Port Potager

2014 might go down as the Year of the Brussels Sprout here at Ye Olde Port Potager. Although we didn't end up with a big crop, we managed enough for one dinner , which is far better than the abject failures of the past. Brussels sprouts are challenging because they are gardening's longest game. We planted the seeds way back in the middle of April, and that was even a couple weeks late thanks to last winter's unrelenting polar vortex . They are slow growers, and it wasn't until September that we had buds: Those tiny buds form just above each leaf, and on September 1 we broke the leaves off of half of our  plants to encourage the buds to develop. For the other half, we topped them: Both methods perform the same function: get the plant to grow some new leaves. It's just that the new leaves we want are shaped like tiny cabbages.  Five or six weeks later, the ones that we topped had some nice development of sprouts near the top, but not so much grow...

This is it: the final Trim the Fat Tuesday budget cut! In looking over our budget this month, I realized that we could easily Cut a little more out of our hobby budget for the coming year. As I mentioned before , our hobbies include things like Kirk's entry fees for races and triathlons, some theatrical production fees, rink admission for skating, and other stuff like that. It also includes materials for costume building on Halloween: The hobby budget does not  include the garden. That's filed under groceries, since it's kind of more like a family farm than a hobby at this point. Anyway, looking back over our budget and comparing it to our actual spending in 2014 revealed that our hobby barters and previous cuts have been so successful that we still have a surplus in this line item. To start banking that savings instead of letting it get frittered away, I'm going to officially cut $5 more from the hobby budget each month, since we're not missing i...

Last night we had a pretty excellent Sunday supper. It was all delicious, but can you spot the star ingredient? Our colorful wintertime plate included herbed mashed potatoes and gravy, a really tasty rosemary roast dressed with horseradish, roasted carrots and parsnips, and (drumroll) Brussels sprouts! If you have been following this blog for some time, you know that growing Brussels sprouts has been an ongoing challenge for us. This year we finally had some worth harvesting, and last night we enjoyed them sautéed with just a touch of maple syrup. They were sweet and tender after spending a good month out in the cold, and I will give a full accounting of the successes and failures of the Brussels sprout crop later this week. For dessert we opened up the spiced peaches that Jonas made back in the summer: True to their name, they were very, very spicy. Luckily, these were very ripe and very sweet peaches that could stand up to the powerful amount of cinnamon we ...

Our Christmas dinner is not a tradition that rises from the garden, but rather is a reminder of our (admittedly relative) poverty when we first lived together in North Carolina.  That first year that we lived together, while I was finishing college and student teaching and Kirk was learning some very useful farm skills as an interpreter at the living history museum at Old Salem , we lived on very little money. We did the grocery shopping at the local Kroger with a carefully planned list in one hand and a calculator in the other. If I'm not mistaken, our budget was $25 for the week, and if we went over the limit, we took things out of the cart and put them back. Some weeks we had enough for everything plus pickles ; other weeks we did not.  This budget led to a careful exploration of pasta and stir fry dishes, and we learned just how far a single cut of meat can be stretched. We regularly split a chicken breast in half to share for dinner. So for our first Ch...

As the year draws to a close, we've decided to challenge ourselves to take one last bite out of our entertainment budget by (once again) Cutting an additional $10 per week out of our entertainment budget. Kirk and I debated about this one for a while. We've managed to get used to our past entertainment cuts without too much trouble, but this last one seems like it could be more challenging. But that's kind of the point, isn't it? I think this last cut will force us to decide whether eating out is how we really want to spend the money. We tend to get lazy about cooking sometimes and just order pizza or go out for a burger. With a tighter rein on the entertainment budget, we'll have to examine those choices a little more carefully. Do we really  want to spend the money on so-so Chinese food just because someone brings it to our door? Sometimes the answer will be yes, but I think it might often be no, if the trade-off is skipping a movie or round of mini...

Back in August we gathered chokecherries and used them to infuse some local rum to make old fashioned cordial called Cherry Bounce. Now that it's December and the cherries have been soaking away in alcohol for the last four months, the Cherry Bounce should be ready. Here's what it looked like when I brought it up from the basement, where it had been sitting on a cool, dark shelf:  It's hard to tell in this photo, but the liquid is now a totally dark black-purple — the color of black raspberry juice, but barely translucent at all. I set up the bowl with the handle from the stand mixer with a mesh strainer on top to catch all the little chokecherries: I was a little surprised at how dark the liquid was when I poured out the first jar. The dregs were even a little thick looking. The chokecherries now look soft, and their skins are no longer shiny: I tasted a chokecherry first, and they are definitely spent: totally tasteless, and certainly nowhere nea...

This is a little bit of a cheat because I'm not technically making a cut in spending. After much haggling in our latest round of contract negotiations, though, we did end up getting a raise this year. I will therefore Move all the extra income from my raise immediately into savings. Photo courtesy of 401kcalculator.org It's actually easier for me to consider this extra money since it wasn't in my check from the beginning of the school year. We usually use that amount for our annual budget, but now my suddenly higher checks will feel more like a bonus since our budget is already accounted for. The trick here is to earmark that cash for savings right away, before we get used to having it lying around, and before it just sort of disappears into the checking account where it could be frittered away on goodies from the local bakery or a pellet gun or something. My raise comes to $902.29 for the year, which is $676.72 after taxes. Prorated out to 12 months, that...