Goji and Figs

We're hoping to get Goji berries this year.
And I've ordered a Fig tree, which I'm planning to grow in a pot outside in the summer and indoors in the winter.

The heater is on in the greenhouse and the water is up.  The soil is thawing, and I'm working on the planting sheets and today I will get all the new seeds ordered into their respective ziploc bags by planting dates.  I have also booked my first appointment for plant pickup.

Looks like we're in the groove for another season.  Next time I'll post some of the new things I'm trying this year.

Impossible Recipes

Two more seed orders came in, but there is no gardening to report, so I will share my collection of Impossible Recipes:

Impossible Pie (healthy enough to eat for breakfast--as it bakes, it forms a soft crust, a custard filling and a macaroon topping.

Lightly grease (or spray) a 10” pie plate  Preheat oven to 350˚ oven.

5 eggs (medium to large)

½ c sugar

2 c milk

½ c flour

1 c coconut

2 T butter (or margarine), melted

2 tsp. vanilla or orange, banana or pineapple extract

In blender mix ingredients in order given.  Pour into prepared pie pan.  Bake till knife inserted in center comes out clean (40-45 min)

Impossible Cheeseburger Pie

 Preheat oven to 400˚, grease a 10” pie plate

1 lb. ground beef

1 ½ cups chopped onion

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

1 ½ cup milk

¾ cup Bisquick or any brand biscuit mix

3 eggs

2 tomatoes sliced

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Brown beef and onion, drain.  Stir in salt and pepper.  Spread in plate.  Beat milk, baking mix and eggs until smooth, about 15 sec. in blender on high, or 1 minute with hand beater.  Pour into plate.  Bake 25 minutes.  Top with tomatoes, sprinkle with cheese, bake again until knife inserted in center comes out clean (5-8 min.).  Cool 5 min.  6-8 servings.

(High altitude:  increase first bake time to 30 min.)

Note:  I've been cutting down/out salt, but this recipe really needs the salt.  I made it today and had forgotten this.  It was good, but would have been scrumptious with the salt.

Impossible Taco Pie

Heat oven to 400˚  Grease 10” pie plate

1 lb. ground beef

½ c. chopped onion

1 packet (1 ¼ oz) taco seasoning mix

1 can (4 oz), chopped green chilies, drained

1 ¼ cups milk

¾ c. Bisquick or any brand of biscuit mix

3 eggs

2 tomatoes sliced

1 c. shredded Monterrey Jack or Cheddar cheese (or tex-mex mix)

Cook and stir beef and onions till browned.  Drain.  Stir in seasoning mix.

Spread in plate; top with chilies.  Beat milk, baking mix and eggs until smooth, 15 sec in blender or 1 minute with hand beater.  Pour into plate.  Bake 25 minutes.  Top with tomatoes and cheese.  Bake until knife inserted in center comes out clean (about 8-10 minutes longer).  Cool 5 minutes.  Serve with sour cream, chopped tomatoes, shredded lettuce, chopped green onions and shredded cheese if desired.  6-8 servings

High Altitude:  no adjustments necessary.

The first seed order (and a soil test kit) came in.  Just got confirmation of another big order being sent.
The truck with pots and other supplies is due on Thursday. 
February 15th is looking closer and closer.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Christmas Preparations and Some Feathery Visitors

We love our feathery friends. The male grosbeak was quite co-operative posing for the photo.

 The female--yellow head, was playing coy in all the shots.

 The male again.  These large birds are members of the Finches.  They look like Common Redpolls on steroids.

 Traditional Shortbread Cookies.

 Austrian tradition "Vanillekipferl"=vanilla crescents.  A hazelnut shortbread made into crescent shapes, dusted with vanilla sugar and icing sugar.

 Pound cakes, cherry cake on the left, baking jellies on the right.

Honey cookies--these have to mellow and soften for a couple of weeks.

Almond Roca, not cut (or broken) into pieces yet.










This is only the beginning.  I put away the Poppy Seed Sugar Cookies already, as well as ginger snaps, a new recipe for cardamom shortbread that I hope improves with age (they are only ok right now--not great).
There is still lots on the baking agenda.  If I could send you the aromas I would do that.

