February 2010 - catching up

I have not written much lately, which is a shame because a lot has been going on in my life. I want to keep up this journal as a chronicle of my life and my thoughts. Generally, I only write about cooking and gardening here, but I want to include more of my life, because those are only two aspects of me, and two aspects which have not been a major part of my life recently, which probably accounts for my long absence.

To recap the 6 months:

JULY – won third place in my division at a sprint triathlon; received my personal best time and

AUGUST –

1. Went to Alaska and had a blast: overnight kayaking trip in Homer; overnight camping/kayaking trip to Bear Glacier near Seward; three-day trip to Denali National Park, including a hike, an all-day bus trip into the park, and a flight-seeing trip to the mountain and landing on a glacier.

2. Turned 31!

3. Also learned to do trad lead climbing at Donner Pass the last two weekends of August

SEPTEMBER – had knee surgery on the third – spent the rest of the month in bed or hobbling around on crutches – NOT FUN!

OCTOBER – had some major fertility treatments after almost two years of struggling; overcame some major fears of needles and gave myself about 40-50 injections.

NOVEMBER – found out I was pregnant!

DECEMBER – with twins!

Went to Italy for Christmas, where I spent three weeks mostly on the couch due to knee surgery recovery and morning sickness; the last week, I started recovery and spent some time cross-country skiing

JANUARY – started rock climbing again; saw two beautiful babies on ultrasound.

FEBRUARY – so far, found out we’re having a boy and probably a girl! Spent a beautiful day snowshoeing in the mountains; trying to spend some time rock climbing and biking before it’s no longer possible; trying to figure out how to get ready for two babies in June or July; wondering where we’re going to live or how we’ll manage in our apartment with two babies.

So, things will probably change around here. Now that I’m not terribly sick with nausea and vomiting, and I can walk (yay!), my life is returning to normal as much as possible. I’m hoping to get a garden in the ground before my activities become too limited, and I’m doing some cooking again. I’m working on lots of craft ideas, too, even if they’re just percolating in my head. There will be lots of things going on here in the upcoming days, weeks, and months.

One of my first projects to start thinking about – baby books!

Crab sauce

Loris created this delicious sauce for the fresh crabs we bought at the Farmer's Market last Saturday. I promised him I'd write it down, although I don't know what the amounts or ratios are.

The ingredients were, simply:

Butter
White wine
Lemon
Dill

Since we use unsalted butter, I'm guessing he also added some salt.

Amazing!

Vegetarian gravy

Mushrooms

Onion

Soy sauce

Marsala wine

Vegetable broth

Flour

Chop up some mushrooms and onion VERY finely. Saute the onion over low heat until it softens and starts to caramelize. Add the mushroom and cook a few more minutes. Add some soy sauce and marsala and cook for a few more minutes. Add some broth, turn up the heat to a gentle boil, then add flour a bit at a time, whisking to help it dissolve. Continue to cook and add flour bit by bit until the gravy is the consistency you would like. Taste and season with salt if necessary.

Ketchup, redux

Last weekend (namely Saturday) I decided to make ketchup again. Since I had knee surgery on September 3 and I'm still not walking, I decided not to start with whole tomatoes and have to cook them and mill them and whatnot. I started with cans of tomato puree, added the other ingredients, and cooked it down, and then canned it. Last night. More than 48 hours later.

I learned a few lessons from all this, lessons I hope that I will always remember:

1. DO NOT make more than one ketchup recipe at once. Unless you do it in separate pots. It took FOREVER to reduce.

and

2. DO NOT cook it over high heat at the beginning in an attempt to get things going faster. Unless you want to spend three days trying to clean burnt crap off the bottom of your pot.

The ketchup had a more complex flavor, either from being burned or from cooking for two days, or from both. But still. Never again.

Veggies

The last week or two has seen a lot of vegetables on my table, partly because the summer garden is finally producing.

On Monday, we roasted some beets, boiled some green beans, and sliced some cucumbers and tomatoes, and set them on the table in separate bowls to combine and dress with oil, vinegar, mayonaise and mustard, and experiment with different flavors. I was surprised to find that my favorite was green beans and sliced beets with oil and vinegar, although any of them with oil and salt was delicious, too. The tomatoes are the first Juliet and Super Italian Paste tomatoes from the garden. By the end of the week or early next week we'll have our first heirlooms (Cherokee purple!).

Last night, Loris sauteed carrots in olive oil, which we ate with some REALLY strong cheese he picked up at the co-op. On the side, we had sliced cucumbers with oil, vinegar, and mustard, and tomatoes with basil, olive oil, and burrata. If you like fresh mozzarella, you have never had burrata, and you have a chance to buy some, do it! It's amazing stuff.

We'll only have one or two more dinners with carrots and beets from the garden, but pretty soon we'll be eating peppers and tomatoes, and soon after that we'll hopefully have zucchini and eggplant. And hopefully we keep getting cucumber and green beans.

Juliet tomato

I really like the Juliet variety tomato, even though it is a hybrid and not an heirloom, and even though I am not normally a big fan of cherry tomatoes. I first tried the Juliet variety two years ago in my first real summer garden, and I loved it, mostly because it is so versatile and prolific. The fruits actually look like pint-sized roma tomatoes.

As such, I used them for everything - snacking, slicing, in salads, cooked with fish, and most importantly, added to the romas for tomato sauce.

This year, I only planted one, and now I regret it. In the future, I thinkI'd like to plant several to supplement my sauce tomatoes, because really, this beauty produces so many tomatoes! It's such a great option for when the sauce tomatoes don't do that well. Or if, as in my case, I decided to only plant half as many sauce tomatoes as usual, and the heirlooms I planted instead (brandywines) aren't doing too fantastic just yet.

The only real problem with the Juliet is that I can't keep up with pruning it, and it takes over the garden. I gave up trying to prune and stake it, and instead I sunk another stake at the end of the row and I am wrapping twine around the two stakes, and trying to keep the plant tethered in the middle. I think that will be a reasonable way to grow them in the future - between two stakes.

Now I'm already looking forward to next year's garden.

Really quick garden update

Cucumbers - taking over the garden. Should have given them more space. Had a cucumber salad the other day with our first one - delicious!

Peppers - Really producing, 95% of them doing fantastic, a few that I still can't tell if they're going to pull through.

Zucchini - the yellow squash really faltered and still hasn't really recovered. The light green variety I planted from seed died, but I replanted it about a week ago and now I've got three little sprouts. I'm hoping with these temps they catch up soon!

Tomatoes - first Juliet is almost ripe! Hopefully more will follow soon.

Green beans - producing like crazy. We have 2.5 pounds just from the last few days. Will need to look into canning them.

Eggplant - getting established. Not expecting big things any time soon.

Melon - Really taking off, but no little melons yet.

Winter squash - not doing much, I'm hoping with the heat it'll perk up soon.

Onions - almost entirely harvested - only about 10 left, but we have at least 15-25 at home still.

Carrots and beets - still quite a few left, will need to pick soon (but we still have carrots in the fridge!).