Garden 2010 - Return with a vengeance!

Some of 2009 Harvest. Looks nice, but this was probably all the edible potatoes we got!

Last year we had a so-so gardening year. Probably because we were so busy planning the wedding and getting our yard ready for 100 family and friends, tent etc. This year, we are returning with a vengeance! Even more than usual, I feel the need to know where my food comes from, to not eat anything that didn't grow from the ground or had a mother (sorry, vegetarians!). I'm done with putting preservatives and chemicals in my body, or I at least want to do that as little as possible. So, what better way to do that then to grow the food yourself?

We were lucky to receive some great plants as wedding present from friends: blackberry bushes, raspberry bushes and a persimmon tree. I am going to find out if I can grow black and red currants in SC too. I'm so used to having these berries from Sweden, and I miss making jelly, jam and juice from them. I've ordered frozen berries from NY state, but I want to have some of my own.
This year our strawberry and blueberry patches should start producing as well. Can't wait for that.
We found some EMF on Craig's list, bought some garden fabric and are planning low covered tunnels this year to start our planting earlier and extend our season to all year around.

Here's a complete list of seeds/plants we are planting this year (take a deep breath):

Potato, All Blue
Potato, All Red
Potato, Carola
Potato, German Butterball
Potato, Yellow Finn
Tomato, Hungarian Italian Paste
Tomato, German Pink
Tomato, Costoluto Genovese (inspired by Inadvertent Farmer's tomatoes!)
Tomato, Riesentraube
Tomato, Yellow Pear
Sweet Potato
Sweet Pepper, Tolli's Sweet Italian
Sweet Pepper, Sweet Banana
Sweet Pepper, Carolina Wonder
Hot Pepper, Wenk's Yellow Hot
Hot Pepper, Serrano Tampiqueno
Hot Pepper, Ancho Gigantea
Squash, Yellow Crookneck
Squash, Black Beauty Zucchini
Squash, Waltham Butternut
Pumpkin, Musquee de Provence
Pumpkin, Connecticut Field
Beans, (yard-long) Chinese Red Noodle
Bush Beans, Provider
Pole Beans, Genuine Cornfield
Pole Beans, McCaslan
Pole Beans, Dean's Purple Pod Bean
Pole Limas, Violet's Multi-colored Butterbeans
Carrots, Chantenay Red Core
Corn, Pennsylvania Butter-Flavored
Corn, Golden Bantam
Corn, Stowell's Evergreen
Cotton, Red Foliated White
Cucumber, Boston Pickling
Cucumber, Homemade Pickles
Eggplant, Black Beauty
Sunflower, Cucumber Leaf
Sunflower, Selma Suns
Aragula, Aragula
Parsley, Dark Green Italian
Spinach, Long Standing Bloomsdale
Swiss Chard, Ruby Red
Swiss Chard, Rainbow
Herbs, Mammoth Basil
Herbs, Sweet Genovese Basil
Herbs, Cinnamon Basil
Herbs, Wild Bergamot
Herbs, Borage
Herbs, Bouquet Dill
Herbs, Oregano, Greek
Herbs, German Winter Thyme
Lettuce, Amish Deer Tongue Lettuce
Lettuce, Tennis Ball Lettuce
Lettuce, Thai Oak Leaf
Snow Pea, Mammoth Melting Sugar

WOW! Are we going to be busy or what?

In addition, my friend YD asked me if I wanted some asian seeds that she did not want anymore, so I'm getting some Komatsuna, Mibuna, Chinese Kale & Thai Yellow Egg Eggplant. Last year I traded some seeds with my friend Jeff at the office, and hopefully we can do the same again. It only takes one tomato seed to have a different kind of plant! I urge you to swap seeds with friends, it's fun to get some different varieties and then you can compare how your plants succeded (or not, lol).

Happy Gardening! Now I'm off to make some Inadvertent Farmer's Whole Wheat Cinnamon Raisin Bread. Great smelling house alert in 3, 2, 1......

Felted Purse

Over the holidays, I made a simple knitting project for a felted purse. My aunt in Sweden has sheep and a wool/spinning/coloring business and she showed me how to do needle-felting one time when I was visiting. She also gave me a few bags of colored wool to do my own felting. I wanted to try to knit something and found this cute pattern online. I found some felting yarn at the store, and started knitting. It took almost no time at all to knit, and felting it was even faster. I threw it in the washing machine, hot water, a little detergent and a pair of jeans. It was done in about 5-7 minutes. Kinda cute, isn't it?