The other blog has the story of a tree-raising.  Drop over.

Something messed with the formatting.  Don't have time to fix: sorry :((

Tomatoes Goodbye, Christmas Baking, Hello

Yesterday I finished the last tomatoes, just peeled them and stuck them in the freezer--2 pkg of 3+ lbs.  They look so pretty against my new countertop (or is it the countertop that looks pretty next to the tomatoes?)

I just finished placing all the orders for the 2013 greenhouse season:  trees and shrubs, strawberries, perennials, all different colors of raspberries:  red, purple, black (I didn't want any yellow ones because I don't have the room, and nutritionally, when it comes to berries, the darker, the healthier.  I ordered a different Haskap pollinator, so we should have a lot of good production in that patch.

I also ordered the cutting materials:  geraniums, Martha Washingtons, pot stuffers, hanging basket plants, spikes, grasses.......................

And lots of seeds. I am trying Sophistica Lime petunias and a black petunia from seed (but ordered black plants just to be safe).

I was happy to get nice black square patio pots in many sizes, and one style that still comes in green.  I, personally, don't like terra cotta and sand-colored pots--I don't think they show off the plants.  I love black pots and green pots, especially when the green get older and get a verdi-gris appearance.

This week I have a big pumpkin to bake.  I don't need a big pumpkin right now, but it's just right in the ripeness department, so I'll bake and mash it and freeze it in recipe-size portions.  Can't wait for some muffins.

As I posted earlier on, we had a lot of squashes, so I will share my recipe for squash soup with you.  We like it best with butternut squash, but since I didn't get any of those from the garden, but lots of acorn squashes, I bought a butternut and added an acorn and it's good.  If you look at the picture of the Dill Pickle soup, it looks much the same.

Squash Soup

2 or 3 squash, grated (I use about 1/2-3/4 of my 7-qt. dutch oven full)

5 cloves garlic, minced (or more)

1 large onion, chopped

4Tbs. butter (I use non-hydrog margarine or oil)

1/16 to 1/8 tsp cayenne pepper (we like the hot end)

1/2 to 3/4 tsp curry powder (I use the higher end)

1 box low-sodium chicken broth

half and half cream (I use a can of 2% evap. milk)

Melt butter, add shredded squash, garlic and onion.  Heat until soft.  Add enough chicken broth to cover (if the box of broth doesn't do it, I add water)  Add cayenne pepper and curry powder.  Simmer till everything is tender.  Blend in blender (I use the Vita-Mix).  Return to heat and add cream or milk.  Do not boil after cream/milk is added.

I really chilled my green thumb today.  I must admit I had a real mess in the Living Room with all my knitting works in progress and a few others spread out all over.  Kubota Man is showing signs of allergies, which means I have to be a neater housekeeper, particularly dusting.  We are planning on removing the rugs and weighing the pros and cons of alternates.  In the meantime, I did a real good cleaning job.  

I plan on doing Christmas cards this weekend--and couldn't find the address book--which I used a couple of weeks ago to phone my siblings to update them of Mom's declining health.  We spent a week with stuff all over because the new counter tops were installed.  After all the cabinet contents were replaced, and the living room was thoroughly  cleaned, there was no sign of the address book.

Then I had a bright idea!!  I bet it fell into my wastebasket in the living room, right beside me where I drop snipped ends.  But KM had already taken the garbage out to the big trailer.  So that's how I chilled my green thumb.  Took out a bucket of vegetable trimmings to the compost pile, snapped some photos of hoarfrost, and climbed in the trailer to look for the address book.  It WAS there.

I

It's really not Santa's fault.  It's that Christmas baking that I'll be doing next week.  It's not even the baking's fault--it's my EATING the baking.

Pop on over to my other blog to catch up with my Christmas knitting and the new countertop.

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends.

As "Canadian" as Mom's Apple Pie

We got two boxes and a couple of pails of late apples.  So, not to waste, I decided I'd better start sorting them and use up the less-than-perfect ones that won't keep.  So here is my day's effort:  Nutritious Apple crisp--reduced in sugar and minimal butter in the oatmeal crust, and heavy on the cinnamon.

