Posts from — January 2010

It’s still winter, which is part of the gardening season, believe it or not. In Michigan, it’s the planning, dreaming and scheming phase of gardening.

We have the good fortune of gardening with our next door neighbor, a generous senior citizen who appreciates gardening enough to share her ground with us. She had invited us to come for brunch today to talk about this year’s garden. We had a lovely meal together, perused some seed catalogs, brainstormed some additions to this summer’s garden, and conversed about matters ranging from theoretical physics to politics to the existence of God along with what we are going to grow this year. We covered a lot of ground.

Here are some of the ideas we came up with.
• We’ll grow carrots. We haven’t grown them here since our soil contained a lot of clay, at least when we first started gardening here. Over the years our soil condition has improved. Plus, our neighbor requested some.
• We will try lettuce and cucumbers again. One of the great things about gardening together is that we have space to experiment. We have grown the former with a good deal of success and the latter with not much. It’s always fun to see what thrives in any given summer.
• We will give successive planting of peas another shot. Our neighbor’s yard has a great “pea garden” on the west side of a trellis. It’s proven to be a good place for planting peas so we will continue to grow them there this year. We hope to time it right and get in a second crop this year.
• Green beans! Somehow, they were skipped last year, and I missed them. I am really fond of our bean growing structure, a 3 bamboo poled tower with a terracotta topper which we re-assemble with a lot of stress and cursing involved. The part I like is when the beans actually start growing UP the tower and make a green teepee that appeals to my inner child.
• More variety of greens/ less kale and collards. We did not plan together as well last year so we ended up with about 20 kale plants and a dozen collards between the two yards. That was too many. We will grown a dozen kale perhaps and half as much collards.
• Mmmmm squash. We all agreed that more squash would be a good idea. So we will plant more summer and winter squash both.

The afternoon sun shone brightly in Michigan today, belying the 20 degree F temperature outside. Our conversation and planning generated a warm atmosphere that, combined with the sunshine, made spring seem just around the corner.

How did you celebrate National Pie Day?

Fortunately, a friend informed me about the annual January 23rd event in time for me to make a Wild Blueberry Pie. Fortunate again that we had frozen wild blueberries in the freezer, set aside for an occasion just like this. I think the folks at the American Pie Council would be pleased.

Not my loveliest pie ever, but it was tasty nonetheless.

We also like to celebrate Pi Day, which is on March 14 (3.14) in honor of the mathematical constant Pi. Some math teachers I know like to make a big deal out of Pi Day, and, from my point of view, any occasion that calls for pie is worth celebrating.

The amount of pride my full-to-the-top kitchen compost bucket generates in me is rather ridiculous. That happy feeling warms my soul as I scramble into boots, parka, hat, gloves and scarf and prepare to set out on the trek to Behind the Barn, where the big square composter dwells, to empty my little kitchen bucket. Why should I feel so pleased with doing something that is so easy, so good for the garden, and so good for the earth?

Composting is simple. I know, not everyone thinks so. There are books, big books even (The Complete Book of Composting by Rodale clocks in at over 1000 pages!) on the subject of composting, but you don’t need to read them before launching off on your own compost adventure. You need a simple bin of some sort, which you can purchase or, if you are a little handy and creative, pretty easily make your own. For gathering up kitchen waste, you need some sort of bucket. We used various plastic buckets in the past, but our stainless steel bucket with lid has proven to be a great purchase. And actually, a good deal of the year, we don’t even use the lid. The lid is handy during the summer months to discourage fruit flies, for example, but in the winter, that’s not an issue where we live. Our kitchen is cool. Kitchen scraps of the vegetable type do not smell either, if they are emptied regularly, just like the garbage. Again, we don’t put meat or fat or dairy of any kind into our compost– just the green bits.

Composting keeps organic waste out of the landfill. Every bucket of kitchen waste that goes into my compost is a bucket saved from the landfill. This week, our kitchen bin is topped up with coffee grounds, clementine peels, green bean ends, tea bags, banana skins, potato peels, pomegranate peel and pitch. It’s amazing how much organic waste can be saved from helping fill up the landfill with just a little effort. Likewise, our grass clippings and leaves stay on location and participate in the circle of life by mixing with kitchen scraps and decomposing together in our compost bins.

Compost feeds our garden. The end result of composting is a nutrient-rich, loamy, home-made, virtually free soil that we can dig into the garden beds, mix with dirt or use straight up for starting seeds or transplanting plants, or add to holes to feed plant roots when we are dropping seedlings into the ground in the spring. We live in an area with lots of clay in the soil, but Jim is fond of saying that our continuous addition of compost and other organic material has transformed our soil from chocolate fudge to chocolate cake. It’s an apt comparison for sure.

Although I love my compost year-round, my love is stronger and more profuse in the winter time. When my garden is a snow-covered landscape comprised of interesting swirls and mounds, my compost bucket is the anchor that holds on to my dream of lovely green growing things.

On cold days like today we like to put a pot on the stove to make broth. The smell makes the house seem warmer and the steam doesn’t hurt the low humidity caused by the furnace. I woke up today hungry for Savory Oats and found I’d used the last broth in the fridge earlier in the week. I could pull some out of the freezer but I know we have plenty of broth materials around the place.

