Cloudy With a Chance of Blueberries for Sal

The air dropped about 20 degrees (down from 96) in a matter of minutes last Thursday.

The air also dropped this:

Blueberry sized hail.

Butter butter everywhere and not a drop to drink

I had the craving to make butter the other day. It just seemed like it should be something to do. It churned out to be way easier than I had expected! I bought heavy whipping cream, poured it into a cleaned out spaghetti sauce jar, added a little sea salt, and started shaking.

I got a little tired of shaking, so I turned to jumping. Also Terra and Cassie helped.

It seemed like all we were making was whipped cream until suddenly we looked inside and the butter had separated from the buttermilk!

Cassie had just brought over a loaf of Polynesian Sweet Bread that she had made, and we slathered our butter on that. Incredibly delicious!

Soon I hope to make butter with the herbs that I am growing. Apparently dairy really draws out the flavor!

Expanding

Is there a phrase for gardening that parallels "your eyes are bigger than your stomach"?

The amount of seeds, plants, and imagination that I have exceeds the space I currently have, so I have been working on multiplying the amount of garden space. This means the time-consuming process of turning over grass (thank you, landlords, for allowing me to do whatever I please with your yard!) and adding rich earth from another part of the yard. I'm also putting in a little brick pathway, for aesthetic reasons and also so that the ground won't compact as I weed/walk through.

To the left is the new soil and the beginnings of a path! (Do you see the white arched trellis? Right now there are roses growing on it... think I could get a tomato plant to wrap itself around?)

A preview of Brussels sprouts, which I recently learned take 20 weeks to produce... let the waiting begin!

Garden 2011

I moved into Maytown at the end of June last year with all the excitement and energy necessary to create a garden, but like I said, it was the end of June... thankfully Awesome Asher helped me out by buying a few plants ahead of time so that I had some things to care for during that sumer! So last year I found myself consumed with caring for just 3 different things: basil, tomatoes, and a pepper plant. Some of the tomatoes acquired a blight of some sort and the pepper plant never quite made it. But the basil proved itself, quickly growing into a bush and producing more than enough to eat, give away, freeze, and to make pesto.

This season I get to experience the whole season! Josiah encouraged me to try anything and everything, and if 50% works out, then that's a lot! I'm really looking forward to learning a lot this year through trial and error.

Cardboard egg cartons make perfect cells for starting from seed! I started tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, carrots, basil, anise, stevia, and mint this way.

I'm lucky enough to have a sunroom that makes it easy to start plants inside.

After a few weeks, I transplanted the tomatoes into larger containers - used coffee cups - and moved them to my bedroom windowsill.

Charlestown Farm

On Thursday I visited my friend Jenny in Phoenixville, PA, where she is doing an apprenticeship at Charlestown Farm. It was the first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm I've ever been to, and I instantly fell in love! Sure, it is easy to feel like this after spending just one day at a place like this. But novelty aside, I would love to be a part of a CSA at some point.

Charlestown Farm has about 150 members. Throughout the growing season, these members stop by the farm to pick up that week's pre-picked produce available, or pick their own berries, tomatoes, and other delectables depending on availability.

First we uncovered the peas that they had planted at the end of March, then made a trellis for each row to start grabbing on and growing skyward!

Jenny, watering in the greenhouse

Leslie showing off the Swiss Chard, pre-transplantation!

Beautiful Swiss Chard

I visited on a perfect day - bright and sunny but not too hot!

Margo, reeling in the measuring tape - helpful for plant spacing and staggering.

After transplanting three 200' rows of Swiss Chard, we finished out the day weeding thistles while Melissa and Leslie plowed for future planting. Jenny and I discovered an entire underground root system those pests were creating. The farm, while being uncertified, uses organic farming techniques (like the hard work of me and Jenny)!

Reasons why I love CSAs (and my own garden):

-nearly eliminates fuel costs for transportation

-fresher produce

-food with more nutrients

-can experience the realities of life first hand (for example - crops take time to grow and they sometimes fail...)

Avocado Smoothies

Doesn't that sound disgusting?

But if you can muster the courage to taste one, then your thoughts might change.
Avocado smoothies are one of the most refreshing drinks I've ever had. It was much appreciated during the seemingly never-ending heat that we endured as teachers in Honduras. I'm thankful for the people who invented this masterpiece.

I had my first avocado smoothie in Indonesia at the end of my semester abroad. It's not uncommon to see this beverage on a menu in an Indonesian restaurant. It is served cold- a blend of milk, ice, and sugar, and garnished with a bit of chocolate.

It was easy for me to try because my roommate from Indonesia, Beddy, once had me try a bite of avocado sprinkled with sugar. I was hooked! Besides the occasional guacamole night, I made it a habit of emptying the insides of an avocado into a cup, adding sugar and powdered milk, mixing it with a spoon, and eating the paste. Since avocados "only" costed 1,000 rupia (or, 10 cents) in the highlands of Papua, I had an avocado this way nearly every day!

Avocados are incredibly high in potassium, by the way. Much more so than a banana, even. One of my favorite factoids, and I got it from wikipedia... who would've guessed?

Go ahead... try one for yourself!

Just close your eyes, it'll be okay...

My parents bought me a food dehydrator for Christmas, which is my new favorite toy. Actually it's quite boring once you plug it in. It doesn't even make noise. Thanks a lot, Mom and Dad...

I've been focusing on drying apples, since it is the season and I just bought a bushel BOGO (I recently lerned there is a cheesy acronym for this meaning)at Masonic Homes. Additionally, my parents gave me a Pampered Chef Apple Peeler, which is peels incredibly fast with an insanely small amount of waste, cores the apple, and leaves it spiral sliced. It's about a 10 minute process to wash, peel, slice, and core the apples, including cleanup.

The smell of drying apples permeates the house overnight and when I open the door to the kitchen in the morning I no longer smell a burst of Asher's breakfast pancakes (it is possible that he has switched to granola and yogurt) but instead it smells as if an apple pie has been baking.

I tried Pink Lady apples to start - a beautiful variety with great flavor, which only multiplies through the dehydration process!

The peeler/corer/slicer does all 3 things in about 20 seconds... truly amazing, especially if you have many apples to do (see my previous post about unnecessary kitchen gadgets). You can see that there is very little waste. Something awesome about this style of food dehydrator is that it is made up of a base, five stackable circular trays, and a lid. The size of the dehydrator is dependent on how many trays you are using and it is easy to rotate the trays for even drying! However, the opening in the center makes it more interesting to make fruit leather and more food could be dried if the opening wasn't there.

Apples sliced thin enough make a very crispy and tasty chip after only a day of drying. Since I do not pretreat the apples, they end up with a brownish color and a superb taste. Just close your eyes, it'll be okay...