Everyone, Meet Cora

Cora, meet everyone.

Yes, we have welcomed yet another animal onto our little sheep ranch, and it's another free horse.

Cora came from the same place as Bill the pony. She was a working ranch horse that was deemed too lazy for regular ranch work, but her placid disposition meant she would be a good kid horse. The kids she was kept for didn't end up riding her, though, so we got a call from the boys' former teacher--from whom we got Bill--asking if we would like to take her.

This was very good timing, as all the children were lamenting the fact that we no longer have a full-size horse to ride.

Her name had been Dottie, which none of us cared for much. When I was talking to the lady about her, it was mentioned that she has a white mark on her rump that looks like a heart. "Corazon" is Spanish for heart, so I suggested calling her Cora. This was met with unanimous approval--something of a miracle in our household of rampant individualists--and so she is now Cora.

You can kind of see the mark there if you look closely.

She hasn't been ridden in about a year, so she'll need some re-training. She does seem quite calm, though, which I appreciate. She didn't even flinch at the dogs barking a foot from her face when she was drinking from the water trough right next to the fence.

The dogs remain alert for any misbehavior.

I went out this morning to find her and Bill just standing there in the corral staring at each other, and she came right over for her hay.

Tucking in.

She's a bit plump, so she'll be on reduced rations and an exercise regimen for awhile until she gets a little more svelte. Luckily, we have four young equestrians who are more than happy to make sure she gets all the exercise she needs. 

No horse on earth will be as safe around children as good old Samson, but I think Cora will do nicely. We're happy to have her, and I hope she'll be happy to be here.

Friday Food: We Made Bullburger

Friday 

Short version: Spaghetti and meatballs, raw kohlrabi, peach/blueberry crisp

Long version: To make the sauce for the meatballs and spaghetti, I used the last quart jar of roasted, pureed tomatoes from last year's garden, a few cubes of frozen green garlic puree from last year, and a few cubes of frozen pesto from last year. That's all. And it was SO GOOD.

The ingredients really do make the difference. Alas for grocery store food. Always so disappointing.

Anyway.

I have never managed to make a crisp with peaches and blueberries that is actually crisp. The topping is inevitably submerged in the juices from the fruits. Also, the filling needed more sugar in it. Not that anyone refused to eat it.

Also, both the peaches (Nick's) and the blueberries (Sysco) came from the freezer as well. I often say I shop my freezers rather than stores. This meal was a good example of that.

Saturday

Short version: T-bone steaks with caramelized onions and herb butter, mashed potatoes, green salad with herby ranch dressing

Long version: Steaks and caramelized onions from the freezer, too. Herbs--parsley and green garlic--from the garden. The salad dressing had the same parsley and green garlic, with the addition of dill.

I love garden season. And my freezers.

Sunday

Short version: Thanksgiving in June

Long version: It all started with a request from one child that I roast the whole chicken A. had bought. While I was getting the chicken out of the freezer, I found the last two bags of pureed squash from the garden last year. I decided to use these to make pumpkin pie for our Sunday dessert. This reminded Poppy of Thanksgiving, and so we decided to make a sort of pared-down Thanksgiving dinner.

So! Roasted chicken and gravy, mashed potatoes, dressing (bread cubes, lots of butter, onion, celery, chicken stock, sage), green salad with herby ranch dressing, and not one, but two pumpkin pies.

I made two because I had enough squash for two, and the pie dough recipe makes two crusts. However, I only have one pie pan, so I used a  cake pan. This is when I discovered why pie pans are shaped the way they are: On a straight-sided pan, the pie dough slips right down to the bottom, leaving nothing on the sides.

Except for that tiny little bit poking out on the side there.

I used a different recipe for the filling this time, which A. declared the best ever in terms of texture. I think next time I'll add more spices to it, though. And of course, I whipped cream to go with it.

The children's favorite part of holiday meals is that I set the food up in a buffet on top of the liquor cabinet, so they can serve themselves. So that is what I did for our Thanksgiving in June, and they were happy.

