Gator Pam

Yep, %. My two raised beds are also in a community garden, which is located in a County park. It is amazing how many patrons of the park read “Community Garden” on the signage and interpret that as “the public can help themselves” as if it is a U-pick operation. Our biggest problem is deer and voles, though. Thankfully the voles focus more on the in-ground plots than the raised beds, but the deer definitely liked my corn last year. I tend to like the tomatoes to ripen on the vines to about 70%; more than that and I risk losing them. When I harvested the tomatoes above, all the rest were bright green. We started to get the rain that night, and when I returned to the garden the next day some of the tomatoes were turning yellow-ish, but not really blushing at all yet. I left them on the vines, and the rain continued through the night, but had let up this morning. When I checked on the tomatoes again, some of the larger green ones had stretch marks, but the skins had not actually cracked. The yellow-ish ones were the same, although the stretch marks were more pronounced. But none were actually cracked yet. I went ahead and left them on the vines to turn more red than yellow. Hopefully the stretch marks won’t get any worse.

Today’s tomato harvest from the raised beds. These are far less ripe than my preferred stage for picking, but again with the potential rain coming the next few days I didn’t want to risk them splitting. I have quite a few green ones still on the vines. Hopefully they’ll weather the influx of water without splitting or developing blossom end rot. They’re a mix of the four different varieties growing in my raised beds: Black Krim Mortgage Lifter San Marzano-style and Selitz

With the nearly total inch of rain expected over the next couple of days here on the Eastside of Seattle, I went ahead and harvested my Mystery tomatoes, as I didn’t want to risk them splitting. For those unaware, I saved seeds from Kumato tomatoes I bought from Trader Joe’s, unaware at the time that they are a hybrid and will not reproduce exactly the same. Since Kumato is proprietary, I don’t know exactly what the parent tomatoes are like, since they mostly have generic ID names. So, I had no idea when they would be fully ripe, nor what they would taste like. How the colored ones looked on the vine Clustered together after picking The one I decided to try, as it is the least firm. Pepper mill for scale. Looks quite nice! I cut out the core, since it was still quite green, then lightly salted each half. A touch tangy with some nice sweetness. The half where I removed the core was more tangy, whereas the other half was slightly more sweet. I haven’t decided if I’ll save seed from them for next year. I think it will depend on how many total I wind up with.

Yesterday my landlords and I attended a pot luck brunch game party. We brought a brunch enchilada casserole made by my landlord and I made blintz casserole with homemade strawberry glaze/pie filling and homemade blueberry pie filling to be used as toppings. We also brought along sour cream to use as a topping for both casseroles as well. The hosts made French toast, and the other couple in attendance brought a variety of sausage. Frozen blintzes layered in stoneware in a single layer and rolled to coat in melted butter Soufflé batter poured around and over the blintzes Puffy and slightly browned Enchilada Casserole My plate, starting from 12 noon and going clockwise: French Toast My Blintz Cassetole tipped with strawberry, blueberry, and sour cream Enchilada Casserole topped with sour cream Various pieces of sausage

My first attempt at braiding garlic. This is month long cured hardneck garlic from my raised beds. Not the prettiest, but it’s my first time and I understand braiding hardneck garlic is more difficult. The third (and last) braid came out the best, in my opinion. There is definitely plenty of room for improvement. No place to hang these, so for now they’ll reside in the garage.

Rabbit Rabbit! Rabbit!!

My two year old artichoke transplant I put into my raised bed in March is thriving. I already harvested the main flower in mid-June, and we enjoyed it steamed with dinner. Even this first flower was on the small side for us, so I decided to allow the side shoots to all bloom and attract pollinators to the bed. The first one is now blooming, although I hope to get all eight side shoots to bloom at the same time.

I am! I got the account back on Thursday afternoon. No contact from Meta letting me know I could sign back in; I just took a chance, as I had been doing about three times a day since getting locked out. Once logged in, I received a push notification from Meta saying they found nothing that went against their Community Standards, so I still have no idea what caused the lock out to begin with.

