gardens – Peaceful Reader

We are oh, so close!

Kim Reynolds decided on Wednesday night just around midnight that she would tell school children (and their parents) in the state of Iowa that is was optional to wear a mask around school. At midnight on a school night this was decided. I mean I get that she’s never really believed in the pandemic and she IS all about free choice for Republicans but this still seemed a little extreme to me because we are so, so close to closing out the school year. We have two weeks to go! And unless you actually work or teach in a school you may not know how this would play out on a Thursday morning. Our district in an attempt to be open sent an email out alerting parents of this new decision by the governor. Some parents read this email or knew about the decision handed down but other parents might not have had the luxury to see their email and don’t follow late night decisions from Des Moines state house. They sent their kids to school with masks as they have every damn day of this year. Other parents celebrated this and sent their kids happily to school finally free of the damn mask. Still other parents sent their kids to school with a mask asking them to still stay safe. There was bullying in the first few minutes within our school walls until teachers could get students in their classrooms for a calm and inclusive morning meeting. Havoc. Pure havoc and one more way to politicize the wearing of masks and the pandemic in general. Thanks Kim. Cannot wait to work against your re-election campaign.

In other news I finished Ground Zero by Alan Gratz. This book caused a major stir when it first came in. Lots of students wanted it. I found one of my copies on the shelf the other day and I decided to bring it home to read. It was so riveting I read it in 2 days. The story centers around 9/11 and the war on terror that was the aftermath of that major tragedy. Alan Gratz does not sugar coat the history either which I very much appreciated. I remember watching the towers come down on the news that morning and I was a graduate student at the time and turned on the news because someone at my son’s school mentioned the weird thing of a plane hitting the first tower. I remember what it looked like to see it crumble and it was terrible and the aftermath of what we did as a nation was awful. What ever age you are read this book for a comprehensive look at the reality of that time in history and be ready for a gripping tale told in alternating points-of-view.

I’m taking two classes this summer; one is on questioning and the other is on kindness which are both great topics to introduce more of and next year I will be ready for fresh perspective. After experiencing this election cycle and George Floyd trial with students and the negative comments I want to have some new tools in my school bag. Bring on the kindness and positive discussion!

(Cookie + Kate)

I’ve made a few good recipes recently including this rhubarb crisp from the NYT. My mom gave me some rhubarb stalks. I love rhubarb but cannot grow it for some quirky reason. This crisp was delicious and I will make it again as soon as I locate more rhubarb. I also made this red lentil curry soup from Cookie and Kate tonight and we all enjoyed it with toasted sourdough bread.

I really still want it to be Saturday and not Sunday night but there we have it. I need to get ready for my day tomorrow. I probably should shower as I spent a lot of today with my hands in dirt weeding and planting flowers and herbs around the yard and in my big pots. It was the first good hot day and it didn’t rain. Rain is important but sunny skies help my mood. Peace and love to you…

Homemade Kitchen

{Bouquet of basil}

I have an old kitchen surrounded by a few new appliances. At some point I hope I’m able to update the the cabinets, the floor, and the sink. I am someone who spends a great deal of time in my kitchen and it’s a hallway kitchen so it’s not easy for anyone more than me to be in there. The next two days will be the toughest days for me and my kitchen as I get ready to make a big batch of salsa and a big batch of pesto.

Every year my mom shares her garden bounty with me so I may turn it into salsa and pesto; two items I love to have all year around for pure food happiness. Even though it’s an all day process and hot. My husband is a great help with the salsa part and I love that.

I’ve been looking for a good new pesto recipe that doesn’t use pine nuts. So expensive, those pine nuts. I found a good one on Epicurious.com that uses pecans. If you want my salsa recipe check out this fabulous post with a tiny Groovy Girl front and center.