Monday

Short version: Chicken rice soup, leftover spaghetti, leftover pie

Long version: I used the chicken carcass to make a stock, then pulled about a cup of meat off the carcass after it simmered a few hours. That is what I used--along with rice, mushrooms, onions, carrots, peas, and some finely chopped kohlrabi greens--to make the soup. Those who had soup also had rye crisps and cheese.

Others had leftover spaghetti with diced chicken, and leftover peas.

This worked out well, as there wasn't enough spaghetti for everyone anyway, and not everyone likes soup.

Tuesday

Short version: Shepherd's pie

Long version: I had quite a lot of mashed potatoes leftover from the two nights we had them previously, so I took out a package of ground beef and made some shepherd's pie. I have one child who dislikes cooked carrots, so this time I only used green peas and pureed calabaza for the vegetables in the meat.

The same child dislikes calabaza, but it's indetectable when it's pureed and used in something like this. Sneaky.

Wednesday

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: Shepherd's pie for the children, steak and pureed calabaza for A., and a salad with diced chicken for me.

Thursday

Short version: Bull and bean tacos with homemade corn tortillas

Long version: When I organized the chest freezers, I found we only have around a month of meat in there. But that wasn't counting the bull meat that I still-still!--haven't cooked, even though we've had it for over two years now.

The problem with the bull meat is that it's just soooo tough. Even after being pressure-cooked and food-processed, it's still dry. Fine in casseroles, I've found, but still difficult to use.

However!

I actually bought a manual meat grinder five months ago, thinking we would use it to make sausage, since we can't get good sausage here. I hadn't used it yet, though. But now it's summer! I have so much time! I can grind things!

So I took out some bull steaks and the extra fat from the cow we got last year, and enlisted A. to turn the handle.

Grinding.

The grinder part worked pretty well, although we couldn't get it to suction to the counter, so it was all wobbly. 

It definitely ground the meat, though, and that's what I used to make taco meat, along with some pressure-canned beans.

I figured since we had gone to all that work to make the ground beef, I might as well make the tortillas, too. So I did.

The meat was good. It definitely had more texture to it than most ground beef, but it wasn't chewy or anything. Which means we're going to be doing a lot more grinding in the near future.

Oh! And we had the first garden lettuce of the year for the tacos, too.

I also harvested a cabbage and a single asparagus spear, but I didn't use those for the tacos.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Growing Food: Adjusting

This has been a highly unusual spring. In the past three weeks, we've gotten at least four inches of rain, which is almost unheard of here on the high plains. As I mentioned in my last post, the older people say it hasn't rained like this in 80 years.

See that line on my bedroom window? That's a worm. It is five feet in the air. When the worms are literally starting to climb the walls, you know that soil is totally saturated. I have never seen such a thing.

This means some adjustments are in order in my garden.

See, our garden is set up above all to maximize water retention. This is necessary because we are typically watering with a hose. That's why we plant everything in trenches or cells. That's why I mulch as much as I can. That's why I tend to space my plants closer than the recommended spacing.

But now these things are starting to be a detriment rather than a benefit.

The semi-permanent lake in the lane on the other side of my garden fence is a good gauge of the wet conditions lately.

It's a good thing I don't have a lot of old hay to mulch with this year, because I definitely don't need it. The only bed that I had mulched--the cabbages--is so wet it has colonies of grubs all around the plants. These are the nasty ones that someone told me turn into june bugs. I do not want them in my garden. And yet, there are literally dozens of them, hiding under the mulch and flourishing in the saturated soil. I even found a little slug in there. A slug! 

I pulled all the mulch off that bed and have spent hours digging around the plants in there, unearthing nests of grubs and squishing them between my fingers*. It's totally disgusting, but the easiest way to get rid of them.

I am certainly not going to be mulching my tomatoes. Even if the volunteer lettuce wasn't in there, it wouldn't do the tomato plants any good. They're in half an inch of standing water every time we get a downpour. Which is almost every day lately. Mulch would just encourage more of the grubs, I'm sure.

Thankfully, our soil is generally pretty loose and seems able to absorb an astonishing quantity of water. Although we could definitely use some sun and heat now, the plants seem to be doing pretty well with all the water getting dumped on them, but it's been a strange year in our High Plains garden for sure. It's a good reminder that gardening requires constant experimentation and adjustment. 

