A light overnight freeze last week was the death knell for the zucchini and basil. The squash won’t make it through another one. All to be expected. The ferns are already safely inside for the winter, as is the little palm tree.  This leaves the front raised bed basically naked. It’s quite sad after seeing it vibrantly full of garden through the spring/summer/fall. It needs rest time though. The leaves are falling and I just keep digging them in to that bed. I’ve sourced rabbit poo locally (50# for $5) and will be picking some up. A few months of that in the beds plus composting in the fall leaves mulched through the mower, and those beds will be ready to go again in the spring.

The greens should hold up a little while longer putting out tons of spinach, beet greens, mustards, and kale but at some point, even they will give up and the garden will sleep for a bit. It is kind of nice that the weather provides a mandatory rest period, it gives me good time to amend soil and get it ready for spring.

The leaves are an ongoing battle with the wind here. Sometimes the wind sweeps for you, and sometimes it sends everyone’s leaves to you. I’m just sort of waiting it out and when they all finish falling, we’ll rake up what is left and mulch it with the mower for the compost.

1. Onion Bread  2. Jalapeno Basil Onion Jelly 3. Banana Carrot Muffins

The Onion Bread is currently on the second rise. I cannot tell you how much I love the Smitten Kitchen blog, and it is her Light Whole Wheat bread. However, I added 1 tsp of garlic powder, and 3 tablespoons of fresh red onions, toasted lightly under the broiler for a few minutes before working into the loaf. My only concern is that I had it on the back of the stove as a warm area to rise, but I keep forgetting the oven vents at a different place so I may have gotten it too warm in the first rise. We’ll see.

The jelly. The pepper plants have been out of control since it cooled off. I’ve given them away, begged housesitting friends to also pick, picked tons and not been able to eat them all, eaten off the plant, etc. It’s getting cooler and cooler at night so pepper season is winding down. What to do with them? I went searching and found a jelly recipe that uses all the stuff I have too much of in the garden – Banana Peppers (CHECK!), Jalapeno Peppers (CHECK!), Basil (Check!) and Red Onions (Had to buy, no onion crop this fall). I wasn’t too sure about the whole combo and how the heat blends with the sugar  and vinegar, and where does basil fit in, etc.

In the jar, setting up

Look at the tiny basil threads

Holy cow this stuff is GORGEOUS in the jar and tastes amazing. Total props to the blogger that shared this recipe which apparently is an adaptation of an old Ball recipe. Chunks of green peppers, bright red onion pieces and slim threads of chiffonade basil.  A little sweet with a blooming warmth. The peppers went from plant to jar in less than 30 minutes, how is that for fresh? I only made a quart so it wasn’t a canner/seal day, just a nice jar in the fridge to make sure we like it. I thought his eyes were going to get stuck they rolled so far back in his head, so that is a great sign.

Although I linked it, I’m also saving it here on the off chance that the other blog disappeared and I lost an amazing recipe. Plus I made my own adjustments/changes, so they are noted here in a different color.

Basil Banana Pepper Jelly
Recipe adapted from Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving

Yield: 3-half pints

1/2 c thinly sliced, seeded mild banana peppers or any mild, sweet peppers  (More banana peppers, including some cute hybrids from a branch that rubs up against the jalapeno plant – they were orange-ish red)
1/4 c fresh hot peppers, seeds removed and diced (Our garden is full of Jalapeno, I think about 5 were used to get to the 1/4 cup chopped)
1/4 c red onion, finely diced (We’re onion fans, I was a lot closer to 1/2 cup)
3 to 4 large fresh basil leaves, cut into thin ribbons (I skipped the dried basil listed below entirely and went with 7-8 leaves of fresh basil cut into the teeniest chiffonade)
1/4 tsp dried basil (Skipped entirely, added more fresh)
3/4 c white vinegar (I did 1/2 of this with white vinegar and 1/3 with apple cider vinegar)
3 c sugar
1 pouch liquid pectin (I had powdered on hand. I mixed the powder with 3 oz of water and brought to a boil in another pan and then added it in. No problem with setting whatsoever)

Combine peppers, red onion, fresh and dried basil in a large, deep stainless steel saucepan. Stir in vinegar and sugar.