Wll, I’m in Facebook jail, no reason given. I suspect it has to do with me sharing my tattoo art, but I don’t know for certain. I filed an appeal. We’ll see how long it takes for me to get my account back, if I do.

Ooo… Seattle! If you have time when you bring your son here, if you’re helping him move in, let me know if you want to grab lunch or a coffee. I would love to meet up.

Pruned the companion Thai Holy basil and Sweet Genovese basil l received during the June Green Elephant Plant Swap and donated it to Hopelink via the food bank garden at Marymoor Community Gardener's Association. Thai Holy Basil Sweet Genovese Basil

I’ve had the original Lazy Susan Revolution on my wish list as a holiday gift for my landlady for several years now. She enjoys when I cook festive meals such as Passover, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. But she always kids about us having to circle the table in order to fill our plates before sitting. If this product actually works as advertised, I’m hoping her days of complaining about this particular thing will be in the past. Not a huge price break, but enough for me to purchase it.

Garlic can be used immediately after harvesting; curing doesn’t affect the culinary aspect. But if it isn’t cured it will rot fairly quickly. It’s too fresh to have a long shelf life. It just needs to dry out for about a month before being stored. Then it could last as long as a year if stored properly.

At the end of tomato season, I hang the cut vines upside down in the solarium to encourage any remaining unripe tomatoes to ripen. It works pretty well. When I heard I needed to cure the garlic for about a month by hanging it to prepare it for long term storage, I figured perhaps a similar method will work.

I was going to wait until next Sunday, the 13th, to harvest my garlic in my raised bed at Marymoor Community Garden on the Eastside of Seattle, but it looks like we’ll get some rain this week. We’ve been dry for awhile, so I went ahead and did it today. [ 3 elephant garlic 12 large garlic 17 medium garlic 12 baby garlic 1 rotted head 1 spring garlic 49 total heads of garlic harvested from a 6’x3’ raised bed inter planted with 8 tomato plants, calendula, sweet basil, Thai Holy basil, and an asparagus crown.

Rabbit Rabbit! Rabbit!!

Update on my raised bed garden.

My landlords son’s birthday is next week, but my landlords are going to visit him this weekend. I generally bake some sort of goody for his birthday. This year it is This Old’s Instant Pot plain New York cheesecake with homemade strawberry glaze and strawberries. It will chill overnight and go up with my landlords tomorrow. I increase the recipe for an 8”x3” push pan, but the recipe is written for a 6”x3” pan. Jill gives directions for increasing the size for different diameter pans to keep the thickness consistent.

Rabbit Rabbit! Rabbit!!

Rabbit Rabbit! Rabbit!!

Baruch Dayem ha’Emetz Blessed Be the True Judge

I then started a Passover adapted version of Joanna’s Sausage Kraut in the crockpot for tonight’s dinner. I forgot to show the apple and dried cranberries in the photo above, so I took this shot before combining. Well, at this point I’m being limited on uploads, so I guess to be continued later…