And 6 apple pies--I don't think I ever in my whole life made 6 pies in one sitting.  I used Splenda on the apples, heavy on the cinnamon, and just the teeniest dabs of butter on the apples.

Of course, we can't waste that leftover pie crust, so we must make butter tarts.  there is absolutely nothing redeeming (in a healthy sense) in these.

I also need to pat myself on the back, because all the seed orders are done, and the orders for started plants.  We will be getting black petunias and their yellow/black, pink/black counterparts.  Some lovely new shades of Calibrachaoa (Million Bells) and a whole lot of other fun stuff.
Now it's Christmas knitting time.  You can keep up with this Here.

My green thumb efforts have been to save tomato seeds from an heritage variety "Brookpact", for whom we can't buy seeds any more, as well as remembering to water the few plants I brought in for stock plants--orange mint, peppermint, spearmint, chocolate mint, English mint, Spanish Lavender, Cuban Oregano, Stinky Plant (aka Scat plant, Skunk Plant), which is reported to keep cats out of flower beds, Perilla, French tarragon, Creeping Rosemary and Upright Rosemary.

Till next time.

Dill Pickle Soup

Right in the middle on the leaf that is the shiniest--a reward!!  I really neglect my house plants.  I don't really like these Christmas cacti, but they are my mom's, who really loved them.  I am keeping 4 pots for her, but she is in a Nursing Home and doesn't even remember her cacti or her home, so I sort of take care of them.  Now these plants are so grateful--and they don't know that they are Christmas cacti, because every time they get neglected to the point of looking sickly, and I feel bad and water them, (regardless of what time of year), they reward me with a huge flush of blossoms:  white, red, orange, fuchsia pink.  Then I remember the mom I used to know.......

I invited the neighbors over for lunch, and since she is an incredible cook, I wanted to make something that she has not likely cooked, that tastes really good, so I made Dill Pickle Soup  You might say:  Yukk!!  Argh!!  Dill Pickle Soup?
There is a story behind this.  A couple of Saturdays ago, I went to a church-related all-day meeting in Wetaskiwin.  Lunch was catered by a restaurant, and I was intrigued by this soup--but they wouldn't give out the recipe, so I had to play with veggies and dill pickles till I got something similar.  Here it is:

OK, so this picture doesn't stimulate the olfactory nerves one bit, and it could be any kind of soup.  So here is how it goes, for the brave and curious.

Dill Pickle Soup
This is not exactly a measured recipe.  It's how grandmas used to cook--by tasting.  I'll give the numbers of my first pot, which was about 3/4 of a dutch oven full--enough for two lumberjacks to eat and two cupfuls for lunch the next day.

4 med. potatoes in chunks
2 carrots sliced
1 onion chopped
3 garlic cloves minced
a stalk of celery
1 large or 2 smaller dill pickles chopped, also chop the dill weed from the jar and the pickled garlic from the jar  (do storebought pickles even have garlic and dillweed?)
Ground black pepper
Chili pepper flakes (according to your hot taste) 
oil
1 box of low-sodium chicken broth and 2 c. water
1 can evaporated milk (I use 2%)
Fresh dill, finely chopped according to taste (or frozen or dried)
Juice from dill pickle jar
 
Put a couple of Tbs of oil in the pot,  cook garlic and onions till onions are clear or golden.  Add potatoes, carrots, celery  and spices, fry gently till all is coated.  Add the broth and water, the dill and garlic and chopped dill pickles and the garlic and dill weed from the jar.  Bring to the boil and simmer till the potatoes and carrots are soft.  Blend in blender--may have to do in batches.  Add a bit of water if it is too thick.  Return to pot, add chopped fresh dill, taste, add dill pickle juice to taste.  Simmer a bit longer.  Add the whole can of milk--do not boil any more after the milk is added, simmer a bit, taste, add more pickle juice and more dill if needed.  Add salt to taste (I don't add salt).

I've made this twice so far, each time it was a bit different, but really good.

I will definitely be putting more dill weed in the jars from now on.