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Counting by 7s

Holly Goldberg Sloan

2013

Willow Chance is a young woman who literally is out of chances yet somehow she manages to positively affect change in all the people around her. In the very first chapter her adoptive parents are killed in a car accident and she is left completely alone. No family friends, no long lost rich aunt, no scheming mad uncle to claim her. Instead she finds herself with a sad excuse for a school counselor and a brother and sister she never met before but who happen to be visiting the same counselor when she finds out that her parents have died.

The misfit male counselor, Dell Duke, is lost as to how to even take action in this situation even though others are turning to him for help. Mai and Quang-ha, sister and brother who live with their mother in a garage behind their mother’s nail salon and it is Mai who comes to the aid of Willow when it is obvious that she has nowhere to go. With this blanket of sadness over everyone it would seem this book would spill tears right out of it’s pages but there is something magical about Willow Chance. Her parents were high-spirited happy people who loved her deeply for all her unusual quirkiness and she has thrived in that love. Now without that love from the two most important people she has to find a way to survive.

I loved I’ll Be There Holly Goldberg Sloan’s first novel and find that the two books have a similarity in that she takes oddball characters throws them into tough situations and makes us love them.

Quote:

Jamison Children’s Center is the county facility that provides emergency foster care.

Lenore Cole gives me a pamphlet.

I read it, but get the distinct feeling that the place is probably for kids who have parents who hit them or don’t feed them real food because they are too busy taking drugs or stealing something.

As we drive up to the building, I put my index and middle fingers on my carotid artery just behind my ear to take my pulse.

I know for a fact that my heart rate is in some kind of danger zone.” (139)

Willow is a genius and knows things that most people don’t and she’s not afraid to share. Through her interactions with others she pushes them forward even though she herself cannot get past her grief. This is an amazing realistic fiction book but with such unusual characters that one can only make sure to push it into the hands of many young 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students to see what they take from it. I can’t imagine anyone not cheering for Willow.

Holly Goldberg Sloan’s website

I’ll Be There

Swiss Chard Jamboree!

{source}

I have a huge bunch of swiss chard thanks to my mom. What do you do with swiss chard? That’s what I asked. I google and checked Pinterest for suggestions. I found bunches of recipe to help me out. One discovery was that I could use the brightly colored stems as well. I made this egg dish and it was delicious (Groovy Girl would not eat it though) but husband and I loved it. I could have added other veggies as well and I like that flexibility.

{From Martha’s website}

Swiss Chard Frittata (Martha Stewart)

1 large egg
10 large egg whites
1/3 cup fresh part-skim ricotta, pressed through a fine sieve
1/2 tsp course sea salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
2 leaves of swiss chard, thin slices of stems and leaves
1/2 large onion, sliced thinly

Preheat oven to 375*. Whisk together egg, whites, ricotta, 1 tsp of salt and pepper. Heat oil in a large oven proof 10-inch skillet over medium high heat. Add swiss chard stalks and onion and cook until onion is tender. Add swiss chard leaves and cook about 2 minutes until leaves are soft. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 tsp of salt. Add egg mixture and stir once or twice to disperse vegetables evenly. Place skillet in oven and bake until eggs are set about 13 minutes. Serve immediately.

Okay, I choose not to run to the grocery store so I did a little substituting. I didn’t do the egg white ratio-I used our delicious farm brown eggs with glee. I did not happen to have ricotta so I used sour cream-close enough, right? Also I did not have an onion (we were just back from vacation) but I did have a red pepper which I used and it added nice matching color with the red stems of swiss chard. Done. I could make it again correctly-I would like to see how the ricotta cheese would taste but no big deal.

Other swiss chard recipes to try:

Swiss Chard pesto from Jeannette’s Healthy living blog
Swiss Chard Vegan rolls from Meet the Shannon’s blog (I am making these this week!)
Gemelli with sausage, swiss chard, and pine nuts from Martha (again)
and a great demonstration from Cooking Light on how to prep swiss chard.

Also I discovered this little doozy of a summer cocktail at Nutmeg Nanny and I love it as much as my rhubarb-basil treat. Yum! Perfect for sipping on the patio at oh, about 5 pm. Lemons and cucumbers are easy ingredients.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Take a look over there and see many other food-related posts.