So tell me, my fellow gardeners: How's the garden weather where you are?

*Or, more preferably, getting my sons to do it for me. They relish this task, and will actually aim the grub so that when they pop it with their fingers, goo shoots out at their target. As long as their target isn't me, I don't care.

Snapshots: Me vs. Mud

We have had so much rain. SO much rain. Inches a week. Given that our yearly average is 17 inches, this is really unexpected. The older people say it hasn't rained like this since the 1960s.

We are grateful, of course, because we've had years of drought and all the cattle ranchers here--which is most of the county--have been selling off their cattle and tightening their belts to hold on. Now they can start rebuilding.

I am happy for them, and I am happy for my garden, which prefers rainwater to hose water. But I am not so pleased about the mud.

My new job is mud eradication.

This is what the pasture next door looks like after it dumps half an inch in less than an hour.

And this is the gate we drive out of. (Look at all the green, though! Yay!)

These giant puddles act as a magnet to my children, who love nothing more than grabbing an old feed tub and sailing in these new little lakes. This only ends one way. And that way involves the hose pre-rinse.

The A-frame cover of the mechanic's pit works perfectly for spraying down clothing, I have found.

The other main battlefront is, of course, my house. No photos of that, but I'll just say I've never vacuumed so much in my life. Once a week used to be sufficient. Now it's more like every other day, with sweeping in between.

I am reminded of some things I do not miss about New York. I assume it will dry out again sometime, since this is not actually New York, but maybe this is just my life now.

And now, just to end on a fun note . . .

A sweet potato shaped like a heart. I was delighted by this, and so was Poppy.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: So There, Walmart Lady

Friday 

Short version: Baby back ribs, sauteed shrimp, pureed sweet potatoes, green salad with ranch dressing, rice pudding

Long version: We actually had the ribs, shrimp, sweet potatoes, and salad around 2 p.m. due to one child leaving in the early afternoon. I think this might have been the first time I have ever served pureed sweet potatoes to my family. I love sweet potatoes, but I only get them to roast cubes of them for my salads. However, this week, in addition to the sweet potatoes still in the refrigerator from A.'s last shopping trip, I got two bags of sweet potatoes from the excess commodities.

I had put several in the oven with the ribs to bake, figuring I would do something with them at some point. And then I thought, well, why not with this meal? So I pureed them using my immersion blender, and added butter, cream, and a bit of maple syrup.

With those additions, is it any surprise that every one of the children liked them? Nope.

I had baked the rice pudding while the ribs were in because I had some milk that was no longer good for drinking. This worked out very well, though, as the child who left doesn't like rice pudding. So at our usual dinner time, I just gave everyone rice pudding.

They thought this was great.

Saturday

Short version: Sauteed shrimp, fried enchilada bull/leftover chili, mashed potatoes, raw broccoli, chocolate chip/raisin/oatmeal/almond cookies

Long version: There was some shrimp to be cooked, but not enough for everyone. So I used some of the processed bull meat that had the enchilada sauce added to it, from the freezer, and fried that with the very last of the leftover chili.

I like using raisins with chocolate chips because I have a literal case of raisins thanks to excess commodities. Cookies with only raisins aren't as good as cookies with only chocolate chips. 

Except maybe actual oatmeal-raisin cookies. Even then, though, I always want some chocolate chips in them.

But I don't get chocolate chips for free. So if I use some chocolate chips along with some raisins, the flavor of the chocolate is there but boosted by the sweetness of the raisins.

And as I have mentioned, I also have a literal case of almonds from excess commodities. Whenever I have the food processor out, I chop/grind some of these whole almonds. I keep a bag of these in the freezer to be added to cookies or granola.

Sunday

Short version: Cheeseburgers on homemade buns, baked beans, pots de creme

Long version: Since I was making bread anyway, I made some buns for cheeseburgers. And I remembered to use the container of baked beans I took out of the freezer on the very first day. Yay me.

We hadn't had pots de creme for Sunday dessert in awhile. It's just as popular as it ever was.

Monday

Short version: Ground beef and bean tacos, homemade corn tortillas, banana ice cream

Long version: I hadn't made tortillas in a very long time, but it seemed like a nice thing to do on a holiday. I should have had A. take a picture, in case he ever ran into the censorious Walmart Lady again.

