Jenmenke

Road Warrior

garden

Asparagus

The Honeymoon.

Yes, we are one week into the Honeymoon Stage of our asparagus harvest. That is the time where it is still a joy and a wonder to walk into the garden and find 20-30 spears that grew six inches overnight. I snap them off at the base, bring them in the house, briefly cook them and eat them. Pause over each sweet tender bite. Exclaim their virtues.

Asparagus.

It is the best!

Well, it is the best for about two weeks. After that, the walk into the garden is replaced by shock and dismay: Oh my GOSH. That damn ASPARAGUS! WHO am I going to GIVE it to? WHAT am I going to DO with it? Look at all the asparagus beetles!

But not yet. Now we just eat it and love it.

Soon I will be giving it away by the armload to friends. To each of these people I give a stern warning not to overcook it. The thing with my asparagus (and I assume all fresh-from-the-garden asparagus) is that it cooks in one quarter the time of supermarket asparagus.

Two nights ago, I took the unusual step of timing it so that I could give concrete directions instead of vague advice. So if I die, my husband will be able to feed my children from lessons learned on my website.

See? I’m a good mother after all.

Here you go, Dave (and anyone else who’s interested):

Use a big saute or fry pan, wide enough for your longest spear, add about an inch of water, sprinkle in about 2 teaspoons of salt and bring to a boil. After the water is boiling, add the asparagus, making sure all spears are submerged.

For fresh picked spears, cook no more than 2 minutes and drain. If you aren’t going to eat right away, cool them under cold water or in an ice bath to prevent them from getting mushy.

If you are cooking spears you bought somewhere and you aren’t sure how long to cook them, use a knife to pierce the stem end. It should go in easily, but not be soft or mushy. The tips should still look the same as they did when the were uncooked. The tips are the first part to show overcooking. The triangles will start to get fuzzy looking and may even start to slough off in the water. With fresh asparagus, that happens in a heartbeat! With store bought, you’ve got a little more grace time. If still in doubt, just cut a small piece off the end and taste it. It is my firm believe the stem end should retain some bite. Like an al dente noodle. (That’s the foolproof method to see if it is done.)

Dry the pan out, put on medium heat, and add about 1 tablespoon of either butter or olive oil (for 16-20 spears). Or, if you are decadent, add both. Add the spears back in and roll around in the butter/oil long just enough for the asparagus to get nice and hot — you don’t want to cook them more. Sprinkle with kosher salt, fresh pepper. Squeeze with lemon.  For what it’s worth, I like the combo of lemon juice with butter during the Honeymoon stage, then moving to olive oil with balsamic vinegar for Stage 2.

Garnish with parmesan or pecorino or manchego or whatever you happen to have on hand.

The nice thing about boiling/blanching and then reheating is that you can do it ahead of time. Then, right before serving, heat back up in the oil or butter and garnish. Of course for Caveman Dave, we have to keep some separate. He likes it plain.

We also roast asparagus in the oven and grill it. But that happens after long after the Honeymoon is over.

My Favorite Way to Plant Potatoes

…With a bulb planter

While I like to pretend to know what I’m talking about, in this case, you must take my preachings with a grain of salt.

Or maybe even less.

As I’ve said before, I tend to cut corners on tasks that I don’t care for.

And one of those tasks is planting potatoes.

Truth be told, now that I’m writing about the third consecutive task that I don’t care for in the garden, I am starting to wonder if I really like gardening at all? Could it be possible that I’m only out there to escape questions like “Mom? Mom?… Mom?… ”   To which I yell, WHAT? Only to hear: “Where is Morgan?”

How the Hell would I know where Morgan is?

Yes, the garden beckons…

I love the garden…

And when people say “But it’s so much work. Where do you find the time?”

I just laugh.

[But I still hate planting potatoes.]

So this is the epiphany I had a couple years ago.

Use a bulb planter! Seems to work great. Why dig a whole row when you only need to get the one spud down deep?

Oh, and also? Buy enough potatoes so that you don’t have to cut them up. It’s a pain. And I’ve heard that cut potatoes are more susceptible to rot. So why bother? Seed potatoes (from the grocery store) cost practically nothing. Just buy enough whole ones and pick out the smallest ones you can find.

Soooooo. Much. Easier.

Have I written about my red potatoes? The ones I planted from last year? Good grief. I can’t remember… OK, I just checked. And I didn’t. I think I’m losing it….

Anyway, remember the crazy red potatoes I joked about using for Meatless Monday Eight? No, I didn’t actually cook them, but I did plant them! In Mid-March, no less, due to our ridiculously early Spring here in Minnesota.

Never before have I been able to keep potatoes full circle–from planting to storage to planting again– so I am very excited. I’m a bit worried about how soft they were and how long the sprouts were, but I figure if they don’t produce, I will still have time to replace them.