Weekend Cooking; Alice Waters and The Art of Simple Food II

Our holiday break includes two untraditional traditions; a shopping trip to Goodwill to find excellent second hand sweaters, flannels, etc. and an extended trip to Barnes and Noble to use gift cards and explore new books. I had a gift card from last year begging to be used. I love gift cards so much that I tend to hang on to them until the perfect book is found. Alice Waters’ The Art of Simple Food II is just such a masterpiece that I didn’t mind trading gift card for book. I’ve been a fan of hers for years and am happy to add this book to my collection. I’m sure my mother will want to borrow it as well.

Alice Waters is a chef, author, owner of Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, CA. She is an American pioneer of a culinary philosophy of good, fresh ingredients that are produced sustainably and locally. In 1996 she created The Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School; a one-acre garden, a kitchen classroom, and a curriculum to pull everything together. She is also the Vice President of Slow Food International, a nonprofit that celebrates local food traditions and boasts 100,000 members. (adapted from Chez Panisse’s website)

The first thing that drew me in is this list from the inside front cover:

Treasure the farmer, Nurture the soil, plant wherever you are, learn from nature, cultivate your palate, make your own, eat whole foods, share the harvest, teach children the art of simple food. These are all a part of my belief statement as well.

I haven’t cooked anything yet from this book but I’ve read through the herb section and have selected several recipes to try. Most of all it makes me hungry for Spring!

Look at the chapter headings and try not to get hungry for warmer weather…

1. My Kitchen Garden (growing what I love)
2. Fragrant and Beautiful (herbs and herb flowers)
3. Tender Leaves (lettuce and salad greens)
4. Hidden Flavor (garlic, onions, leeks, and scallions)

It is not categorized into seasons as many locavore cookbooks are yet she does have seasonal chapters. The recipe format is also unique as Waters’ writes them as she might to a friend with the ingredients integrated into the recipe not set apart. An example:

Basil Mayonnaise (15)
makes one cup

Pounded basil makes a beautiful green mayonnaise. Serve it with a gilled fish or a tomato salad.

Pick the leaves from
   1/2 bunch of basil (about 1/2 cup lightly packed)
Coarsely chop the leaves and pound them to a paste in a mortar with:
   salt
Add:
   1 egg yolk
1 tsp water
Whisk the yolk, water, and basil together.
Into a cup with a pour spout, measure:
   1 cup olive oil
Very slowly dribble the oil into the egg yolk, whisking constantly. As the egg yolk absorbs oil, the sauce will thicken, lighten in color, and become opaque. This will happen rather quickly. Then you can add the oil a little faster, whisking all the while.
If the sauce is thicker than you like, thin it with a few drops of water. Taste and add more salt, if necessary.

The bonus for this style of recipe is that it forces me to read the ENTIRE recipe to get the ingredients and to look at the recipe as a whole not as just a list of ingredients.

Other interesting recipes:

Rocket (arugula) Pesto, Corn and summer squash soup, Roasted brussels sprouts with sesame seeds and ginger, Lime syrup, Summer squash pizza with marjoram and fresh ricotta.

The last large section in the book is about gardening and that will be read and reread before Spring so I can be ready. I’m sure she has some new tips and strategies that I can use.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads weekend cooking meme. Click her link to see many other food-related posts.

Relaxing Summer? Yes!

I’ve had plans all laid out around the time of the time of Teenage Boy’s graduation we “remodeled” the backyard, making way for this very quiet corner to read in or work on the computer. I’m about two weeks into summer and I’ve only had the time to sit in that chair twice-yes, exactly twice. A positive like myself might say “Well, at least you’ve had the opportunity to recline elegantly twice!” Right. But I want to do it every day!

I have tended my garden and spruced up other areas of our yard. You can see three squash plants, lettuce,

three tomato plants, and five basil plants growing there.

