Real Food Made Easy » garden

Green Goddess gets a makeover!

janice — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:10:23 +0000

So after last Sunday’s solstice cocktail experimentation, Jeff decreed that while it tasted good, it looked like swamp water! Green Goddess needed a makeover! Some of this was due to the hurried making of the Five Spice powder syrup, which just got a quick strain before use, but some of it was also due to the use of the Cynar, which is distinctly brownish in colour.

So putting on my best Stacy and Clinton demeanour, I set about to make her prettier without losing the baseline flavour! Here we go!

We needed to opt out of anything other than green or clear spirits, so I replaced the Cynar with Vermouth Bianco. This meant, however that the sweeter, more wormwood flavours in the Bianco wouldn’t be balanced out if I stuck with the Genever, soooo, we made a switch to Beefeater 24. The proportions remained the same, with the exception of the five spice syrup, which got cut down slightly — partly because the Bianco is sweetish, and partly because it has a slight brownish tinge. I also strained the heck out of this with my finest tea strainer to remove any stray debris.

The key herb here is the lovage, which has a very distinct flavour — somewhere between celery leaves, parsley and angelica. I opted to substitute Sweet Cicely this time instead of the tarragon — it has an anise note like the tarragon, but a bit sweeter.

So here we go … the grand unveiling! Isn’t she so much prettier?!?

the Green Goddess (post makeover!)

muddle together:

3-4 slices cucumber (or 1/2 mini cucumber)

1/2 oz. five spice powder syrup

4-5 leaves lovage

1-2 sprigs sweet cicely

1-2 stems cutting celery

2-3 sprigs salad burnet

Add:

1 1/2 oz. Beefeater 24 gin

1/2 oz. Green Chartreuse

1/2 oz. Bianco vermouth

1/2 oz. fresh lime juice

Shake with ice, double strain with a very fine tea strainer into a cocktail glass rinsed with Absinthe. Garnish with a lime twist, lime wedge and seasonal herbs.

So for those unfamiliar with some of these herbs, these were taken today in my garden:

Lovage (young sprigs)

Sweet Cicely

Salad Burnet

Cutting Celery -- this has been outside unprotected all winter

Sorry teacher, the rabbit ate my beans! Summer Fest 2009, Week 3

janice — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 04:04:02 +0000

Here we are near the end of Week 3 of SummerFest, 2009, and the theme this week is Greens and Beans. Well, I’m sad to say I don’t have a lot of beans!

What!!! you say, haven’t you been gardening? What’s wrong with you?

Well, this year in the garden, has been the year of the rabbit … specifically, the rabbit we haven’t been able to catch.

Go figure, fenced off yard, 2 Shiba Inus patrolling the perimeter most of the day, and yet … RABBIT BEAN CARNAGE!!!! At least the green and yellow snap bean varieties. They’ve even been nibbling the pole beans down to little nubbins as soon as they get a couple of sets of leaves on them.

So, I have been tucking in bean seeds all over the place over the past few weeks, hoping that if they’re planted in enough places, the rabbits will leave some alone. So far, these Blue Lake pole beans in pots are the only ones to have really thrived, BUT, they are only just starting to flower.

On the bright side, however, the rabbits don’t seem to like any of the dried bean plants. Go figure! Dont know if the plants themselves are more fibrous, but in any case, they havent touched any of this bed:

I planted about 4 varieties of dried beans in total, including Montezuma Red (just starting to colour up in the pods here). These little ones cook up very similar to black beans.

I also planted black beans, Jacobs’ cattle beans (which are pretty and speckled), and these bi-coloured beans called Orca, which are just starting to get their distinctive colouring. The dark parts will get jet black, and look suspiciously like orca markings!

Dried beans are really easy to grow, and I’m really happy with the prospective yields per plant of all the varieties I grew this year. I’m going to be devoting more garden space to them next year. Having grown and cooked them in previous years, the taste of homegrown dried beans is also nicer than those you buy in the bulk bins, and they generally cook up a little faster, plus you can get all kinds of really cool heritage varieties with interesting markings on them.

Finally, there is something really satisfying about having jars of dried beans at the ready for the dead of winter!

May garden update: a garden on steriods!

janice — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:18:44 +0000

The weird weather continues here: sunny days, but cool evenings and nights. Just over a week ago, we had quite a stretch of wet, cool weather, and then all of a sudden, a week’s worth of sunny days, so things have been growing like crazy. Here’s a bit of video footage from a traipse around the garden this afternoon. Pardon the messy edges! Eric had surgery a week ago, so we have been somewhat sidetracked with shiba post-surgery care (they are VERY melodramatic!)

Things have been very strange this year — broad beans only just ripening (usually we’ve harvested them and moved on by now), and difficulties even getting decent seedlings started for squash, cucumbers and melons. The good news is that things like the broccoli seem to be quite happy.

So, lets get started in the patio:

and on to the main square foot beds

and finally, the greenhouse and the square foot beds under the window

Even though the wild growth in the garden may make it look like I’ve abandoned cooking, there has been culinary activity in the kitchen (gardening too, as I mixed up a batch of nematodes in the pyrex measuring cups!), just not a lot of opportunities to take pics. The next post will be something food-related, I promise!

April video garden update

janice — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:45:48 +0000

The title says it all. I got a new Flip, so thought that it would be easier to walk around the garden rather than sit down and list off all the things happening in the garden. Cameo appearances by Kimi and Eric.

Weather is warming up and veggies are finally starting to grow! Yay!

April Garden Tour Part 1

April Garden Tour Part 2

Thats all for now. The tomato plants have about 2-3 more weeks of growing to do before they get planted out. I dont intend to plant them out until the Victoria Day long weekend. Same with the squash, cucumbers and melons. if things keep warming up, I may get the beans planted in a couple of weeks.

Next video update in May! See you then. Stay tuned for Shiba shenanigans

Garden mini-update

janice — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 07:19:17 +0000

Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, so spent some time in the garden planting out some of the cooler-weather crops, and transplanting things that had been spending time under the greenhouse-film covered hoops. One square foot garden bed is filled right now, with plans to rotate in other veg as things ripe.

Small seeded fava beans are finally coming up, jerusalem artichokes havent begun to poke thru yet, the strawberries are showing new growth, and the rhubarb looks like it will have lots of new growth on it this year. We also thinned out the lilac tree growing by the artichokes, so there will be a bit more light coming thru.

Planted on Sunday:

shallots planted in the main flower bed in front of the sweet cicely
Beets (albino and deacon dan
turnip (tokyo cross)
peas (sugar snap, Russian sugar and ‘Summer’)
broccoli raab
Chard (canary and Rhubarb)
Edible chysanthemum
Radish (french breakfast)
Chinese cabbage
Lettuce
onion (copra and walla walla)
Chickpeas
Arugula
Spinach
Kohlrabi
Pac choi
Tah Tsai

regular broccoli will spend another 1 week in the greenhouse, plan to do another round of planting on April 8, just before the full moon. Tomatos, peppers, eggplant also started in the greenhouse, but wont be out in the garden until 4th week of april at the earliest.

Next update on empanadas — i need to test empanada dough recipes!