A Party

It's Karen's birthday, and we had a party!  She lives on the East Coast, and we are on the West. Speaker phones are perfect.  We had her on the phone in the middle of the table while we sang the usual birthday song and ate dinner. Hard to give her a birthday hug through the phone, but it was lovely to have her voice joining us in our celebration.

Birthday Party!

Our dessert in her honor was Angel Food Cake drizzled with fresh Raspberry Puree and a side of Mexican Strawberry Chocolate Ice Cream*.  Besides being grateful for these lovely Things I get to do today in her behalf, the excuse to make this ice cream was most welcome. Thank you, Karen! May you enjoy this coming year to the fullest.









*Mexican Strawberry Chocolate Ice Cream

2 Cups whipping cream divided.

Strawberry Puree mixing with cream and sugar and cinnamon

3/4 Cup sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
Dash of salt

Heat one cup of the cream with the sugar, cinnamon and salt.  Bring to a boil. Cool completely. Add the remaining cup of cream. Stir in

2 Cups pureed fresh or frozen strawberries
2 Tablespoon of white rum

Chill well before freezing.
Freeze in a 2 quart ice cream maker.  Just before the ice cream is firm enough, drizzle in

2 Ounces of melted dark chocolate.  The churning of the ice cream will cause the chocolate to form thin chards through out.

Clean-Out-the-Crisper, Full-Circle Salad

Tired mushrooms, softening pepper, yellow carrots and
 half a beet found this spring over-wintered in the garden,
broccoli stalks, arugula gleaned  when one of the garden beds
was cleaned up  and fresh eggs from the girls.   Left over chicken (not shown)

I'm not a cook.  But I do cook. Most of the time it's fun.  And it's always part of the Things I get to do today, so I look for ways to be creative--most of the time. Sometimes I just look for ways to get my husband and myself fed. Not to be overlooked are those moments when the great cycles of life all converge:  "no food" in the house, meal time, fridge needs cleaning out.  Ever happen at your house?

Full-Meal Deal

This galactic converging slammed into my kitchen the other night.  We had Clean-Out-the-Crisper, Full-Circle Salad.  You immediately get emptying the fridge drawer onto the kitchen counter.  The salad also included bits of chicken and hard-boiled eggs. Not knowing which came first, I included the full circle.

Thistle Soup

Cardoon plant is about 4 ft. across and 3 ft. tall

Not even Eeyore likes to eat thistles. "Hot!" he says. Sharp points, I say. These big cousins to thistles and artichokes have their own share of spines.  The points are definitely not for eating.

I knew nothing about cardoons when I was gifted some seeds last spring. They are cold-hardy perennials, so in the middle of winter, when fresh greens were scarce, my lovely hens celebrated Christmas with a feast of cardoon leaves and thought it was the best.

Since these are the biggest edible thing in my garden right now,  I decided to make a favorite soup from Moosewood's Restaurant Daily Special "Artichoke Heart Soup,"* substituting prepared cardoon stalks for the celery and artichokes.

Can be topped with Parmesan cheese for extra punch

The result was excellent in flavor and texture and was a creative way to use produce on hand.  I love to go into the garden, especially when not much else is yet available, and harvest a good portion of our dinner.

De-stringed, boiled and ready to go.

So if you decide to plant cardoon, here are a few tips: They can be started early spring indoors and moved out.  The outer stalks can be harvested--remove the edge spines and leafy portion.  It will then look much like celery--remove the rib strings.  Cut into 1" lengths and boil in salted water with several tablespoons of lemon juice for one hour or until tender.   Now its ready to be cooked into something that even Eeyore would eat.





*CARDOON THISTLE SOUP
(serves 5-6)
1 T olive oil
1 cup thinly sliced onions
3 garlic cloves, minced or pressed
2 cups cardoon pieces chopped coarsely in a food processor
1 can chopped tomatoes (14 oz.)
2 cups frozen or fresh peas
4 cups broth--more is you like it thinner
1 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 t dried basil
1 t salt
1/4 t freshly gourd black pepper
Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)

Warm the oil in the large non reactive soup pot and sauté the onions and garlic on medium heat for 5 minutes, until lightly browned, stirring occasionally.  Meanwhile chop the cardoon pieces.  When the onions are golden, add the cardoon and cook for 5 minutes,  continuing to stir.

Stir in the tomatoes, stock, lemon juice, basil, salt and pepper, increase the heat to medium-high, and cook for about 10 minutes.  Stir in the peas.  Heat through.  Serve topped with grated cheese, if you wish.

A Gathering of Greens

My favorite fresh salad is different and the same every time I make it.  It's the same because the list of ingredients is always the same:  whatever is currently growing in the yard.  It's different because whatever is currently growing changes just a little everyday.  "Gathering greens" isn't but could be on the "Things I get to do today" everyday.

If your pockets are empty and you want a feeling of tremendous abundance, take your kitchen container and wander around the garden/yard and pick a little from here and there until you have enough:  some tips from the fall-planted pea vines, a few sprigs of the fennel planted by Lynn a couple of years ago, leaves from the sorrel--a gift from Teresa before she moved, a handful of purslane (a common garden weed), a fistful of kale, a good-size bunch of Arugula that volunteered, a bit of dill (also a volunteer), blossoms from the calendula that grows wherever it's not actively pulled up once it is seeded,  blue borage blossoms (they are new in my garden this year, but I understand they do the same) and a whole color wheel of tomatoes.

Only the tomatoes took any care on my part to grow and even half of them were gifts from friend Susan.  Nearly everything came from the good heart of another person or just grew up on its own (volunteered).

Dinner from one the possible combinations of gathering greens.

The exquisite end result feeds much more than the body.  There are nutrients in this salad that will never exist in store-bought produce.  Plants grown with love feed us in a way the food grown for money never can.  Get out there a gather your greens*.

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*(Use your head.  Don't pick or pull up poisonous plants for your salad).