Port Potager

Last fall I moved into my tiny office in the back yard, and this spring Kirk put up one small finishing touch: the lattice around the foundation. That means I could plant a little garden by the stairs: This is a tough spot, because it is shaded for most of the day by the maple tree in the compost yard. Some areas get strong afternoon sun, but I would call the exposure partial shade to full shade in spots. One full shade area is along the side, where I planted hosta and snakeroot: The snakeroot has very dark leaves, which is hard to see against the compost. Here’s a better look: Both of these shade-loving plants should eventually fill in. They’ll also have fragrant flowers in the summer (hosta) and fall (snakeroot), so I’m hoping the fragrance blows right in the windows of my office. The hosta variety is "Guacamole," which is supposed to have a nice scent. This whole garden is about smelling good! Around the front (which gets a little more sun...

After nearly losing our whole beet crop earlier this summer, we were so happy to harvest pounds and pounds of beets this weekend. We left some in the ground, where they should be fine as long as the ground doesn’t freeze. The first thing we did was roast a couple of pans  of beets with shallots, rosemary, and olive oil to get them ready for pickling : We also roasted a couple more pans without the seasoning, so we could peel and freeze them. The frozen beets can be used throughout the winter for tarts , brownies , and other goodies.  We also still have a whole crisper drawer full of beets that we haven’t done anything with — yet. After clipping some rosemary for the roast beets, I dug up our plant and potted it for the winter. In the past I have always held out hope that enough mulch would help it through, but it’s just too cold here in the winter for rosemary. It will sit in a sunny window until spring. By the way, if you attended my wedding you...

Our older chickens molted early, and our younger ones finally figured out the whole egg-laying thing , so we are flush with eggs of many colors and sizes: Despite the short hours of daylight, we've been able to turn the light on for the girls , and now they're averaging about three eggs per day. We suddenly find ourselves with two dozen eggs in the fridge. This comes at a great time: Wednesday is Pie Day , and holiday baking will be in full force immediately thereafter.  In the meantime, quiche is one of the quickest ways to blow through a bunch of eggs, so that's what Kirk made for dinner. This was a Cheddar Bacon Broccoli Quiche, and it was outstanding: Cheddar Bacon Broccoli Quiche For the pastry: 6 Tbs. butter 2 Tbs. shortening 1 1/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 cup vodka For the filling: 4 strips of bacon 1 medium onion 1 cup chopped broccoli 4 eggs 1 cup half and half 1 cup milk 1 cup grated cheddar a pinch of thym...

Last weekend Tiegan and Jonas worked together to make Kirk's birthday present: Sunday dinner! Tiegan spent some of her Christmas money at the book store, and one of the items she was most excited about was The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook: From Cauldron Cakes to Knickerbocker Glory: More than 150 Magical Recipes for Muggles and Wizards . After paging through it, the kids decided to make Beef Stew with Herbed Dumplings for Kirk. And with only a quick consult with me about how sear the meat, they did it all on their own.  I didn't even hear any shouting, so it must have been fun. Here's how they did it: Tiegan: We cut the onion, carrots, and the celery into kind of big pieces. We also made dough for the dumplings out of flour, eggs, milk, and herbs. I picked oregano, sage, and thyme. Then we covered the dough and put it in the fridge. Jonas: I cut the potatoes by taking each potato and cutting it in wheels. Then I cut each wheel into quarters. It...

We're super-busy this week, so bring on the easy dinners! One of my favorite things to make ahead of time is chicken salad, and spring is the perfect season for it. All my favorite herbs to throw into a chicken salad are just coming up now, and it's lovely to have them back after a long winter. Here's how I make my favorite chicken salad. Spring Chicken Salad makes about 4 servings (1/2 cup each) for the chicken: 2 chicken breasts, deboned and without skin 1 small head of garlic 4-5 sprigs of rosemary olive oil salt pepper paprika for the dressing: 1/2 cup mayonaise 2 Tbs dijon mustard 1/8 tsp curry powder 1 large lovage leaf (and possibly its stem, if it's a fresh, young leaf) 2 chive leaves 3 green scallion leaves (or 1 small, whole scallion including the bulb) 1 large sprig thyme 1 large or 2 small ribs celery 1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Pat chicken dry and brown in a hot pan: There are three chicken breasts here, but I only us...