Over high heat, bring mixture to a full, rolling boil. Stirring constantly, boil hard 1 minute. Remove from heat. Immediately stir in one pouch Liquid Pectin, mixing well. (As a note, the steam rolling off of this will clear your sinuses really quickly and could irritate your eyes a little, be careful)

Pour jelly into a hot jar, dividing solids equally among jars and filling each jar to within 1/4 inch of top rim (head space). Wipe jar rims. Center lids on jars & screw on bands. Process in BWB 10 minutes. (I did not process because I am not “putting it up” – it was just one large jar for the fridge and is destined to be short lived)

Cool for about 30 minutes, then, when lids are concave but jelly is still hot, carefully invert & twist jars to distribute solids throughout jelly. (**Do not let them remain upside down for long periods**) Repeat as needed during the cooling/setting time, until solids are evenly suspended in the jelly.

Banana Carrot Walnut Muffins: The base for these came from this recipe,however, I had no almond flour on hand and made some other changes for both flavor and texture reasons) The original also says it makes 18 but I just went with a dozen bigger ones to use just one pan.

Moist, rich, not overly sweet, and a little crunch from walnuts and almonds

2 cups cake flour (I’d like to try these with whole wheat next time)
2 tsp baking soda
1 TBSP cinnamon
1 cup dates (Wanna know what I’ve learned about dates? Keep them in the freezer and cut them without thawing – gets rid of the whole sticky mess thing)
3 ripe bananas
3 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla (In red because I added this)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1/4 cup vegetable oil (On hand. I may try applesauce next time)
1 1/2 cups shredded carrots

3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts (I actually split this between almonds and walnuts, it is what I had on hand)

1 TBSP butter (Just melted and drizzled over them at the end)

1. I double sifted all the dry ingredients into KitchenAid bowl

2. All wet ingredients went into the food processor, including the carrots FIRST to nearly puree them. I don’t want to SEE a carrot but they add amazing flavor to this. I just ground them up, then began adding all the other wet ingredients. I added the dates second so the blades would cut them up well.

3. Mixed wet into dry, and then folded in the nuts last.

4. Cooked at 325 for 22 minutes but muffin tin was on top of a stone so be careful with your heat.

5. drizzled a total of 1TBSP butter over the tops of all the muffins.

These were crazy delicious, moist, not overly sweet, with a crunch from the nuts. I will add a little flaxmeal next time as well.

We both love caprese salad, but I was looking for something a little more to qualify as dinner. I decided to add some couscous and shrimp and really work with layering the basil in. It was SO good. Enough for both for dinner – with a little extra, plus enough for 2 perfect lunch sizes the next day.

Shrimp Caprese Salad CousCous or Summer in a Bowl

(Gotta love recipes that come together in less than 30 minutes)

1. Cook 1.5 cups israeli couscous or however much you want to make, it’s cooked in a 2:1 ratio liquid to solid. I used some chicken broth for the liquid. Drain any excess liquid and put this on in fridge to start cooling down. Note: I will make this with quinoa next time to try that, but could not source any locally. Great news, both Whole Foods and Sunflower Markets are opening here within weeks and quinoa shortage will be a moot point. If you’re not familiar with israeli couscous, it is beautiful pearls, not the tiny grain stuff.

2. Prep your shrimp (1 lb) or be utterly lazy and buy it prepped – I did. I bought the 40-50 count shrimp because mixed into something like this, I see no point in big expensive prawns.

3. Saute the shrimp in a mixture of 1 TBSP of butter and 2 TBSP olive oil. I used the basil and olive oil mixture listed above. Plus 2-3 cloves of garlic that I browned before putting the shrimp in. Take shrimp out, save pan drippings. Put shrimp in fridge to start cooling off.

4. Cut 1 pint of grape tomatoes in half, and set in cheesecloth with some salt sprinkled on to let them drain out some. Tie the cheesecloth to your sink faucet for mess reduction. Don’t stress about this, a papertowel will also work. Whatever. Have fun.