When I took the picture, I used a wine bottle to show the shape...and I suppose it could be used as a wine bottle giveaway bag as well! :-) Next I'm going to embellish it with some needlefelting and maybe a few beads. Then the best part - give it away and watch a good friend light up with a smile! :-)
We had some snow and ice come down last night so I leave you with this picture of Kane running around in the backyard. He always gets extra energetic when it gets cold. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

It's their fault

I knew when I saw this recipe for Chocolate Truffles with Sea Salt, that I was in trouble. Bad kind of trouble. The kind of trouble that goes right to your thighs. At least in my case they do.

However, don't be scared. I urge you to go forth and conquer and make these. I know the holidays are over, but maybe you have someone's birthday that you should celebrate. Maybe there's a dinner party to attend? A potluck in the office? Maybe your husband did something wonderful? (Mine does ALL the time! Yup, we're still newlyweds!)
The best part about finding something as delicious as these chocolate truffles is that you can give them away.

My modifications to this recipe are as follows:

I used 3/4 semisweet chocolate (Ghirardelli) and 1/4 Dark Chocolate (Hersheys, it's what I had in my pantry) for the actual truffle. I'm sure the mix that Pioneer Woman uses is just as good. Use what you like. I'm more of a milk chocolate woman than a dark chocolate woman anyway.

Some tips:

After you melt the chocolate and the sweetened condensed milk, you can split the mix up and flavor differently if you want to. I added a few (3-4) drops of peppermint to one batch and that tasted great.

Smaller is better for truffles. I made my second batch about 5/8" in diameter instead of 3/4".

I left my truffle mix to sit out on the stove to cool. The first batch was put in the fridge overnight, and I then had to remelt it in order to get it to working form. Play around with what works for you.

When covering the truffles with melted chocolate, I used a fork with wide prongs and several toothpicks. I would throw 3-4 truffles into the chocolate, use a spoon to heap chocolate on them, and then fish one out and use the toothpick under the fork to swipe away the chocolate that drips through. (Are you salivating yet?)

Recipe can be found here: Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Truffles with Sea Salt

Let me know if you are going to be blaming these truffles like I am.
Back to the gym...

Baking with my Grandmother

Sean and I took a trip back "home" to Sweden for the week of Thanksgiving. It was a short visit, but wonderful nonetheless. It sure feels like we spent a lot of time on our behinds in the airplane. We stayed the entire time with my paternal grandparents, "Farmor" (Grandmother) and "Farfar" (Grandfather), in their home near Arboga, Sweden.

I've written about this place before on my blog - it's the place where I spent my summers while young, and I have so many good memories of playing here with my parents, my brother and my cousins.

My favorite forest. So deep, dark and mysterious....

When I need to think of a place where I feel calm, at peace and utterly at home - the forest near this place is what I imagine. It is surrounded by tall pinetrees, with a floor of wet white moss, grey moss, granite boulders, blueberry bushes and lingon berry bushes. There is moose, fox, rabbit, all kinds of forest birds and lately also lynx (we saw tracks!).

My grandmother and I had decided in advance to have some baking sessions together, since we rarely get to bake for Christmas together. Being that the sun sets at 3pm in Sweden this time of year, we had plenty of indoors time for baking. Our first baking adventure was a basic Swedish cinnamon roll, but we added saffron (traditional Swedish Christmas baking spice), almond paste and raisins. Here's the recipe:

2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups melted butter plus 1/3 cup melted butter for filling
1 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp saffron
1 tsp. salt
2 pkg. dry active yeast (4 1/2 tsp.)
8-9 cups all purpose or bread flour
2 Tbsp. cinnamon
Raisins
Almond Paste
1 egg plus 2 Tbsp. water, lightly beaten together into an egg wash
Pearl sugar (or crushed sugar cubes)

Melt the butter and add milk, heat it until it reaches body temperature roughly - use your (clean!) finger to test. You can do this in the microwave as well (but my grandparents don't have one!).

Add to a bowl with the sugar, salt, cardamom and saffron. Stir in the yeast.
Add flour about 1/2 cup at a time until the dough is firm and pulls away from the side of your mixing bowl. We use human power and a wooden spoon, but you can use a mixer with a dough hook as well.