It had also been a very long time since I had made the banana ice cream. I had four spotty bananas that were getting a bit too brown for enjoyable eating, so I froze them in slices to make the fake ice cream.

It ended up being quite a nice holiday meal, if not exactly particularly American.

Tuesday

Short version: Bull patties, rice, raw kohlrabi

Long version: In my continuing effort to use up the bull meat, I opened another jar of pressure-canned bull and threw it in the food processor with half an onion, mayonnaise, mustard, and lots of parsley. The resulting puree looked a lot like canned tuna, so I decided to add bread crumbs and eggs to it and make it into patties, just like I do with tuna.

Experimental bull.

When I asked A. after dinner what he thought of the patties, he said evasively, "I ate it."

He did. And that is one of the nice things about A.: He will always eat what's put in front of him without complaint. But I got the point that this is not a good candidate for a repeat preparation.

Wednesday

Short version: Bull and rice casserole, rhubarb pudding with cream

Long version: I had more of the uncooked bull mixture left, so I mixed that together with leftover rice and grated cheddar cheese and baked it. This was a much better use for the bull meat. It really seems to work best in casseroles.

I made the rhubarb pudding as a consolation dessert in case the casserole wasn't very good. It actually was good, and everyone had seconds of it, but no one minded having the pudding as well.

Thursday

Short version: Pork steaks, pureed sweet potatoes, roasted garlic, green salad with very herby ranch dressing, gingersnaps

Long version: We had some spice rub leftover from the pork ribs earlier in the week, so I used it on a package of pork steaks. I cooked them at 300 degrees for about an hour to make sure they were tender. They were.

I had actually baked the sweet potatoes the day before when the oven was on for the casserole and pudding, and then pureed the sweet potatoes with cream, butter, and maple syrup right before I did the dishes. So they were ready to go and just needed to be re-heated.

A. brought in five garlic plants that were starting to scape (the scape is the flower stalk of the plant), so I cut off the heads and baked those in aluminum foil while the pork was in.

The scapes I took off the plants and chopped fine along with a bunch of fresh dill and parsley from the garden.

Herby cutting board.

I ended up with about half a cup of herbs after all the chopping was done. This made a very tasty salad dressing, as you might imagine.

I use this recipe for gingersnaps. My children would rather I made Grandma Bishop's molasses cookies every time, but these gingersnaps don't need to be rolled out and cut, so they're a bit faster. They do taste different than the actual molasses cookies, though, as they rely more on spices and less on molasses for flavor. I use slightly less brown sugar than the recipe calls for, a bit of cloves in place of the allspice, and no white pepper at all. I find them to be spicy enough with the amount of ground ginger in the recipe.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Git Up There, Sheep

We did something fun and certainly unusual yesterday: We had a sheep drive.

You've heard of cattle drives, right? Well, this is the same, but with sheep instead of cattle.

The reason we did this is because our neighbor is the caretaker of our ghost village's cemetery, and he agreed that it would be very helpful to put the sheep in there to clean up the weeds and tall grass that have grown up around the trees and headstones. 

Cemeteries are very labor-intensive to landscape with weed eaters or mowers, because of all the grave markers, flowers, etc. that must be avoided. But sheep are very skilled at picking around anything in their way while they're grazing. They are also small enough that they won't cause any damage, unlike cattle. So our neighbor asked anyone he knew who had relatives buried there if they minded sheep being in there to eat down the grass and weeds. None did.

This cemetery is fully fenced and quite large, about an acre. A. was happy to have a new place for the sheep to forage while we're waiting for the grass in their usual pasture to get establishd, especially one so nicely fenced. He waited until after Memorial Day, when quite a few people visit the cemetery to decorate graves. But first thing Tuesday, we prepared to move the sheep.

This cemetery is about two miles from our house, and it required us to get the sheep across the main road. We started early, so as to avoid the traffic resulting from Texans going home from their holiday weekend in the mountains. Luckily, we can see a couple of miles down the road in both directions from our village, so we waited until there were no vehicles in sight and then ran the sheep across.

Why did the sheep cross the road? To get to more grass, of course.