5. Dice 1 ball of mozzarella and put in a bowl in the fridge. I spooned about a tablespoon of the basil olive oil mixture over it and mixed it around as well so it could pick up some of the flavor. Mozzarella is also quite easy to make if you want to go that route, but it was a lazier night, I bought the cheese. I’d add a little more cheese the next time. If you bought a brick of mozzarella, cut that out — behold the cheese. Respect the cheese.

6. In your blender or food processor or bowl with whisk: 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil, garlic to your taste – ours is 2-3 cloves, 2 heaping TBSP of chopped basil – again, I used that basil that’s been sitting in olive oil, and the drippings from the shrimp pan. Some salt – be careful because you also salted the tomatoes, and may have used something salty in cooking the cous cous. Some pepper, or at our house, a lot of fresh cracked pepper. Blendy blendy blendy.

7. In a big bowl, add your cous cous, grape tomatoes, cooked shrimp, and the mozzarella cheese. Pour your dressing over this and toss it around so everything is coated.

Tada. Garnish with some fresh basil.

Nice, cool, summer in a bowl. Enjoy.

Cooking with whole wheat is tricky. Most recipes continue to split the whole wheat flour with white flour in the interest of not creating belly bricks. The muffins this morning greatly resembled cornbread in their reasonably airy crumb with the little crunch in each bite like cornmeal would create. However, that crunch came from ground flax and wheat bran. These have just a hint of sweet so they are not cloying. They could easily be breakfast, a tea accompaniment, etc.

Anyway….we’ve decided it’s the perfect muffin/quick bread base so I’ll be using it with other additives besides dates. Jalapeno and corn for chili muffins is a future try.

This morning, I served these with freshly made miso soup. Sounds strange but the slightly sweet muffins with the slightly salty miso and crisp, crunchy green onions went together very nicely for a tasty but healthy brunch.

Whole Wheat Muffins with Honey and Dates

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups of whole wheat flour (We use John’s Farm, a local farmer so it’s organic, freshly ground, etc. I think this makes a huge difference. The downside for those outside the area is at the Farmers Market it is $7/5 lbs. but online it’s $19.99/5 lbs.)

3 TBSP freshly ground flax seed

3 TBSP wheat bran

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients:

1 cup water

1/4 cup canola oil (I will try this with applesauce next time)

1 egg

2 TBSP honey

2 TBSP agave nectar

Addition:

3/4 cup chopped dates – about 5 large medjool dates

1. Preheat oven to 425
2. Combine dry ingredients and sift together 3 times — sifting MATTERS with whole wheat. Don’t forget with flour to spoon it into a measuring cup and level with a knife, not just reach your measuring cup into a bag and scoop, it compacts it and you end up with more flour than needed. Some of the heavier things like bran or flax may not sift through, just dump them back in and make sure to mix them in.
3. Cut up dates. If you’ve never done this it will be a big sticky ball. Just keep cutting. Then put them in the flour mixture and use your hands to separate the date ball. As flour gets on the pieces they will break up and scatter in the mix.
4. Mix wet ingredients together, make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in, mixly quickly. It will be a slightly wet mix.
5. Pour into muffin tins/papers. This does NOT raise a lot so I fill them about 3/4 full.
6. Cook for 15-20 minutes at 425. Ovens vary. 17 minutes was perfect for mine.

I’ll have to post the amazing shrimp caprese couscous in another post, since I also don’t want to lose that recipe while it is fresh in my head.

This is a little photo heavy post but pix are good for updates.

The front yard mystery plant has turned out to be an apple tree..or crabapples...apple-ish

The apple-ish items are beginning to turn red (when the lone squirrel doesn't eat them, he has one EVERY DAY for lunch)

A conservative guess would be about 150 of these 4-5" apple/crabapples on the one tree

Very successful spearmint and peppermint patch. That's a cut off tub to keep them corraled but they are doing so well. Yummy. Mojitos, tea, and I think I may tackle some mint ice cream next week

Container grown cantelopes which have already outgrown the 54" tomato cage and are now attaching to the back porch. So far, better experiment than expected.

Cukes in a self-watering earthtainer.

Okra - the one thing truly loving this crazy heat

We have basil everywhere, and it is gorgeous. Hooray pesto!