Cover the dough in the mixing bowl with a clean towel and let rise until doubled, about an hour.

Punch down the dough, then remove from bowl. On a floured counter, knead dough lightly until smooth and shiny. Use a knife to split the dough into two halves.

Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a rectangular(ish) shape. No thinner than 1/4 inch.

Adding raisins.

Adding shredded almond paste.

Brush with melted butter, add raisins and then shred almond paste over the entire dough.

Sprinkle with cinnamon and some more sugar ( 1 tbsp or so) if you want. Raisins are optional too! You can also top with sliced almonds.

Roll the rectangle from the top (long side) until you make a long cylinder. Cut each cylinder into slices about 1 inch wide. Place each slice into paper cups on a baking sheet.

Time to sleep for a little while!

Cover with a dishtowel and let them rise for another 45 minutes.

Behind the new electric stove is the old woodfire oven.
It's been sealed shut but the space remains, and at Christmas my grandmother fills it with small santas and gnomes.

Preheat oven to 425 F.
Brush with egg/water mixture and sprinkle with pearl sugar or crushed sugar cubes.
Bake for 7 minutes until medium golden brown.

Stay tuned for some more baking with my Farmor. Next we made gingersnaps. :-)

Last Canning Session

I finally managed to find some time for the last canning session(s) of the year. My friend Janice had purchased some mountain apples for me, and I turned them into applesauce and apple/rosemary jelly.

For the applesauce, I used a saucer attachment to my mom's old Electrolux mixer. That mixer is probably close to 38 years old and it still works great. I mix most of my bread in that mixer. I made one classic applesauce mix with apples and sugar, and one with cinnamon and only using honey as a sweetener. I'm trying to not eat "as much" sugar as I used to, and we will see how this works. I found the recipe for apple/rosemary jelly on Pioneer Woman's recipe site, called Tasty Kitchen. My kitchen smelled great with the apple rosemary mixture cooking on the stove. I let the jelly liquid drain for about 20 hours using cheesecloth as a strainer. It took me a few more days to find time to cook it so I had it in the fridge for a few days. Once it was time to can the jelly (and turn the juice concentrate into jelly) I did a major mistake.
I started overachieving.
You know, thinking I can "just" vacuum for a few minutes while the pot of jelly starts boiling on the stove. Ha!

After I cleaned up the boiled over jelly that went all over the stove, down the stove cabinet, INTO the stove cabinet, and finally all over the floor.....and trying to keep Kane from the hot liquid and keep myself from sticking to the floor.....after that I still came out with 9 half-pints of jelly. But just imagine how much I COULD HAVE HAD. sigh.

The floor is still sticky. I have washed it. Twice.

Here's to the women who can really multitask and who do not get caught up in vaccuming. Have a wonderful rest of the week!

Newlyweds and Peppers Galore

Greetings from the newlyweds! :-) Yes, it's great although it really doesn't feel like much has changed. lol. Instead of the "When are you getting married?" questions, we now get the "When are you getting pregnant?" questions. lol. Oh and the "Mrs. Baaaaaaarley" wherever I go. Yep. You know who you are. I'm hereby letting you know that you're weird. And you should stop now.

Our honeymoon weekend at the Biltmore Estate in the NC mountains was awesome. We had a great time, eating good food, enjoying adventures that friends had so graciously given us as wedding gifts. Here we are enjoying the Segway tour. Off-road Segways are so much fun!

Back home I ventured out in the garden to find that the bok choi and chard I had planted the weekend before the wedding had survived, the cabbage and broccoli that still needs to be planted has survived the neglect, the raspberry bushes and persimmon tree that friends gave us for the wedding are waiting for their "place" and I had a huge bounty of peppers! I think I'm going to make some pepper jelly this weekend and can it as holiday gifts. We have a mixture of Carolina Bell peppers, Banana peppers and some Wenk's Yellow Hot. I also have some cutie Lemon Drop hot peppers that aren't in the picture.

I also have to take care of these that my friend Janice got for me during their trip to a mountain orchard. Apple sauce here we come.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Our wedding day!

Here are a few initial photos. It was a gorgeous day - a few raindrops in the morning, warm and sunny (and humid!) but a perfect day nonetheless. All the hard work we did up until one hour before paid off. The food was delicious, the place was gorgeous, our friends and family were there and I married the most wonderful man in the world. :-) Life is good indeed.