We’ve attended a fabulously gorgeous wedding of a friend. The wedding and reception took place at a local bed and breakfast, which was a perfect setting for this down-to-earth young couple. They planted a bonsai tree together during the ceremony. Ahh, it was lovely.

I’m taking two classes for re-licensure this summer and one is an on-line course about Personal Learning Networks (PLN’s). We’ve learned about diigo, twitter, RSS Feeds, and Google Readers, all of which are to help us set up a community of “friends” we can learn together with. I already had experience with each of these social networking tools but I’m sure to learn more as we keep exploring. Even as we set them up I can’t help but wonder about the effects of reaching out to a cyber-community instead of real people in our schools, neighbors on our own blocks, and retailers in our own local stores.

I discovered this article through another classmate about the Waldorf school sans any technology at all. Hmmm. I have to admit I love the idea of waiting to give youngsters any technology at all until middle or high school and this article explains it perfectly. My own daughter reaches for my school issued tablet like it’s a drug and wishes to play with that more than anything. I think it saps her creativeity just having it in the house. She spends all day playing with the idea that she’ll later be able to get her hand on the tablet for a few tries at Temple Run to beat her “top” score.

What say you? Should we leave technology for later or is an Apple iPad the perfect learning tool for young students?

Weekend Cooking; Pesto and a canoe trip

I had an amazing day yesterday and wished I could have posted about it last night but I was too exhausted to type. I got up early to mix up some bread dough for my family. I’d made 10 loaves on Thursday and Friday for the market and my children are always a little unhappy as that bread bakes and they know it is not for them. Now we have two loaves for the week.

While I had the flour out I made a pan of Butterscotch Brownies-this is an old recipe that I love and you make it on the stove and then bake it-super easy. While the brownies were in the oven and the dough was rising I helped Groovy Girl get ready for her figure skating lesson at 9. I dropped her at the arena and headed back home to make several batches of pesto for my freezer. Don’t worry my husband picked her up after lessons were over!

My mom and I worked together, using the recipe from Everyday Italian by Giada DeLaurentis, and made five batches of pesto using fresh basil from her garden and the little I had left from my own. The temperature is beginning to dip down at night and rather than have the basil freeze in the garden I want it to freeze in my Sub-Zero.

Here is Giada’s pesto recipe (72):

2 cups [packed] fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1 garlic clove
1/2 tsp sea salt, plus more to taste
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper, plus more to taste
About 2/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

In a blender (I use the food processor), pulse the basil, nuts, garlic, salt and pepper until finely chopped. With the blender still running, gradually add enough olive oil to form a smooth and thick consistency. Transfer the pesto to a medium bowl and stir in the cheese. Season the pesto with more salt and pepper, if it needs it. The pesto can be made up to 2 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate.

**If you are going to freeze your pesto for the long winter months as I did then skip the cheese step and don’t add as much olive oil. Later when you grab it out of the freezer to use it you will add in the cheese and a little olive oil to your pasta. Good Parmesan does not freeze well in the pesto.

Giada has a note following the recipe that shares her secret of using pasta water to help blend the pesto so it doesn’t glob up your pasta. The trick is in saving a little of the pasta water back when draining your pasta. I generally just take a large measuring cup and scoop out about a cup before I drain the pasta and before I add the pasta back to the pot I put the pesto in the pan to soften it up and then add small amounts of water as I mix the pasta into the pesto. Viola; fabulous dinner! My mom bought these handy little Tupperware freezer containers that stack perfectly. Pine nuts are ridiculously expensive right now but we did use pine nuts for these batches. I have a spinach pesto I want to try from the same cookbook and I’m going to substitute walnuts for pine nuts, just to give it a try.

I am so happy to have this accomplished as I did not can pickles or make salsa this year. When the snow starts to fly I will be ecstatic to pull out this freshly frozen treat, reminding me of the Spring to come.

