Cold Frame

I recently got this on sale and got it set up just before the frost came. I don't know how well it will work since my plants are all in containers but I thought I'd give it a try here and I know it will come in handy once we move. I figured if nothing else it should help some of my potted plants survive until spring, or at least be better than just leaving them sitting out which is what I was going to do.

DDW - Week 4

This week we had oven fried chicken, sauteed swiss chard and steamed brocolli.

Breakdown:

Chicken - Locust Point Farm

Flour - Daisy Flour

Swiss Chard - CSA

Pinenuts - Not local

Brocolli - CSA

Spices - Not Local

The brocolli was getting old, but it still tasted pretty good. I liked the sauteed swiss chard but Mark did not.

Sweet potatoes

I harvested my sweet potatoes the other day and thought it would be fun to look back over the development of these guys.

I started my sweet potatoes by growing slips from an organic sweet potato I bought at the store. I got many slips.

However, only 1 slip actually survived planting, here it is shortly after being planted.

It grew quickly and made beautiful flowers. At one point it was overflowing the pot and trying to take over the deck! This is what it looked like the day I harvested. You can see a sweet potato coming up out of the dirt.
My harvest from 1 slip. I have no idea if this is a good harvest from 1 plant but I was happy with it.

CSA

These are the last 2 weeks of CSA shares.


The CSA thing has been interesting. Overall, I've enjoyed it. It is fun to see what we are going to get every week and we've gotten a lot of new things (for us). I have felt a lot of pressure to figure out what to do with everything we get. Some of the things I've really been stuck on. I've discovered that Mark is pretty picky on how he will eat veggies, they can't be soft at all!

When I read the description for this fall CSA they said it would be things like potatoes, brocolli, sweet potatoes, califlower, your traditional fall veggies. Of those things, brocolli is the only one we've gotten. I will admit to be disappointed by that because we really like all those fall veggies here, much more than the traditional summer ones. We are getting so many greens and I didn't expect that from a fall CSA, but I should have now that I know greens love the fall.

I'm not sure if I would do a CSA again, we really are just too limited in what we like. I think we are better off growing it ourselves or visiting the farmers market and getting exactly what we want and will eat. I hate to admit some things have ended up in the compost because it took me too long to figure out what to do with them.

DDW-Week 3

This week we had pork and fiesta cabbage en escabeche wraps.

Breakdown:

Pork chop: Locust Point Farm - 7 miles

Cabbage - Calvert Farm CSA - 15 miles

Red onion - not local

Red bell pepper - Calvert Farm CSA

Hot pepper - Calvert Farm CSA

Olive oil - not local

Balsamic vinegar - not local

Spices - not local

Whole Wheat tortillas - 85 miles

I love this site

If you are anything like me you are suddenly being bombarded with catalogs that you don't want. I found a great webpage to opt out of these catalogs all online.

http://www.catalogchoice.org/

You search for the catalog you don't want to receive anymore, put in your customer number and that is it! Much faster and easier than calling each catalog individually.

Secret Chocolate Cake

The picture I posted yesterday is of Secret Chocolate Cake from Simply in Season. It is very good and moist! I know it makes me a non-purist to use my veggies to make cake, but Mark (the husband) doesn't like many veggies cooked. Especially if they get soft when cooked. So, I was really struggling with how to make the beets and decided to try this first. If we get more from the CSA I'll cook them and eat them straight.

So, here is the recipe if you don't have the book. And if you don't have the book, you should! It is the best in season type of cookbook I've looked at. I checked many of them out of the library but this is the one I bought.

This is the recipe as written in the book with my changes in parenthesis:

2 cups beets (cooked, peeled (I didn't peel them) and chopped)
1/2 cup applesauce (I used my homemade and canned applesauce)
Puree until smooth, set aside.

1 1/2 cups sugar (I used 1 cup)
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used chocolate yogurt)
3 eggs
Combine in large mixing bowl and beat with electric mixer for 2 minutes

1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Add along with pureed beets, beat for another 90 seconds

1 1/2 cup flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (I used white whole wheat for all the flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Gradually sift into the batter, mixing it with a spoon until just blended

1/2 cup chocolate chips
Stir in

Pour into 9X13 inch baking pan. Cook at 350 F 40-50 minutes, until knife comes out clean.