food Archives : Page 7 of 17 : Cast Iron Garden

January 21, 2023January 21, 2023

01/18/2023 refried bean learning times and field violet transplants

It rained 0.31” in Norman in the night on 01/18. The night before I moved a bunch of seedlings of Viola bicolor, the wild annual field violets that volunteer in the yard. I want more of them as ground cover for early spring so I am moving many from existing locations in and near the raised beds. They seem to be doing well! When I’ve transplanted larger plants once they bloom, they don’t do nearly as well.

Paula prepared tepary beans for refrying. The pair of tiny ones at the bottom are wild type teparies.

Paula made a quesadilla with a layer of the refried tepary beans. Her diagnosis was that they worked fine and had a good taste, but that she should have added more lard and onions to make them less dry.

January 21, 2023January 21, 2023

01/21/2023 refried cowpeas

Paula has been experimenting with what beans can be refried using the Rancho Gordo refried bean recipe. The refried cowpeas were great! These were the Corrientes cowpeas from last summer. Tacos had ground venison for the meat; the non-tomato veggies were mostly from the farmshare.

January 1, 2023January 1, 2023

01/01/2023 new year frolic at Lexington

Liverworts near the parking area!

Briar is always blinking when she gets her picture taken.

We saw some very green fine stuff covering the Sandy loam.

Some obvious moss nearby.

Then the green stuff with moss capsules! When I got home I saw Mom’s blog post from today. The very fine green coating appears to be the protonema life stage of the moss! Thanks Mom! Guess ‘tis the season.

Dog eyes open this time.

A big cluster of dead ants. No idea why.

A mystery plant on the edge of the path cut.

The leftover seed heads of the mystery plant.

A second smaller individual of this mysterious plant.

The habitat of the mysterious plant.

Paula spotted this gorgeous greenbriar leaf!

Briar leaps from the water. It was warm out!

Bounce bounce bounce! miraculously she wasn’t muddy. Good clean water.

Enjoying some last smells before we head home.

The Chef made Hoppin’ John for dinner. The green is chard from our garden, frozen from a previous season. The black eyed peas were from the farm share. Paula made cornbread from scratch.

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022

12/21/2022 split cowpea soup

This afternoon the Chef inquired if he could use this jar of cowpeas. His request was approved.

Corrientes cowpeas, farm share veggies, and a bit of leftover salted pork.

I asked the Chef for the recipe and he said this is what he has documented so far. He had two different meals going and this one was on the left burner (marked L). The ingredients without a burner noted were in both meals. He doesn’t know why one is marked both LR. I’m sure the periodic table of elements was useful somehow in this.

December 21, 2022December 16, 2022

12/15/2022 luxury yogurt dessert shrikhand with garden saffron

Saffron soaked in warmed yogurt liquid begins the shrikhand. I read about this dessert online, but a friend also says his mom makes it for certain holidays.

Freshly ground cardamom added

Whisking!

So smooth! It tastes best after sitting for a few days. The flavors soak into the yogurt more. It tastes like luxury.

The next day you can see the saffron dissolving into the yogurt.

The recipe amount was just enough to fill two small jars and leave enough to sample.

December 11, 2022December 11, 2022

12/11/2022 teparies in soup

Yum. Tortilla soup by Wes.

Paula made the beans and used up 2021’s mix of tepary beans from the garden!

December 6, 2022December 6, 2022

12/06/2022 green tomatoes

Friends gave us the extra tomatoes from their garden when it was about to freeze. They have been gradually turning red over the last few weeks.

Tonight Paula used some of the green ones in a spicy yet delicious dish!

November 24, 2022November 24, 2022

11/24/2022 plenty of thanks

We thought it was supposed to rain today, so yesterday we picked up all the tomato cages and put all the vegetable debris in the city compost pile. (I don’t know that ours gets hot enough to kill any diseases.). We piled the dead marigolds on the bed where we’ll put peppers next year. We put some sugar pea seeds there to see if the debris will shelter them. We took the plastic off the greens so they could get rain. We put cilantro seeds everywhere and carrot seeds among the greens.

For Thanksgiving, Paula started our Corrientes cowpeas soaking.

The Turkey is from Paula’s aunt and uncle in Texas where they raise some. All the veggies in the beans are from the farm share except garden poblanos. Wes used some store apples and store ham as flavors. But otherwise the veggies are all our garden or the farm share!

November 13, 2022November 13, 2022

11/12/2022 frosty

Marigolds are done. Photo by Paula.

Winecup rosettes are fine for the winter! Photo also by Paula.

We went to look at Saxon park.

It was fun.

Then we went home. Having dog thoughts in the backyard.

Catctus

Tom kha (Thai coconut chicken soup). Has garden lemongrass in it. Lemongrass is not frost hardy so Paula divided the stems to keep a few indoors over the winter, and froze a bunch of stems to use.

October 3, 2022October 3, 2022

10/03/2022 Bean Club dinner and other excitement

My colleague gave me these delicious tiny tomatoes from her sister’s garden east of here. She said it’s a hybrid between tommy toe and another variety and has bred true for two ish years! I’m saving some!

A yellow iris by the rock garden.

Polenta with cranberry beans from Bean Club and fancy sausage from California. Salad includes farm share peppers and the main mean also included summer squash from the farm share.

A cooked cranberry bean. They were very creamy in texture!

The cranberry bean broth was very savory. The Chef laughed at us taking a picture.

Here’s some of the remaining cranberry beans. They have a tan base but occasionally the red speckles and stripes turn the bean almost completely red!

You can see they are nice chunky big beans. Larger than the average pinto.