The strangest season of Calgarian summer is upon us.. when all the food shoots out of the ground at once and we have more than we could hope to eat! It is wonderful and flies by in a flash. Of course it happens at a crazily busy time of year, and I find myself blanching spinach at 11:00 at night in my pj's, remembering that I ran out of frozen greens in November last year. Our garden has been a mixed bag this year, great weather but things haven't come up very quickly. I suspect we need to do more to build up the soil. As much as I wince at the thought of paying for compost, we don't have the capacity to produce a lot of it ourselves at the moment. I am just beginning to learn about green manure and such, so I'm looking forward to applying more permaculture techniques next year. Luckily for us, the neighbor has too much chard and spinach, and has begged us to thin it out for him. Well, if we must. Actually the pic above is the thinnings from our beets, aren't they purdy.. also in the frame: spice rack built by Evan's dad, spice labels courtesy of martha stewart's website.. on the left in an old salad dressing bottle, a bit of that white wine vinegar I made a while back. I highly recommend giving vinegar making a try, the end result is really nice and is adding a lot to the endless salads of this month. A good way to deal with old plonk. The beautiful red and white enamel collander was given to me by my step-grandmother, Candace.
Speaking of pretty things, here I attempted to take a pic of the current pride of the kitchen, goose measuring spoons given to me by my dear friend Kathy. Even though I try to practice non-attachment I must admit I am rather attached to these. Especially since they get along so well with the squirrel holding acorn salt and pepper shakers. Just pretend this is a proper photo instead of a terrible point-and-shoot atrocity. Curse you glossy red wall paint.. one day I really will learn how to take proper photographs.
Posts
3 comments:
Non-attachment is really hard with things like that, isn't it? But probably it is ok to enjoy them while they are with you and your other lovely things :)
What do you do with your beet greens? I like the young ones in salads, but I grew up on beat leaf cabbage rolls. Not around rice, mind you, but around bread dough. Then you bake them, then bake them again doused in cream and dill. So very Ukrainian
Bread rolls, that's a new one, I like the sound of it. I'm not Ukrainian but I love the food having grown up in AB... I have to say kielbasa makes me reconsider vegetarianism on a regular basis:)
I use greens like spinach in lots of cooked dishes, I use spinach, chard and beet greens pretty much interchangeably. Just made chard rolls tonight, filled with bulgur pilaf. A successful experiment..
Post a Comment