Loving Vegetables

...albeit somewhat reluctantly

Part of my internal goals for this garden were to help me love vegetables more. Homegrown, in season, fresh, heirloom veggies are to store bought, well traveled, out of season, grown-for-easy-shipping-rather-than-flavor veggies as looking at a Monet painting in person rather than seeing a fuzzy picture in a book without your reading glasses.

We successfully ate many spinach salads plucked fresh from the garden and they were great. Ditto for the Mesclun Mix of salad (also great on sandwiches). My Latah tomatoes are of a less flavorful variety than some of my later bearers but they are delicious in salads and on sandwiches and I am contemplating drying them for winter stews. Onions clearly belong in everything and potatoes are nature's most perfect food so neither of those have been a problem. My biggest hangups remain some of the green veggies: cooked spinach is still a crime in my mind (it's a texture thing, plain and simple); zucchini is only good in bread or (as I just learned) cookies; cooked broccoli is limp and slimy and I'd rather just eat it raw with ranch.

Today I am changing all of that. Well, except for the cooked spinach- I stand firm there. Apparently the keys to my loving zucchini and cooked broccoli are 1) barely cooking them; and 2) combining them with stove top stuffing. Last night I lightly sauteed some green onions, diced zucchini, and diced ham in a small saucepan, then cooked the stuffing according to the package directions after I had transfered the goodies to a bowl. I topped it with a chopped tomato that warmed in the stuffing and it was fabulous!! Today for lunch I have a slight variation: ham, zucchini, minced onion, and a small amount of the first (!) broccoli from our garden. Oh, and more tomatoes. The broccoli was barely in the pan for a minute when it turned the perfect shade of bright-go-light-green so I took it out while the onions, zucchini, and ham continued to soften and pop. The results: YUM!

Further adventures of the domestic goddess...

Update on the gnocchi: weird and sort of gross. I am not a huge fan. Making it was fun though! Now, most gnocchi is made using potatoes but I chose a ricotta gnocchi which is apparently a popular variation and I happen to love ricotta. So you make it using ricotta, eggs, and parmesean. This particular recipe was for a spinach infused variety and since I happen to have pureed spinach in my freezer I went for it. But just in case spinach-ricotta gnocchi was disgusting I divided the batch into three: the largest portion to be made with spinach puree, the middle portion plain, and the smallest portion to be made with beet puree (which is gross in pancakes but has a gorgeous color nonetheless). Then you add enough flour for the gooey crap to be workable as dough (but no more or the gnocchi will be dense and yucky) and shape the result into little football shapes that get boiled and sauced. Labor intensive but fun. And the result...well, Andrew liked the beet gnocchi best, surprisingly enough. And I am sort of on the fence. We both think they need some more textural interest. Like meat. Or SOMEthing. But I have a feeling the leftovers in our fridge will go bad before we can bring ourselves to pull them back out.

Now my more recent cooking adventures have been better. Last night, in spite of the heat, I made chicken braised with onion, carrots from our garden, a turnip, and (best of all) potatoes from our garden. Now, the potato patch is not yet ready to be fully harvested, but I snuck in like a thief, slid my fingers under the dirt, and pulled out some awesome potatoes. And I felt a lot more down there (*Squeal*). It was soooo good! Tonight I made chicken marinated in lime juice and then cooked with that same lime juice, lime zest, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, and mango chunks. Not as good honestly. It burned a little bit, was extremely limey (after several hours soaking in the juice of two limes, who wouldn't be?), and the mango got all smooshy but fibrous at the same time. Not appealing. Andrew liked it but I couldn't eat it all.

Speaking of the garden, we had our first tomato! Tada! It was a big Latah tomato and quite tasty. I had it on a sandwich after eating the first ceremonial slice (with salt). And more are on the way! Hopefully I will be ROLLING in tomatoes soon.

In other domestic news about the house, we have embarked upon a monstrous cleaning adventure. Over the weekend we cleaned our room AND the closet. I can proudly report that we have unearthed a lot of clothing we had forgotten about entirely, and now have a useable closet. We also have three boxes of clothing and a box of books for a garage sale some friends are having in a few weeks. Go us!

Domestic Goddess (?)

I am feeling all domestic right now. God knows why. The past three nights running I cooked dinner. Sunday night I made Northern-White Girl-Jambalaya for 7. Monday night I went adventurous and cooked Chicken Kiev - this was tricky. It involved creating an herb/lemon butter (using parsley and onions from our garden), then butterflying two breasts and pounding them flat, then putting a chunk of the herb butter on each breast and rolling them up like a burrito in the hopes that the melting butter wouldn't explode out of the chicken like a bursting dam once they got hot. Then they got dredged in flour, dipped in an egg/dijon mustard wash, and rolled in bread crumbs (during which I was praying that my pathetic chicken breast burrito-style lumps wouldn't fall apart and doom me to butterless chicken). Then they went into the oven (toaster oven since it was 400 degrees in our apartment). They definitely dripped butter for most of the time in the oven, but considering I was imagining a butter waterfall of epic proportions (you know that scene in The Shining where the elevator doors open and blood pours out? Like that.) dripping was ok. They turned out fabulous! Andrew contributed to the domesticity by making fried plantains sprinkled with lime juice and salt- which I declared he could make for me any time! Then last night I made red beans and rice with sauteed chicken breasts and corn muffins. Tonight I plan on making spinach and ricotta gnocchi with home-doctored tomato sauce.