Weekend Cooking is hosted by Candace at Beth Fish Reads. Pop over and see what she and other’s are cooking up!

Now for the canoe trip:

The pesto making was the easy part of the day though as our afternoon was with a group of church friends paddling down a local river. I expected to lazily float but the river was low and we ran into every snag and sandbar in the river. We canoed for 4 hours and Teenage Boy made me paddle the whole way! My shoulders are tired-truthfully every part of me is tired! Once we landed at our destination I realized [hate it when the light bulb clicks on and it is BAD news] that I’d left the keys to the car parked by our landing in the vehicle parked where we’d put in the canoes!! Uh No. [I was just finishing up Anna and the French Kiss, can you blame me!?]

I whispered this new bit of information to Teenage Boy and he was ANNOYED. Thankfully, everyone else, including my husband, was a bit more understanding. Luckily we quickly rounded up someone to get us back to point B so we could get keys and canoe trailer. The coolest part of the day was when a friend pointed out a young eagle in a tall, bare tree. We floated right under it. It was a glorious sight.

Have a peaceful week!

Weekend Cooking; Grow It, Cook It

Grow It, Cook It;
Simple Gardening Projects and Delicious Recipes

DK Publishing

Consulting Editor: Jill Bloomfield

2008

80 pages

This is one from my own collection; my mom gave it to Groovy Girl two years ago and we’ve made nothing from it in all that time. Shame on me! This summer that is going to change as G.G. is taking over the garden space in back and has very definite ideas about planting….and she has my mom in her back pocket. I thought I should highlight this book so we can challenge ourselves to use it more frequently.

It’s kind of amazing the wonderful books that already reside in my cookbook cupboard-yes, they reside in a cupboard or two and it makes them a little out of sight out of mind. I go to specific cookbooks for specific recipes and I need to learn to mingle a bit more in different books. I pulled this one out a few days ago and started reading. The first twelve pages give an excellent overview on gardening-everything from tools to making your own compost. The two pages on “pots and plots” gave me great ideas on using a variety of everyday items (like a laundry basket) that could be used for a planter.

There are two pages on “Kitchen know-how,” which includes an easy vocabulary list with pictures to match. The remaining pages are filled with how to grow a vegetable or fruit plant with a companion recipe; each spread takes about four pages. Bloomfield begins with tomato and most of the planting directions involve container gardening but could easily be translated to an actual garden plot.

Nestled in are big tips like “grow marigolds in the same pot as your tomato plant. These flowers can keep away aphids, which might otherwise infest your tomato plant. This is called companion gardening.” (19) I didn’t know this and it makes me want to run out and buy a few marigold plants as my tomato plants often suffer from buggy yuck! The tomato recipe follows eggplant growing directions and combines the two veggies in a Tomato and Eggplant Tower (23) Yay. Yum. Groovy Girl has an eggplant growing in the back garden. Recipes range from mini pumpkin pies, giant beanstalk stir-fry, mashed potato fishcakes, onion and leek soup, chocolate and mint mousse and lemonade ice-pops. All very yummy looking with eye-catching photographs.

My personal favorites are the Sunflowerpot loaves (aren’t they cute!) and Green leaf tarts (spinach). We didn’t plant any spinach this year but if I can find some at the Farmer’s Market today I may try to make these over the weekend. The sunflower link above will take you to google books where you can browse a few pages of this fabulous kid-friendly book.

Buy it from an indie bookstore here. Find Jill Bloomfield at her website…teachkidstocook.com.

I was up early this morning, waiting for my chicken man-doesn’t everyone have one? Tim Daley of Daley’s Shamrock Acres delivered 6 homegrown chickens to me and they are now in my freezer. For an ex-vegetarian who still thinks like a vegetarian it seems strange to get so excited about six beautiful chickens but I am. I can’t wait to slather them with herbs and a little butter and cook them up for my family.

Happy Cooking over the long holiday weekend! This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Click to her post to see what everyone else is cooking up! Anyone with a food-related post can play along.