Coop frame is coming along

The coop is coming along. Of course, nothing is ever fast enough. Patience. Patience. He’s doing mortis/tenon joints to help it be stronger and look nicer. In the meantime, he is also totally indulging my love of bright colors by letting me paint it in various bright colors that would never be inside our home. Jade greens, caribbean blues, watermelon pinks, sunny yellows. It’s a fucking chicken coop, it can be bright and whimsical and non-matching. I think it’s feasible that we’ll have girls living in it by month end.

More and more we settle into this house, and have even had “what if” conversations about buying it. Maybe it doesn’t have loads of land, but the whole POINT of urban farming is small scale. We love living in the city and being close to stuff. We’ll probably not be ready to move/buy in the spring, so in theory we can live here and pay rent or potentially live here and pay a mortgage. A very low mortgage. We could move later, or settle in here. Plenty of smaller spaces are having amazing production. While goats would be out of the question, chickens and bees wouldn’t. Plenty of space for raised bed gardens. Room for berry brambles. And not so much that no one can be happy because they’re too busy working too much space. Interesting how thoughts shift and morph when you’re just open. It is just a discussion for now, but could be a possibility.

Anyway, I’m already a gardening rebel by gardening in the front yard, which is frowned upon by the law. Of course, what they meant to prevent was some straight-row front yard farming, which really, would that be so awful? My flower beds host okra, peas, mint, peppers, sunflowers, onions, etc. It looks like any other bed on the block so it isn’t like just plowing it up. Apparently I’m just going to be a little sustainability rebel. These are not the droids you’re looking for.

After chit chatting with both neighbors, neither of whom has an issue with it, we looked about the yard for where we might put them. We’re only talking 3-4 hens and the rule of thumb is about 3 square feet of space for each. Our plans have a relatively small footprint but give 4 birds about 12 s. ft. each so they should be happy. We thought about winter north winds with placement, and air flow during the summer. We also thought about minimizing any egg-singing, and ease of cleaning.

We grabbed some notebooks and went roaming to another local coffee place we’ve heard about, Coffee Slingers. Reputed to be one of the top 21 cups in the country, and with great reviews in Food and Wine. It’s in the midtown area known for great old brick buildings and is on the ground floor of a building. Once an old car dealership, and now sporting a very open theme and an AMAZING coffee. Amazing in that I NEVER drink black coffee, finding it too bitter. They have an 18 hour cold brewed that was amazing. For the first time, I could understand that a coffee had a fruit flavor and various notes. We scribbled notes and talked about space and what the girls need and what we wanted to do from a sustainability point of view.

Here is the view from our table/repurposed old bench seat from some unknown vehicle.

So what did we decide to do?

1. A green roof on the coop. This will support 12 s. ft of gardening space on the roof. This will also provide more temperature stability for the girls and a level of noise suppression for anyone singing their egg laying song in the coop. 12 s. ft may not sound like much, but using Square Foot Gardening, as an example, 1 block can support 16-20 radishes, or 12 green onions or 4 spinach plants.

2. Vertical gardening on the outside walls of the coop via rain gutters. 5″ deep gutters can easily support various greens and that time of year is coming. Again providing more temperature control to the interior of the coop.

3. Water recovery via gutter on the roof to a barrel for rain water and/or hose watering excess from roof. Ideally, to re-use for watering the roof, it is very dry right now. It was 107 today and the humidity is desert low.

4. The design below gives the ladies a coop area with multiple roosts, and nesting boxes. Pitches the roof backwards for water collection and so that runoff doesn’t go into the living area. Adjustable vents allow for air flow in the summer, and more coziness in the winter. A hinged door on the back allows for stealth egg collection and/or cleaning.  Outside they have an open run and will get morning sunshine in that area. There is also a shady nook UNDER the coop for chillaxing. Technically the space could support 6-7 girls, but if they were all laying well, we’d be overrun with eggs – even with sharing with the neighbors so our goal is 4. Blessedly, it is a farming area, so we can go straight to pullets/layers locally rather than the whole baby chicks then. Unfortunately, the breed I eventually want to raise (Partridge Chanteclers) aren’t going to just be sitting there waiting for me, so it’ll probably be the locally popular Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds.