And, once again, I will be able to proclaim that I made something out of garbage from the garden! You see, I rescued these withered beauties from the compost bucket, where Dave unceremoniously dumped them a few weeks ago.

I will keep you updated on their progress.

Provided I remember to do so…

How Not to Plant Shallots

Ignore that picture, as there is nothing wrong with it.

What I should have done is take a picture of the date next to the cute little rows off pointy-headed bulbs. Because that would be more appropriate with the title of this post.

You see, I am approximately 4.5 months late planting my shallots. I know that I have mentioned my ‘to-do list’ strategy, right? The one where I keep a running list of what I need to do in the next day or two? I’ll go a step further. This is the actual list:

Followed by excerpts from the next two months of lists:

…where you will note that an empty circle is an unfinished task. As we progress from October to December — when the ground is frozen solid — I finally gave up and scratched “Plant Shallots” out and off the list forever. Until I rediscovered the bag of bulbs in the garage yesterday…

Funny, though, as I look back on these lists, the other things I have forgotten to do… A client’s thing… My Mom’s photo mug… Another client thing… And that damn Greenhouse Motor. Which you will be happy to know that I finally figured out how to detach, pack up and send off for repair. I finally crossed it off my list.

Yesterday.

On 3/17/2010.

A full five months and ten days after it was first written down on 10/7/2009 (see above).

So anyway, the shallots. The truth is, I simply didn’t get them in the ground before it froze last fall. Then I rationalized that, since the directions that came on the package said, “Plant shallots in the ground immediately upon delivery in all but the coldest northern regions.”

That’s not that far of a stretch, is it? We’re pretty damn cold and pretty far north. Still, I think given that we plant garlic in the fall, the shallots should have gone into the ground with them.

So I planted them yesterday. Which is not the correct way, but I’m crossing my fingers that 1) the bulbs are still viable, and 2) the bulbs will grow. We shall wait and we shall see. They will be in for plenty of wild weather, but they would have gotten that if they went in the ground last fall, too.

Now: do you think I should gamble and plant these, since I decided not to cook them and serve them to Dave?

I think I should. Please chime in.

Tis the Season

…For Poop

Sorry for that sick photo, but you either a) get it, or b) don’t. If you don’t, then you obviously do not own a dog in a northern state that receives any appreciable snowfall.

I do.

And I am making my annual rounds on poop duty. It is a thankless job. If you miss the precious window of time where the poop is exposed from under the snow, yet still mostly frozen, all is lost. You will find yourself smearing and fighting waterlogged masses that you would far prefer not to ever have to even look at, much less try and pick up and dispose of.

So that’s what I did yesterday. That and pretty much take all my clothes off and run around in the Mid March Minnesota HEATWAVE! It was sunny, after five straight days of rain and dense fog, only to have the clouds vanish, the sun appear and the mercury soar to SIXTY! In the cities, I heard it got to 64 which was warmer than PHOENIX! Crazy talk.

I worked outside all day and felt my winter fat melt away.

I wish.

The fat. I wish the fat had melted away in one day. Wouldn’t that be awesome? I can’t be the only one who thinks things like that.

I cleaned the chicken coop out and let them outside for the first time since last December

I used the manure-laden shavings to fertilize the raspberries

And to feed the small rodent-chasing dog, known as Poopy. For not only does she like to poop in my house, but she clearly likes to eat it as well!

I spread the rest in the garden which is starting to emerge from under the snow and found these amazing living things!

Thyme and strawberry plants? Do strawberry plants typically look like this after a winter of subzero days and nights? I wouldn’t know because I just planted them last year…

And I found this mess staring at me. I know what I have to do soon and I don’t want to do it…. one of my most hated jobs of spring is cutting the old asparagus plants. In fact, it reminds me that this blog is a year old, because it was one of the first things I ever wrote about!

I raked driveway rock off the grass and nearly died from exhaustion. No photos.

I went in to the greenhouse, found the fat cat lolling in the sun (it was about 80 degrees in there)

Then noticed that my previously mentioned crispy rosemary plants had some glimmers of life (see the brighter green in the second pic)

So happy! Plus, the healthy ones are starting to bloom!

Note cat hair above and to the left of bloom and what looks like a human jennie hair directly behind bloom.

Never mind.

I’m sure we’ll get walloped with more snow and sub-zero temps, but this one day was pure heaven.

Meatless Monday Seven!

And Valentine’s Day wrapped up in one.

Dave gave me two cookbooks for Valentine’s Day. One was an Indian cookbook and the other was a vegetarian cookbook. Which proves that even though he is pissing and moaning about Meatless Mondays, he is – in fact – encouraging me to continue.

I was very excited. I made an Indian pork dish for our Valentine’s Day dinner. I know that sounds like an oxymoron, being that most Indians don’t eat pork, but apparently a few in the south do (The Christian ones, the recipe states). It was delicious. Even my daughter’s friend — a notoriously picky eater — liked it. And that’s saying something.

