case you want it, but if the tomatoes are punchy enough, you will want them naked as the come.
Enjoy!

Citrus Beet & Greens Salad - good!!

The experiment worked! Our good friends and their daughters were our test pilots (thank you guys for that) and got to share in another garden meal!

I started with the beets I pulled up today. After chopping off (and saving) the greens, this was my collection, seen in the above photo in a dutch oven.

Then I coated them in a little canola oil and stuck them to roast, covered, in the oven at 410 degrees for about an hour (?) until they were done.

I trimmed and washed the beet greens, and blanched them in boiling water for about a minute and a half.

After the beets were done roasting and had cooled a bit, I peeled off the tougher parts of the skin by hand and cut them up into pieces. In this picture, you can see the cool banding in some of the beets. They're heirloom strains, courtesy of my mother. And as we found out, they're incredibly sweet and flavorful (especially if you roast them).

As for the dressing, I winged it and based it very loosely on an epicurious.com recipe. I took a bunch of fresh garlic and wanted to take the edge off (knowing young children would eat this meal), but I didn't have the time/patience to roast it. So I tried something random and stuck it in the microwave for 1 minute. Worked like a charm.

Then I blended that up in a mini food processor with inexact amounts of:

garden herbs (basil, cilantro, chives)

basalmic vinegar (maybe 1/4 cup)

olive oil (maybe 1/4 cup)

1/2 of orange juice (maybe more)

zest and juice of 1 lemon

generous tablespoon honey

salt to taste

I added that to a bowl of thinly sliced onions and let that sit for a while to mellow. When the greens were blanched and drained, I added them to the onions and dressing as well. Then I cut the peels off 3 oranges and sliced them across into pieces - threw them in as well. I didn't add the beets, though, because I wanted to sprinkle them on top of the salad, but I don't think that's important.

To serve, dish the greens onto a plate, top with the beets and serve with a chunk of nice, room temperature goat cheese. Serve with crusty bread and lots of wine!