ElainaA

It is May so I am mainly out in the dirt of the garden and not cooking or posting much. But tonight: Marinated chicken and roasted peppers, potato salad and a green salad with pears. This was a trial run for a fancy picnic I need to do soon when we go to Eurocar. I'm not sure it was fancy enough but it was good. Maybe the chicken with something other than the potato salad? Added benefit- this is a make-ahead meal so when my knees were screaming after planting half of the tomatoes i took a break and made dinner. Add then planted more tomatoes.

@Tere Spinach beet is new to me. Investigating (i.e. googling) it seems to be similar to chard but with a flavor more similar to spinach. I found several sources for seed - I may try this next year. Your garden is impressive, especially the fruit. As of today all the irrigation system is in - both in the main garden and in the greenhouse. I don't install the irrigation in the main garden until after I plant because I worry about clogging the the drip tape with dirt as I make furrows and cover seeds. Now I can put in the tomato seedlings that are screaming their need for bigger places for their roots. And plant cukes and squash. Then I can move to maintenance.

I grew them once - and once only. Itty bitty is SO right. I had both red and yellow varieties. Picking them took approximately forever. As they ripened, the connection with the stem loosened so lots of them just fell off. Fun yes, but never again.

Today was Dime Day at the local Friends of the Library sale. For a dime, I could not resist this: It focuses on cookbooks - or brochures - put out by various food companies in the 1950's. There is also a chapter on the 70's. (He barely mentions the 60's - I remember quite a lot of regrettable food from that decade.) Here's my favorite: To properly give credit:Lileks, James, The Gallery of Regrettable Food. Crown Publishers, New York. 2001. Page 19 The porterhouse steak smothered in ketchup, topped with hard boiled eggs that are also covered in ketchup is clearly a winner. I did think the hard boiled egg and olive penguins were kind of cute. And, perhaps luckily, there is no picture of the liver spoon cakes.

Thinking of how to change that is what I think of as a cooking super power!

@Tere I would love to see a picture of your herb hedge.

Nothing is prime for pictures yet but my garden is on its way. I have planted all the cool weather germination crops - lettuce (lots of kinds. I hesitate to say just how many because it makes me sound crazy) many kinds of greens - chicories, mizunas, arugula, cress, spinach, fennel, English peas and snap peas, beets (3 kinds). Today I put in the cabbage and radicchio seedling that I started inside and some parsley that I purchased. Yesterday I planted all the onions, leeks and shallots - also from plants from a nursery. Today the soil temperature was 49 F so I won't plant beans, cukes or squash for several days yet - longer if it cools down again. All the tomato plants I started inside are now out for day time. Since I have now finished digging the beds in the new greenhouse I am moving them down there - about 30 will be planted there once we install the drip irrigation system - hopefully tomorrow when my husband is home to help me. The rest of the tomatoes will go out in the garden at the end of May. I have 2 trays of basil seedlings that I started waiting for warmer soil before they are planted. Peppers I will buy. For some reason i have never had luck with peppers from seed.

@rotuts @TicTac Michael Pollen has a great essay,called "Why Mow?" in Second Nature, on the meaning of lawns in American suburbia and the process of getting rid of his own. In another essay in the same book, "Two Gardens" there are some hysterical anecdotes about his father's relationship with their lawn when he was a child. His father was NOT interested in gardening.

Last night: Cauliflower gratin and potatoes rosti. The sauce on the rosti is yogurt, sour cream and chives. Also a salad of romaine, cucumbers, red onion and pears. Wednesday: Pasta with Marcella Hazan's "simple veal sauce", bruschetta with seasoned ricotta, red onion and roasted red peppers. And salad.

I thought it turned out fine although some types took longer to set than the recipe suggested. I did not change the recipe. I have absolutely no other experience with PDF - it is not something I have ever seen in a store in rural upstate NY. So I really do not have any comparison data. I liked it - it was not over the top sweet in my opinion but I did use my own jams/jellies which are no-pectin, lower sugar than commercial jams. I have included it in my holiday candy gifts several times and gotten very positive feed back. I am strictly an amateur candy maker so my experience and knowledge are limited.

