Semi-formal Garden Party
Sorry for the lack of posts lately; James and I have been on the road for a good week and a half - Rochester, Buffalo, Bloomfield, Cape Cod... I have lots of photos. Fortunately I got a new laptop so things will be up with more regularity in the future. Also, Google Chrome made the photo updates on this (relatively) quick! Google's secret motto is "Be evil only in secret", but I appreciate their superficial virtues.
Tim, Dana, James, Harriet, and I got back from Cape Cod last night and we were all excited about the garden, since we hadn't seen it for five days. The night before we left for the Cape, we collectively made three chard dishes (a quiche, sauteed chard with lemon, and chard crisps), broccoli, braised radishes, fresh salad, Bittman's "Japanese" green beans (with miso and almonds), and Mom made a raspberry pie. The overabundance of food has led to frazzled cooks and frantic recipe searches and fat-cheeked Shaffers and raspberry stains. In any case, I'm relieved that Tim has stopped experimenting with making us eat milkweed and tiger lilies.
After the four or five cups Mom picked before we left, I think we picked more last night when we got back. They are fat and sweet and there are billions of them. James took this shot of me picking raspberries. After being in the car all day, picking raspberries was what I wanted to do. That and drink a G&T.
Like my hat?
Tim took pictures, too, which was weird. He never takes pictures.
The secret to picking raspberries (or any kind of berry) is to lay on the ground and look up. You can see all the berries... except you have to be extra dextrous to not drop them. Our raspberry bounty:
So far I've made buckwheat-raspberry scones and I am also planning on making a raspberry flaugnarde. I've made one before with grapefruit slices and it was delicious, although a little tart. Flaugnardes are the same as clafoutis: cherries laid on the bottom of a dish and covered with an eggy mixture so that they are on top when you take it out (clafir is 'to fill'). It's custardy and great served warm or cold (or in between) with a powdered sugar sprinkled on top. Clafoutis, though, is only with cherries (sometimes not pitted); flaugnardes are filled with anything else.
The buckwheat scones filled with fresh raspberries were great with coffee.
The next batch of raspberries gets the mochi cake treatment! Yum... I've been meaning to experiment making a less dense version than the one I made for the gluten freers at Gram's birthday party. There don't seem to be many savory raspberry recipes except for in sauces. I suppose I could make a raspberry balsamic reduction that would be great on salad with raspberries. Last night James put a handful in the sauce for arugula-feta pizza.
Besides the raspberry bushes, the garden exploded. The arugula on the pizza was planted a few weeks ago and is a little bug-eaten but great - not bitter, but peppery. James picked out a starter eggplant a few weeks ago and it's about half a foot long now. We also picked a bunch of zucchini and more string beans.
The broccoli is giant and tender. Good enough to eat raw, which I usually don't like. I am looking forward to roasting some, though - I might be able to do that tonight.
The peas are doing well, too.
No red tomatoes yet; Tim thinks this is because he didn't cut down the bushes enough. Now we have about 6 or 7 huge tomato plants with a ton of green tomatoes (some of which James put in the tomato sauce for the pizza).
We have way more lettuce than we can handle, and it's great sweet lettuce.
The hot pepper plants are flowering, which is a good sign.
We've also got tons of radishes and chard, and of course, the herb trees (sage, basil, rosemary, and the thyme I transplanted from the Indian Ladder Trail in Thacher Park). The carrots (which for awhile we thought was parsley until the orange started showing), turnips, blackcaps and onions are still cookin'.
I hope to post photos from various trips across NY and the Cape at some point, but don't hold your breath. Too much cat petting, dog walking, sun bathing, veggie cooking, string bean munching, book reading, liberal viewpoint touting to other hippy viewpoint holders to do here in the backwoods.