Also, yesterday I cleaned the entire kitchen and did all the dishes.

What is with me?! I need an apron or something...

In other news, the garden was a mass of weeds when we came back from vacation and it is still in the process of being reclaimed. Our first tomato is probably 1-2 days from pickable perfection and I cannot wait! We have 6 viable tomato plants at the moment, and one replanted seedling that survived the weed onslaught. I have visions of tomatoes dancing all over my counters. Also the potato plants are falling down. Presumably this means they are now putting all the energy into making delicious starchy tubers just for me! Or they have the plague. Either way.

On the school front, I just emailed a clinic in Coos Bay Oregon about an externship there on one of my last remaining school breaks of EVER. Wish me luck!!

The word "diet" is just "Die" with a t

So Andrew and I have come to the conclusion that we are fatty fats. We didn't used to be but are trending that way. Diets suck and I haven't been to the gym in ages. But we are making some efforts. Andrew has cut sugary soda out almost entirely and relies on Coke Zero (he declares it is better the more you drink it) and sparkling flavored sugar free waters. I have been eating celery and carrots like they are going out of style (smeared gently with reduced fat peanut butter or cream cheese and studded with raisins). The odd effect of eating celery in class instead of baggies of cereal is that I am starving. By lunch time I am ravenous. I want to get dinner going as soon as I get home (even if that is 4:30). It is very weird. As for exercise, Andrew has been lifting weights with Chris and I....am hoping that the weather will freaking clear the heck up so that I can start doing manual labor in the garden and maybe take Luna for some long walks or sommat.

As for weather, Sat was gorgeous, and since then everything has been scitzophrenically going between appallingly hideous weather and clear, sunny skies. It was hailing in two different directions yesterday. Andrew actually took a break from work to come get me so I wouldn't have to walk home in it.

And speaking of the garden, that last gorgeous Saturday of spring break found us out in the dirt, pulling clumps of sod, renting a tiller, tilling, and raking. It was awesome. We put down an entire bale of peat moss and 20 scoops of organic fertilizer. Hopefully once the weather starts acting normal we can start the planting process. Just a few more steps of the planning phase are left, namely finalizing the layout, making a plan for planting dates, and working out a watering schedule for each plant. Yay!

TA DAAA!

Sorry to all of my loyal readers (hi mom!) for the long dry spell.
Last semester was pretty hellish. A lot of dark days in Andrea's psyche. A lot more random breakdowns, crying fits, and panic attacks (yes mom and dad, they are back. It's ok, I know what they are and how to handle them now). I made it through with pretty high test scores all around which is nice. It is good to see studying pay off. Sometimes during Anatomy last year I felt like I could study all damn day and not raise my average test grade a bit. That's a little discouraging. But last semester had a lot of really interesting classes and no formaldehyde exposure. Yay!

This semester is a bit easier so far. I have had one take home test, am working on another, have a test tomorrow and another on Thursday. So we'll see how it all goes.

As for life outside of school, the cats are doing just fine. Jasper is growing and is still a little monkey. Talen has had some ugly bouts of acne but is clear right now. Luna has stopped growing and we have purchased a backpack for her to start training her to be a trail puppy. She is a lot of fun in our house, such a sweet girl! Although a bit destructive. There are some holes worn in our linoleum(before we got there) and Luna found one and expanded it. Possibly we will be redoing the floors at some point...Andrew is looking forward to a man-trip soon with several vet school husbands (another reason that we got Luna's backpack now) and we are spending a lot of time with another couple- Chris and Ashley. They are a lot of fun! Good game nights and good food...excellent. Plus man time for Andrew :)

We spent the first part of today outside in the sunshine. What were we doing? Well, I for one was procrastinating the studying for tomorrow's test. But also, we were starting our garden! We cut the boundaries and started pulling up the sod. Tough work, but I resisted the temptation to rent a sod cutter. The shovels and hoe are doing fine. Plus there is something extremely satisfying about pulling up huge chunks of grass with the claw. I did give in and we took a quick trip to get a wheel barrow. I was hoping to get by without it, but it was soooo much easier hauling the little chunks of sod to the compost pile all in a wheel barrow than two handfuls at a time. We got a good start! But are done for the moment so I can work on Parasitology (right after I finish my blog :P) We have big plans for the garden. My big sib, Kim, said they had a 5x5 garden plot that kept them and several friends rolling in veggies...and our garden is considerably larger than that. I need to order my seeds soon so I can get them started indoors and get them outside just as soon as the freezing is over! I am so excited to be able to go outside and cut myself a salad for dinner!

Although we will need to build a fence covering the entire thing because there is a pretty significant deer population here. Three of them ran past our yard while we were out there, and I saw a herd of about 7-8 once when I was up very early. Stay back from my lettuce!