Can It

Now is the time for pickled artichokes and strawberry preserves. I've got tons of jars salvaged from great grandma's pantry, a giant le creuset stockpot and an itch to get canning.

The NY Times just ran a story with lots of imbedded resources for newbies.

The Alpha Beet and All the Others

Double Fisting It Veggie Style

I know this isn't a blog for posting kid pics but as the quotidian things in my life go, it doesn't get much better than Ezekiel pushing away his favorite go-gur (yogurt) and pitching a fit for stalks of steaming hot broccoli! Everytime he finishes one, he asks for another so as to always have two stalks going at a time. As I type he's just thanked me for handing him the sixth stalk! It makes my veggie lovin' heart so happy.

Putting up the Corn

My birthday shindig was planned with grilling burgers, chicken, corn in mind. Seeing as how I caught the swine flu's cousin a few days prior to the party, we now have a freezer full of meat and sacks full of corn. Even though I'm still a little under the weather, I am clearly doing better than I was the last four or five days. Evidence of improvement?

-7 loads of dirty laundry piled at the top of the stairs
-bathrooms that are filthy
-food is rotting in the fridge
-we ran out of bread and eggs
-fruit flies are circling the sacks of corn
-my seedlings which were ready for outdoor soil are wilting in their starter pots
-I have no idea when my flower beds were last watered

and most importantly, I NOTICED all of the above.

Well, 4 loads of laundry are finished. Diapers are washed, folded, and stowed. One bathroom is clean. The least dirty one. Food is still rotting int he fridge but most of it is in sealed containers. And I'm 12 ears of corn into taking care of the fruit fly problem.

As a kid, my grandmother's freezer was a magical place, full of prepared home made, home grown food. Well, almost home grown since she got a lot of it from the local Mininites. I remember huge bowls of strings and snapped bean ends, piles of corn recently shorn of their kernels, greens wilting in the big stove pots, and mountains of pork being pulled into BBQ. Hands down, my favorite was fresh tomatoes, creamed corn, and BBQ. And every time I came to visit Grandma, that meal was an option (excepting perhaps the frsh tomatoes) because she always made enough to put some up. During college, I lived about 45 mintures from her house. I went to visit many weekends and always got sent back with a cooler full of goods. Those are days I won't soon forget!

So here's the way my Grandma always 'put up the corn'.

1. Husk. Pretty self explainatory. Take off the husks.
2. Silk. Make sure you get the silks of really well or they'll mess up the corn.
3. Shuck. Using a comfortable knife, cut off the kernels into a bowl.
4. Scrape. Scrape the blade of the knife firmly over the kernel beds several times. This pulls out the cream of the corn and is vital for the taste of homemade cream corn!
5. Cook the kernels and scraped off 'cream' in just a little water until blanched.
6. Let is cool and put the corn into freezer storage containers.

When you pull the corn out, all you have to do is thaw it in a pot and add the chicken bullion, sugar, salt, and milk. I've never had left overs.

Spinach Blooms and Other

My spinach is blooming! Actually, just one of the plants is blooming... so it seems that it's getting a bit too hot for spinach in the desert. Therefore, the arugula and spinach are all getting harvested this weekend.

More. Pesto. Baby.

However, what I'm wondering is how to gather seeds? I have blooming spinach, arugula, and broccoli. And I want to save seeds. Obviously the seeds should be around the dried up flowers...but I can't find them!

Arugula out the Ears

What do you do when you have Arugula growing like crazy in your garden? (I must have some freaky microclimate, perfect for this member of the Brassicaceae family, in my backyard).


You. Make. Pesto.

The first photo was taken after I was DONE! Which just goes to show that I had harvested oh so much. So I gave some away, ate some in a salad, and then started sauteeing the rest with garlic and olive oil. Yum.

Arugula Pesto (Nut and dairy free)

A BUNCH of Arugula*
A BUNCH of Spinach
A bunch of cloves of garlic
Some salt
Some olive oil (enough to get it to all blend together)
A little water (for the same reason as above)

Blend.

(At first, I hadn't added any spinach. Man oh man was that ever spicy! The spinach tones it down nicely, and stretches it, too.)

I warmed the pesto on the stove on low to get it all nice and um, nice. Then froze it in '1 family meal' portions. The spice of the Arugula makes me forget all about the Pine Nuts and Parmesan!

I've tried this recipe with Cilantro, too. The kids loved both kinds!

*You can even eat the flowers! They're slightly sweet, slightly spicy.

Really Cool Gardening Imagery

Some skeptic is sure to ask, "Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this 'resurrection body' look like?" If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a "dead" seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don't look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.

You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies—sun, moon, stars—all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we're only looking at pre-resurrection "seeds"—who can imagine what the resurrection "plants" will be like!

This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we're raised, we're raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that's planted is no beauty, but when it's raised, it's glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!

I Corinthians 15: 35-44 from The Message