Beer for the slugs... Spinach "something" for us...

I'll start by confessing that this 'blog' is for my own enjoyment and expression -- so sometimes (ok many times) this may be a YAWN moment for anyone 'out there'. Anyhow, I've not yet blogged about the day's grub -- and today's seems to be particularly good (IMHO) since it was created by sheer gut-feel and taste. And I love it when faced with a selection of "things that must be used up, or else, in the fridge" and a tasty (nourishing moment!) meal is produced.

In today's case here are the ingredients that needed to be used up: Spinach (lots of it, fresh from last week's farmers market and starting to wilt (oops) ; fresh ginger (now getting hard around the edges), tomatoes from the garden (yes, some have finally ripened but who wants salads on chilly evenings?), hot red peppers (loads actually, a gift from a neighbor - will need to make a wicked salsa (later)) and chicken breasts.

So here's the idea -- create an Indian chicken saag with the spinach.... It's something we order out quite a bit and my grandmother was really into Indian cooking (she spent early years in India), and we do have a lot of the spices that (I hope/believe) are typically used....

Here's the dish ("festering" on the stove top until I make the black rice -- sorry I don't do white!)

Total time from prep to the picture above - 30 minutes (on full speed ahead mode)...

Ingredients (kinda rough since I don't measure):
About 3 bunches of spinach
1 1/2 lb of chicken breast in cubes
1 onion (chopped fine)
About 8 cloves garlic (minced)
I red hot pepper kept whole (so you can remove if the dish is getting too hot for you)
large piece of fresh ginger (chopped fine-ish)
2 tomatoes (chopped fine)
some milk (about 2 tablespoons)
some lemon juice (about 1 tablespoon)
Olive oil (about 3-4 tblsp)
Spices: cardamom seeds (2 smashed up by pestle/mortar - that my grandmother gave me (lovely coincidence eh?)
6 cloves (smashed up per above)
tumeric (approx 1 teaspoon)
coriander (approx 2 teaspoon)
paprica (approx 2 teaspoon)
ground cayenne pepper (approx 2 teaspoon)
ground cumin (approx 2 teaspoon)
garam masala ( approx 2 teaspoon - we made this up ahead of time ages ago... you may not have it, sorry - improvise or leave out)
salt and "no salt" (you be the judge; I use about 2 tsp of each)

What to do...

Brown the chicken in some of the olive oil
while doing so put small amount water in deep pan and add spinach, bring to boil, turn off heat and cool - when cool (later) you will blend in a blender (kinda like a Kermit-the-frog moment)
Add to chicken rest of olive oil and the onions, garlic and ginger - brown
Then add the tomatoes and rest of the spices and the whole hot red pepper
After about 5 mins add the blended kermit (oops, spinach), and the milk
Reduce down to a thicker consistency and put a lid on to let it sit and "fester" (get more flavor in it - although I know this is not the real definition :-).

Serve with rice and popdums (or whatever tickles your fancy)

And that's my nourishing moment for today, folks!

Oh ...Beer for slugs -- more on that tomorrow (if it works)... The darn slugs/snails are eating my kale! My friend across the street suggested covering the small plants with jars and leaving out beer... we shall see!

So here it is, the day before Thanksgiving holiday in the US, and time to make the pies for tomorrow. Of course, in my desire to home-produce some of the food for this meal, I had planned to use our apple tree as the basis for an apple tart.... Planned is the key word here -- I just went out to pick off the last of the year's crop, and someone has beaten me to it! The tree's naked! I'm suspecting a midnight raid (someone clearly had a lot of pies they needed to make).

So, it's plan B time; drag out the can of pumpkin instead. I could perhaps smash up the pumpkin that still sits happily (or so I choose to think) on our front porch, a reminder that it's still Fall, but that was store bought anyway, so it will be saved the axe.

Talking of axes, I'm hopeful that our neighborhood turkey makes it through tomorrow... Having just read the section of the Farm City (see book recommendation list) on how to kill a turkey, I realize how "easy" it would be. Well, not for me, I realize that too!

So tomorrow's festivities are almost here and this year the only produce from our own garden will be the roasted parsnips and some herbs (sage for the stuffing, rosemary for the bird, thyme for the gravy). Carrots were all eaten last week and the rest of the crops are not ready by any means. Next year I intend to plan for this event!

Wishing "Happy Thanksgiving" for those of you who celebrate it and happy Thursday for the rest :-) May your day be filled with nourishing moments.

Day on the Bay

(cue music!) "When the lights go down on the city and the sun shines on the bay".... What better way to nourish the soul than sharing a day on the waters of San Francisco's bay with great friends.

The Cold Frame

Thanks to the carpentry skills of our neighbor I now have a cold frame to protect the winter crop from the turkey. And hopefully it will remain warm enough during frosts to protect the spinach and Chinese broccoli inside. It turns out that the 'flat Dutch' cabbage and the kale will require more room to grow and are happy in frost, so now the search is on for tubs to house these other crops... I'll need chicken/turkey wire to protect these -- our other neighbor recently lost brussel sprouts to the friggin' turkey. I'll try to shoot a photo of it -- it climbs on our roof every evening.. No, we're not eating it for Thanksgiving (don't even ask!)

Here's the spinach (RHS) and Chinese broccoli (left front) with a cabbage (top left) thrown in as an experiment.... It may end up crowding the others, but maybe not since the growing season for the "smaller stuff" is 45 - 50 days, whereas the cabbage is 75-80.

Three more cabbages - probably a little too close, but time will tell. Now to find a place for the kale...

Day One

Welcome to day one of my blogging experience. This is where I will share with you my experiences of food production (as well as other moments in daily life that nourish me). As you can see from these photos, our back yard is currently rather small. Here you see the end of our tomato crop, and since we planted too late and the frost has come at night, we seem to be stuck with unripe tomatoes. First task - figure out if we can salvage this crop and ripen them, or it's gonnna be fried green tomatoes (and a lot of them!). Any ideas welcome!













This winter I'm venturing into a new experience... Typically, since this is the colder, rainy season in the SF Bay area, nothing gets planted at our place. But meet this year's dinner... Spinach, Chinese broccoli, savoy cabbage and collard greens. Yum. Total cost to date, $45 for soil, window frame and plants. I'll need to tally the "crop worth" as it starts to yield...

The garden area is a little "light challenged" and so these winter veggies will be planted in a raised planter in this area... We purchased an old window frame (with glass) at a salvage yard and it will provide a covered top to let the sun in and keep the heavy rain -- and the neighborhood's roaming resident turkey -- out.