When it's my turn to cook, I often go for a vegetarian dish. Tonight I went down into the root cellar (ok, it's really just the cold, drafty basement) and grabbed a couple of butternut squash to stuff. First, they need to be pre-baked, so cut off the stem end, slice lengthwise, and scoop out the seeds. Then place cut-side down on an oiled tray (I used peanut oil, but it doesn't really matter): Bake for a half hour at 350 degrees. As you can see, I picked a big one for me and Kirk, and a small one for the kids. While that's cooking, you can make the stuffings.  For the kids, I went with an Italian filling. The measurements below made extra, but you might need it depending on the type of squash you use). 1/4 cup pine nuts, chopped (I used a food processor) 4 sundried tomatoes, finely diced 6 cloves of garlic, minced 1/3 of a small leek, diced 1/2 cup grated mozzarella 2 Tbs. grated parmesan 1 cube frozen pesto , thawed (it's about...

This year we had a really nice crop of butternut squash and pie pumpkins. We picked them all before the frost , and they have been curing for the last ten days or so by the heat:  This is a warm, dry spot, which helps the skins of the squash dry out so they are good and tough. Tough skins, in turn, will help them last through the winter in storage. Today we moved them down into the basement, which is cool and dark. We spread them out on a table, making sure they weren't touching each other. The space helps with air circulation and will slow the spread of any rot just in case one goes bad early. Not every one of our butternuts was storage-worthy, though. Four or five of them didn't have their stems intact, which means they are more susceptible to rot in storage because of the breach in the skin where the stem should be. The ones without stems stayed up in the kitchen, where we would be reminded to eat them up quickly. One super-easy way to prepare butternut squ...

It's New Year's Eve! Not my favorite holiday, but at least it comes with a strong tradition of finger foods. My favorite thing to do with bite-size treats is to dip them in something, so that's what I was working on this afternoon. First up: some roasted garlic. Many of our Spanish Rosas have started to sprout in storage, so I grabbed those for this project: That may have been a mistake, since the flavor is a little greener once they sprout, but using these didn't make me sad about cutting off the tops, since that part is messed up now anyway. The cutting-off-the-tops thing seems to be pretty standard for making roasted garlic in the oven, although this is news to me. I never bothered with that when we roasted some heads on a wood fire back in the fall . I thought using a muffin tray seemed inspired, though, so that's what I did:   Next step is to coat them with olive oil. I kind of just drizzled it on. I guess the point is to keep the d...

With the holidays fast approaching, this week kind of got away from me, and I realized I never finished this post about the excellent dinner that Kirk made last Sunday. We've been doing our Advent Sunday celebrations up right this year, with really excellent dinners to enjoy while we light the week's candle and reflect on hope, peace , love, and joy. Last Sunday was the Sunday of love, and we observed it with a December turkey dinner. Along with turkey comes stuffing, and it's easy to see why that's a traditional food at this season of the year. The things we have from the late fall garden are exactly what we need for stuffing: Here we have the dried out ends of bread, and a pan of diced carrots, leeks, and the last of our celery. Kirk cooked them a bit to soften them up, then used his hands to mix it all together in a big bowl. Also in the mix: That’s thyme, sage, and rosemary. Although we cut large bunches to dry before frost, we still have these h...

Even with a pretty nice afternoon , it's hard not to feel some serious winter blahs when the sun sets at 4:09 p.m. We're working on just over nine hours of daylight here, and that's nothing short of terrible. One thing that did help make that early nightfall better was a really great Sunday dinner. First, a tray of vegetables ready for roasting: This is full of fresh-picked carrots and leeks, plus potatoes and garlic from winter storage. They were cut into pieces, drizzled with a bit of olive oil, and given a generous helping of rosemary leaves and whole sprigs of thyme. After an hour of roasting veggies and the beef, the house smelled great, and it was time to eat. Green salad to start: Fresh from the cold frames and greenhouse tunnels are lettuces, mache, and arugula. There are also some slices of fennel bulbs that we pulled last weekend. Non-garden ingredients are thinly sliced Granny Smiths and pomegranate seeds. Yum! Then the main course: ...