So, for Meatless Monday Seven, I decided to cook something out of the other one. The vegetarian one. Both cookbooks have lovely pictures — a must, for me. I know there are many, many, many fabulous cookbooks that don’t have pictures. They just don’t appeal to me anymore. Maybe I don’t have the time to really delve in. I don’t know. I judge cookbooks-by-their-covers and that’s all there is too it.

The point is, these both had lovely pictures.

However, after cooking out of both. The Indian is in the lead. The vegetarian one has two fails so far. And I’m wondering:

Can I return it and say I don’t like it after having used it? Like you supposedly can with make-up you have already opened? Even though I don’t actually return make-up I have already opened and hate? Because it just seems wrong? Then I’m mad and vow to stop buying make-up at the drugstore from now on. When I should just return it. Anyone else suffer this same madness? Madness as in — mental illness?

Anyway.

I wonder what Barnes and Nobel would say if I brought it back and said, “The cellophane noodles called for in the recipe for Thai Spicy noodles are clearly NOT cellophane noodles in the photo. I want my money back!”

Because that really bugs me.

Don’t take a picture of the finished dish and make it look better with different noodles than the recipe calls for. That’s FRAUD!

Being that I am generous and forgiving in nature, I did not give up on this cookbook for that obvious failing. I generously cooked not one, but two recipes from it: 1) Refritos Gateau and 2) Sage Buttered Parsnips.

Let’s start with 2), because it’s faster: Sage Buttered Parsnips are, well… sage. buttered. parsnips. That’s the “recipe.” Cook parsnips, drain and mix with sage and butter. I fricken’ kid you not. But still I made them. I even followed the recipe for once! Oooh. Aaah. They were AMAZING. Ohh. ah. This cookbook. Is. Amazing!!

Moving on to 1) Refritos Gateau. It sounded quite promising. In the end though, it was little more than refried beans with melted cheese and sour cream. All the other stuff in the photo at the top? That was my attempt to cover up the ghastly-looking patties so that my family wouldn’t barf when they sat down to dinner. I’m sure it wasn’t any coincidence that caused the editors to skip Refritos Gateau when selecting recipes to photograph for the cookbook.

It tasted just fine. It was even good. It simply did not deserve 1 hour of my time when I could have just as easily opened three cans of beans, popped them in the microwave with some cheese and served them with sour cream, avocados and other miscellaneous accouterments.

Because that was what it tasted like. Nevermind the sautéed onions, eggs (? Yes. eggs. which were a complete waste of delicious fresh eggs) and the other blather called for in the recipe. Dividing it, baking it, in two springform pans (!), assembling it, warming it in the oven, spreading it with sour cream, back into the oven, blah blah blah, waste my time no more!

I will not give up on this book yet. I will give it more chances and report back. But if it continues on this downward path, look out. Hell hath no fury like a cook scorned. And I will unleash that fury with ratings anywhere and everywhere I can. (Just ask the poor sods who sent me the wrong furnace filter and made me pay the return shipping.)

(Valentines Day is not just for people)

World’s Smallest German Shorthair Pointer

mutant asparagus

Or is it the World’s Tallest Asparagus?

It’s really hard to show just how tall the asparagus really is. I suppose I should be in the shot, to show the human proportion, but then, you’d all see how gross I look. (But just so you know, it is way taller than 5’7″ me.)

Actually, I am really liking this camera. I can’t believe how good it makes me look:

All cameras should have this feature. Who needs wrinkle cream?
All cameras should have this feature. Who needs wrinkle cream?

This, my friends, is called auto focus. And what was focused was the post behind me. I kind of like it that way. Who need skin-enhancing software — or wrinkle cream, for that matter, when there is the much cheaper out-of-focus option available?

Here is a better picture of a different post (that is falling down). The sweet dumpling squash planted on the right side of the fence is in the process of actually crawling and climbing onto the falling-down fence. It is soon to overtake the garlic, planted on the left, which needs to hurry up and mature. Otherwise, where it stands now, planted between the mutant asparagus and creeping squash, it doesn’t stand a chance.

sweet dumpling squashI’m thinking that a new feature of this site could be WWYT (what were you thinking). That’s a nod to my soon-to-be-published friend Sheila, who got picked for a mention in David Pogue’s Twitter book. He liked her acronym. And so do I. But since adding a tab might take three years to figure out on wordpress, I’ll just randomly throw them in. Today’s is:

Strawberries: WWYT?

StrawberriesWhy you ask? Because you have to be INSANE to try to grow strawberries in a home garden. It only makes you realize that you must be ingesting some pretty effing insane amounts of pesticides when you eat the spankin’ clean berries from the store. These are my strawberries. And I share them with the birds, the bugs, and Lord only knows what else. ( I cut them up, lest my family figure out that the other half of the berry they are eating was recently in the mouth of a chipmunk.)