Last Saturday night was the start of the eight day festival of Passover. Saturday night I went to the local CHABAD for first night Seder, but I made second night Seder for the three of us and have been doing a lot of cooking ever since. Besides the ritual foods, the meal Saturday night started with a hard boiled egg (in salt water for me), followed by jarred gefilte fish with ground prepared white horseradish. Next up was chicken matzah ball soup made with the poultry bone broth I make in the Instant Pot. The main entrée was a 17 pound turkey I received from a food drive last fall and kept in the freezer. That’s a lot of turkey for the three of us; I usually do a 12 to 14 pound bird instead. But it’s what I was given, so I used it. Here it is after a three day dry brine. For Thanksgiving I usually do Alton Brown’s Good Eats whole roast turkey, but for Passover I like to change it up a little. I went ahead and butchered the bird into the leaping frog style, which barely fit on my three quarter sheet pan, and followed Alton Brown’s method for spatchcocked chicken for roasting. Here’s the bird right after I butchered it. The leaping frog style is much easier than spatchcocking, and you don’t lose the back bone. I made a garlic and herb compound butter I rubbed under the skin, brushed the skin with extra light olive oil (I decided next year I’ll also rub the skin with some lemon juice before applying the oil), and seasoned with fresh cracked black pepper, sweet paprika, granulated garlic, onion powder, and dill weed. Since I had dried brined the bird, I didn’t add any additional salt. Being Passover I couldn’t really use any premade rubs, due to potential ingredients which could be kitniyot, so basic seasoning it was. Roast for half an hour at 425 to start getting the skin crispy… …and then roast at 360 until a probe thermometer registers 161 degrees. Those pop up thermometers don’t pop up until the breast meat is a good 185 degrees, at which point for our taste it is bone dry. The turkey was sliced and served with homemade garlic mashed potatoes, homemade giblet gravy made via Chef Alex Guarnaschelli’s recipe which uses roasted onion and garlic that’s puréed to thicken rather than any type of starch so it’s perfect for Passover, honey and maple glazed with dill weed carrots, and the Sefardi charoses I made for the ritual portion as a replacement for cranberry sauce as it is made with dried fruit, including dried cranberries. Dessert that night was a noodle kugel that I made with kosher for Passover gluten free wide egg noodles and crumbled coconut macaroons in place of graham crackers for the topping. I was too busy preparing Seder on Sunday to stop for lunch, so I didn’t start doing any Pesadik (Passover) lunches until the first day Chol Hamoed (intermittent day) on Monday. That was a quick and easy childhood favorite: a gefilte fish sandwich on matzah: It consists of butter spread on matzah, a sprinkle of kosher salt, TempTee cream cheese, Passover prepared ground white horseradish, and sliced gefilte fish. Not the prettiest dish, being white on white on white. But it’s tasty! Monday night I went to see Jon wand The Band Geeks in downtown Seattle. I made the decision to get naked chicken wings and adopt a “don't ask, don’t tell” attitude towards what type of oil they were cooked in. Tuesday I made my grandma’s recipe for matzah meal rolls, and then used some of the turkey from second night Seder to make a sandwich. Since commercial mayonnaise tends to be made with soy oil and mustard, two items disallowed on Passover according to the tradition I follow, I made a cup of homemade mayonnaise and used that. The sandwich consisted of the matzah meal roll, mayonnaise, Sefardi charoses from Seder, turkey, and some warmed gravy from Seder. Tuesday night I think I just did a matzah board with butter and cream cheese for dinner. Lunch was pretty filling. I did make a cauliflower tabbouleh-style salad to refrigerate overnight to serve for dinner on Wednesday. Wednesday’s lunch was almost a repeat of Monday’s, although since I had the matzah meal rolls I made the gefilte fish sandwich on that instead of on matzah. I spent the day Wednesday making more sweets to see us through the rest of the holiday. Yerushalayim Chocolate, supposedly a Kosher for Passover version of Dubai Chocolate. I wasn’t happy with how they came out, but I have some changes in mind to implement for next year. Chocolate Dipped Coconut Macaroons And Matzah Caramel Crunch Wednesday’s dinner was the rest of the matzah ball soup and the cauliflower tabbouleh made the day before. Thursday’s lunch was more of the cauliflower tabbouleh. Dinner last night was a turkey tetrazzini made with kosher for Passover gluten free fine egg noodles and diced carrots, as peas are considered kitniyot and are not allowed for Passover. No photo, but it came out pretty good. Today I started off by packing up the 10 cups of turkey left for the freezer. I usually package in two cup measure, but we had so much I went ahead and did three and a quarter cup measure for future casseroles. To be continued…

Can anyone use some Torrid Cash? I received $350 in Torrid Cash I have no plans on spending. It has to be used by this Monday.