Oven-dried tomatoes

We've had a bumper crop of roma tomatoes this year, though the recent cool temperatures seem to have put an end to that for the season. Last year, we tried to eat the romas fresh. Not so good. Romas tend toward the mealy side, their intrinsic tomato-i-ness obscured by their relatively dry flesh. Then we stumbled upon the idea of freezing the little bastards in small batches as they ripened and later simmering them down into a tasty sauce. And let me tell you - it was great. Concentrated fresh tomato goodness. We've used it on pasta, for soup, basically anywhere you could use tomato sauce. We're doing it again this year. We'll probably simmer them down during the winter, when filling the house with the smell of hot tomatoes seems like a great idea, instead of just a good idea. But this past weekend, I decided to try another tomato preservation method, sun-drying! Except late summer near Lake Michigan tends to be cool and damp. Not your optimal sun-drying weather. The weekend was no exception. Temps dipped into the 50's, and it rained pretty much constantly. So... oven-drying! Trim and halve the romas, then bake on a wire tray about 10 hours at 170 deg F. And the results? Well, the only thing I can say is that they're bloody delicious! I mean, just look at that picture. Quite frankly, I'm rather proud that I managed to freeze any of these, rather than just gobbling them down. They're chewy, sweet-tart, and loaded with tomato glory. I'm storing them in the freezer, since I'm not entirly convinced they're dry enough to store at room temp. And I can't wait until some blustery winter day when I stumble across them while rooting around for one more burger bun- a little bit of concentrated summer.

PS: I'm using this post as my late September entry to Grow Your Own. Chez Us is hosting this time around. Check out Andrea's Recipes for a list of who is hosting the next round!

Trout Lily

It finally bloomed!

When we moved into our house, there was a 10- foot wide strip that had been left wild at the back of the yard. There was an apple tree, and an elm tree, and a wide assortment of interesting native plants. Unfortunately, one of the plants most prevalent in the strip was poison ivy. After weeks of fighting it tooth and nail, with the help of my brothers I finally eradicated it, but only at the expense of every living thing in the strip, including the elm tree. The apple survived, but was chopped down shortly thereafter when it became obvious that it was horribly ill. So, grass seed went in, and my lovely wild patch was gone.

But lo! a couple of years later, strange mottled leaves began to appear in the lawn each spring, leaves that looked much like the white trout lily I saw in the local parks. But no flowers appeared. Year after year, I left the little patch unmowed until the leaves died back. Finally, this year, I received my reward - two of the plants bloomed! But yellow flowers, not the white I had expected. This makes it erythronium americanum.

And not only is it an attractive spring ephemeral, it has a bunch of cool common names: dogtooth violet, trout lily, adder's tongue, and fawn lily among them. They can be ordered from the better bulb companies, but I love that mine is a native - and a sturdy one at that, to have returned after the holocaust I wrought upon its brethren!

Spring is sprung!

Boy oh, is it ever spring! Every form of critter is out and about over the past couple of days.

The vultures are nesting at work (I kid you not. Witness the photos. This has to be the worst work omen ever.). The house finches are nesting behind one of my trellises (see nest). The racoons are leaving muddly little tracks across my driveway (see pic). The "early vernal miner bees" are mining their early vernal burrows (sorry no pic yet, how about a link?) The bunnies are out, chewing the tops off of the crocusses. The dutch irises have been blooming for a week or two already, and the serbian squill is blooming itself into a brilliant blue sea.

Next up: daffodils and grape hyacinths.

Geez, I love spring.!

Worst Recipe Name Ever?

The garden is reaching full production, now. The eggplant and edamame were destroyed by the varmints, of course. And there are so far only a few cucumbers, but we have a bounty of turnips. Worst yet, we don't know what to do with them. I found this recipe:"Turnips Stewed in Blood", but I think I'll keep looking. Heiden, do you know a good recipe for turnip pie?

Helpful hint: When naming a recipe featuring turnips, lamb fat and beef blood,
try not to name it after the ingredients. How much more appetizing would
it have sounded if they'd called it, oh, I don't know... Root Vegetable
Delight? ...Hearty Saute? Arugula in Turnip Sauce (with almost
no blood, so you'd hardly notice)

By the way...

These are mulberries (Morus Alba, or Morus Rubra, I can't figure out how to tell them apart). Both types are often used in the making of jam and jelly, pies, or eaten fresh. They are usually considered non-toxic, though eating lots of the completely unripe (greenish-white to pale pink) fruit can make you sick, as is often the case with consuming under-ripe fruit (witness the phrase 'green apple quick step', used long ago by my scout master to describe... well, you can figure it out). In this case, however, consuming the completely unripe fruit or the sap of the tree can lead to intoxication and hallucinations. So, if you've got a bunch of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders picking the berries, it might not be an over-reaction to discuss the situation with poison control. Just thought you'd want to know.

March Shlowers bring April Flowers?

Spent some time between rain showers today shooting photos of the spring blooms in our yard. Click the link to flickr to see any of the individual photos at full size.

Springtime!

A few days ago, the witchhazel near the building where I work went into bloom. Spring is in the air... literally! It's one of the earliest bloomers, and it has a scent reminiscent of ... lilacs and old ladies? Normally, I'd hate the smell, but with my cabin fever burning at full tilt, I'll take any bit of spring I can get. So, a branch of witchhazel (cut sureptitiously from the seriously overgrown bush I pass on the way from my car) now adorns my desk.

Witchhazel has the damndest little flowers, too. Strange, tiny yellow or red streamers that curl up in cold weather and unfurl when it warms. And the seed pods are little grenades, launching the shiny black seeds up to [insert unconfirmed internet-derived distance here]! Pretty cool. If only the bushes didn't look so much like formless blobs, I might plant one in my yard.

Speaking of which. Autumn's experiment of planting zone 6 trees in my yard seems to have been a dismal failure. I distinctly remember asking myself "After all, how many days below -10F have there been since we moved in?" Four or five months later, here I sit with major winterkill and one poor little Willow Oak that may not even have a single living branch. Oh well, if you aren't killing plants, you aren't growing as a gardener, right?