5. Sharing it here. We’re forever forgetting pictures until a project is nearly done, so this time, here it is, from concept drawing which isn’t entirely original but is to exactly what we wanted. More to come…

Although we have a Whole Foods and Sunflowers Market on the way, grocery shopping has been relatively traumatizing. First there was that whole “no grocery delivery” thing. Ask M and J about my utter horror at discovering that people go INTO grocery stores. None of my familiar chains were here so it’s been exploration. There are, of course, farmer’s markets to haunt, but cheese has been a re-occuring theme. Cheese, or the lack thereof.

Tonight we decided to explore the highly recommended La Baguette with its bistro, bakery, and butcher shop. On the way, we were side-tracked by the prior evening’s google fu and the location of a place called Forward Foods. Not far from our house in a lovely district of old homes, antique shops, and cool stores. It’s small at less than 1000 feet but there were some of our favorite natural brands, or hard to find foods. And the angels started singing because BEHOLD THE CHEESE CASE:

My favorites are bleu, very sharp cheddars, smooth bries. The first to catch my eye, my beloved Pt. Reyes Bleu – a California bleu cheese that I’ve loved for years. Then, we asked for a recommendation for something sharp with a little smooth/smokey edge. A taste later and Marques Semicurado Mahon went into our bag. A spanish cheese with a sharp bite, that becomes very mellow. A 4-pack of Virgil’s cream soda, a beautiful pear and some wandering around and we were out the door to our original destination. This little urban market will become a favorite haunt.

La Baguette did not disappoint and even achieved something I hadn’t expected. I’m faithful to Pt. Reyes. Oh I’ll stray to other bleus but I come back every time. La Baguette had a headturner. An immediate heartbreaking, I am leaving you forever headturner. Bleu d’Auvergne. Oh, this was a moment. And you bet, some of that went into the bag. He discovered a walnut gourmandise with layers of honey and walnut in a creamy cheese. Yep, that too.

Yay for cheese discoveries. The joyous thing about good cheese is that even though the price per pound may make you twitch, you don’t need a pound. You can measure it in delightful little bites. Bleu with fresh pear, with figs, with a bit of raw honey, with a raw almond or three.

Dinner turned into a platter of cheese selections, some apples, some chilled grilled chicken, walnuts, almonds, and a bit of honey. We opened a bottle of wine – a cheap bottle – believe it or not Jacob’s Creek Shiraz/Cab is what we keep around in volume, and it’s less than $7 a bottle. It’s a perfect little “go-to” for us.

And that’s how we started our weekend.

All scheduled cheese bitching is now cancelled. We resume life in a beautiful bubble of cheesy goodness.

We both have come to love outdoor living spaces. Our front porch here is set up for people watching in the neighborhood, good conversation and occasional rowdy dinners involving multiple bottles of wine. With this house being smaller, it has been great to have that extra living space surrounded by garden.

The back porch is a sad panda though. Sort of a split level afterthought to an addition to the house, it is NOT user friendly. Some of the back porch issue is that it isn’t a brick porch like the front which offers some level of privacy. The back porch is just out there. Blessedly the yard is deep so we don’t have neighbors on top of us and the out of control vines and trees on the property line fences offer good privacy from the sides. This, of course, won’t matter at all in winter when it all dies back.

Anyway, they treasure hunting was for vintage wicker and iron as we discussed ways to use both patio levels, create some sense of continuity and somehow add some privacy without losing pretty green views. I’ll post pix soon but he came up with a great way to frame the bottom of the patio and used sunbrella type fabric for a way to create some privacy but still allow a good line of sight and air flow.

A cool settee was found and an old coffee table. A new cushion for the settee and some pillows and there is a nice place to curl up. An area rug is on the way which will render the rough concrete a moot point. We still need to source a few small chairs for the lower level which will also host a container garden to soften the transition between the two spaces. It is no small feat to find old wicker and iron and neither one of us wanted the lightweight newer stuff.

Window boxes and hanging baskets will further create a sense of privacy without totally closing off the space.

We also got large pavers to create a space for the Happy Father’s Day and Happy Birthday Early Grill-of-Man-D00m and the smoker.

Pictures soon. Promise.