Other than a shotgun, a large dog or a good fence are the only options I can think of.

I've done (an unsophisticated) PDF from jam many times. The recipe is from one of the first candy books I bought, years ago, Weinstein's The Ultimate Candy Book. It uses gelatin: 2 envelopes of unflavored gelatin, softened in 1/3 cup. 3/4 c. granulated sugar and 1/3 c. water combined and heated to a boil. 1 c. jam or marmalade stirred in to dissolve, gelatin added, bring to a boil and cook 2 minutes. Pour into an oiled pan and refrigerate until set. There is a very similar recipe in Ruth Kendrick's Candymaking called 'fruit jam jellies'. I'm not sure if these are true PDF but they are good. I've made both with various types of jam or jelly. I preserve so much I have to do something with it.

@sartoric Thanks! The recipe is from one of my current favorite cookbooks, Meera Sodha's Made in India. I used canned chickpeas. Pre heat the oven to 400 F. For one can (14 oz) - rinse the chickpeas, shake to dry. In a bowl, toss them with 2T canola oil, 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t chili powder, 1 t ground cumin. Mix thoroughly, spread on a baking sheet, bake until crisp - about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally. They hold very well - I like to have them hanging around for a snack. Enjoy!

Lamb curry over basmati rice, carrot raita (both from a very old clipping from the NYTimes) and roasted spiced cauliflower. And a bowl of roasted spicy chickpeas for snacking while dinner was cooking.

Pasta with shrimp, garlic and good olive oil - and a bit of parmesan. I know that cheese on pasta with seafood is just not done - but I like it. With bread I made yesterday (CI's "almost no knead bread" - our staple - I bake it twice a week.) And salad, of course.

I make raspberry syrup. Delicious on either ice cream or pancakes. I also use them in baking - especially with chocolate - think Black Forest Cake with raspberries instead of cherries.

Red and yellow bell peppers plus a jalapeño sautéed with red onions and garlic then simmered with tomatoes. Over brown rice. This was intended to be a vegetarian meal but there was some very nice steak left over from the one we grilled on Saturday. So that went into a salad with pickled red onions, cucumber, tomato, endive, radicchio and romaine. With a sour cream horseradish dressing. And parmesan crisps.

I'm with @shain here - I grow English peas every year but very few make it into the house. When I was a child my mother used to get very annoyed when I ate so many peas in the garden. Now, no one scolds me. I do grow snow peas to use in stir fries.

HC - Check your soil temperature before replanting; for beans to germinate the soil must be at least 60 F. . If you plant too early the seeds can rot. The weather here is also chilly and rainy. Too cold to even start hardening off the tomato seedlings. Yesterday I did a round of nursery visits with a friend - none had many plants out. The owners of the two biggest (who know us after 30 years of visits), both of whom grow all their own stock, said everything is weeks behind because of the weather. The average temperature here in April was only 1 degree higher than the average temperature last December.

I'd really like to know how this worked out. Wegman's has such a reputation as 'customer friendly'. I always wonder how true it is.

Chicken breast roasted with vegetables (fennel, potatoes, tomatoes, lots of garlic) and olives.

Sometimes the simplest thing is exactly the right thing. Hope you feel better.

Shelby you are WAY ahead of me. Here are my peonies: For all the flower gardeners here, I am starting a flower thread on the off topic forum.

Curried cauliflower, potatoes and peas from Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cooking. Thank you, Anna N. for reminding me of this awhile ago. There was also a dal of yellow split peas from the same book and a cucumber, tomato and yogurt salad neither of which were very photogenic.. And I made some naan.

I had several years of losing most of my beans and peas to rabbits and woodchucks in my fenced garden. I had a trench dug 6"deep around the bottom of the fence and fencing buried at an angle facing out. Haven't had a problem in the garden since. Except from the #@!&# mice and voles that eat my beets. Nothing I have found stops them. Edited to add - rabbit makes great pasta sauce as well as stew.