The rest of the drive was just keeping the flock from turning off into open pastures or other roads.

I drove the Honda so I could get ahead of the flock and block off intersections where they might go the wrong way. 

Waiting for the flock at the intersection to turn them left.

Little Bo Peep was with me.

One boy was on his bike, so he could drive the sheep from behind but also get ahead of them as necessary. A. and the other boy were on foot behind the flock.

It took about an hour, but eventually . . .

Success.

A. has to haul water up there for them in his truck, but it's otherwise a very nice place for them to spend a couple of weeks. And at the end, the entire cemetery will be well-manicured, thanks to the sheep.

Growing Food: The Enigma of Kohlrabi

I can't remember the first time I ever ate kohlrabi. It's certainly not a vegetable I had ever encountered in my childhood. In fact, I'm pretty sure I had never even heard of it until sometime in the last decade. Most probably I was introduced to it by the MiL.

Kohlrabi is not a well-known vegetable. I would venture a guess that few of you have ever had it. It's even sort of perplexing to figure out what part of the plant to eat.

So let's talk about it!

Kohlrabi is a member of the brassica family, which means it's related to broccoli. And in fact, it tastes exactly like a broccoli stem. I happen to love the stem of broccoli more than the florets--it's a texture thing--which is one reason I love kohlrabi. Also, those nasty cabbage worms can't hide in kohlrabi the way they do in broccoli florets. Man, I hate those things. So gross.

Anyway.

Like all brassicas, kohlrabi is fairly cold hardy. I start the seeds for it indoors at the same time as my cabbage seeds, and I plant them all out at the same time, too. 

Cabbages and kohlrabi, all walled off.

As small plants, they're almost impossible to tell apart. But identification gets easier as they get a bit bigger, because the kohlrabi plant will grow to a much larger diameter than a cabbage plant.

The kohlrabi plant is mostly large leaves. These look just like collard greens, and can be cooked just the same way. I understand they can even be picked a few at a time without harm to the plant if an earlier harvest of greens is desired, although I don't care enough for cooked greens to do this.

The part of the kohlrabi plant that makes it unique, however, is the stem. At the base, just above ground, the stem will swell into a ball about the size of a baseball. That's the part this plant is really grown for, and that's the part that's best to eat.

Kohlrabi plants don't grow any secondary harvest after this is cut, so I just yank the whole plant out by the roots when it's time to harvest it. There's no way to tell when it's ready except by the size of the bulbous base. Any larger than three inches or so in diameter and it will start to get too woody to eat.

To harvest, I pull the whole plant out by the roots. I usually have to use a shovel to pry it up, because the roots are quite anchored.

I broke off quite a few stems getting this one out, but it doesn't matter, because . . .

Next I snap off the leaves where they attach to the ball part. As I mentioned, the leaves can be cooked or frozen just like collard greens. I sometimes do this for some of the plants, although I'm just not that into cooked greens enough to cook or freeze them all, so the chickens get some too.

Removing the root ball is actually quite difficult. Knives aren't really up to the task, so I use our Japanese saw.

Like so.

You can see in the above photo that the proportion of leaves to the ball part is quite unequal. That ball is going to be reduced further in size by the next phase, which I neglected to take a photo of.

The ball part needs to be peeled. I use a paring knife and peel away the tough outer skin all around, kind of like an apple.

After all this, I'm left with maybe a cup of vegetable. This is why I say that kohlrabi doesn't make a lot of sense to grow from the perspective of yield. It's probably one reason I've never seen it at a grocery store or farmer's market, too.

However, I don't need to make a profit on my vegetables, so I can grow what I want. And I want to grow kohlrabi. I love it, and so do all my children. Although it can be cooked and used in any way broccoli can--it's most often mentioned in the context of stir-fry, but I've even seen a recipe for stuffing the whole ball--we always eat it raw. I just cut it into sticks and it's gone in minutes.

So tell me, my fellow gardeners: What do you grow despite its impracticality?

* For anyone who may have noticed, yes, I slightly changed the title of this series. "Gardening for Food" was just too clunky. Of course, now I have to go back and change all of the other post titles, because this is number 20 in the series. Kind of hard to believe.