A fair amount of broth recently has gone into my Savory Oats breakfast. I have been trying to work more whole grains into my diet, especially oats with soluble fibre since it’s got the reputation for scrubbing out arteries. Trouble is, I really don’t have a sweet tooth so the traditional bowl of oatmeal with brown sugar sets my molars on edge. I’ve started making what I call “Savory Oats.” Instead of plain water, I make the oats with broth, usually in the ratio of one cup oats to two cups of broth. If I’m feeling fancy, I’ll saute up some white onion or carrot in a bit of the broth but honestly, good steel cut oats are enough on their own. I use the “Quaker”-style quick oats in a pinch an they’re good too but the texture can so easily turn to glue. The essential ingredient for oats as I suppose for all food is to season it correctly. Our broth is naturally low sodium so a pinch or two of sea salt on the final bowl really brightens up the flavor.

So I’m making broth.

We’ve stumbled into the perfect set-up for broth but we made it pretty diligently even before we settled into our current equipment. We have a 3-gallon stainless steel pot with a clear lid and a deep basket that fits inside it. There’s also a much shallower basket for steaming. I suppose that this basket was designed for pasta, and we use it for that too, but it’s also a great place to put the materials for broth as we slowly simmer out their flavor-rich goodness. Previously we used a pot and then poured the broth through a strainer into another pot.

What goes into broth? I know a “foodie” will make the distinction between “broth” and “stock” – one contains bones – but the glory of our broth is that all items are welcome. It’s like the compost pile of the kitchen. This batch for instance has:
• raw chicken skin from some breasts,
• cooked chicken skin from a whole chicken we roasted,
• the bones of the roast chicken –
• the ends of the onions I’ve chopped up for the past couple weeks, minus the papery outer layers
• a small bag of carrots leftover from someone’s lunch
• that little bit of juice left from the roasting pan when we’re not making gravy
We save all these scraps in a Ziploc storage bag in the freezer door until it’s time for broth. Honestly, the materials are more likely kept in several bags. When I’m collecting the bits and pieces, it’s usually in the midst of making dinner or cleaning up, that is, it’s never the focal task at the moment. It’s more important that the scraps get saved than that they all get saved in the same bag. Keeping all the broth bags on the door makes them easier to find. Another note, don’t worry about discarding some material because it has too much fat. The fat has a lot of flavor and there’s a trick that helps get rid of it.

The other ingredient, of course, is water. Add just enough to cover the materials. I find it so heartbreaking when I’ve made a batch of broth that smells fantastic but that is over-diluted. I use cold water, not hot water. I suppose I could say there’s some kind of magical process where the water extracts different nutrients at different temperatures – might be true for all I know. But I’m thinking more that I don’t use the hot water from the tap for very much since before the water comes out hot, it’s got to warm up a fairly long length of copper pipe. Since I’m using the stove heat anyway, cold water is just fine.

Bring it all to a boil for a minute or two and then turn it down to a simmer. The boil is good to kill any bugs that might have hitched a ride on the leftovers but the long simmer will wipe them out as well. Within a couple minutes you’ll get a whiff of deliciousness. I usually keep a lid on the pot. Ideally, we’d let the pot simmer most of the day.

How do you know when it’s done? That’s the question indeed. There’s no point in rushing here. How much time do you have? If you absolutely have to go out, cover the pot, turn off the heat and go about your errands. If your business out in the world took you longer than you expected, that’s probably fine too. We’ve left half-finished broth (covered, mind you) on the back of the stove overnight and finished it off the next day. Your mileage may vary, ESPECIALLY if room temperature is warm due to climate or season. We’ve had a batch go sour when we tried to push things too much longer, but again we didn’t cry too hard because the ingredients were items most folks would have discarded anyway. I’d be careful to bring things up to a nice rolling boil if you’re restarting after a break.

The trick for making the lowest fat broth is to strain the finished broth and let it cool completely. In winter time, we take advantage of the great outdoors and the free chilling that comes with living in Michigan. Just don’t forget about it outside in the winter, or your broth will freeze through. Once the broth is thoroughly chilled, the fat will rise to the top and set in a nice, neat, easily removable layer. Use a spoon to skim that off and you are home-fat-free… or at least reasonably reduced. If you’ve forgotten your broth pot over night and the contents are frozen solid, the fat is the soft layer on top of the rock hard broth.

The used up bits aren’t good for much. They’ve given their all. If the broth has been boiled long enough the bones will even crumble to the touch. I suppose a risky soul might add these to a compost but I wouldn’t. No use attracting the local wildlife. Our usual process at this point is to dump the remains in a doubled plastic bag – one of those “paper or plastic” bags. If the next day doesn’t happen to be trash day, we stow the bag in the freezer, again to make them less interesting to the raccoons and woodland gnomes.

We store the broth in one quart plastic tubs. It’s best if the containers are clean and sanitized before you add the broth. We usually have a container in our fridge while the extras go in our basement chest freezer. I’ve also heard tell of making “broth cubes” with ice cube trays but we got rid of our ice cube trays when we got the new fridge (it’s got ice and cold water in the door!) plus I don’t know if there are a lot of times I’d really want *only* an cube or two of broth. It sure would be convenient if I did.

In the time it’s taken me to write this post, a glorious smell has arisen from the kitchen. It sort of fills in the gaps of the cold day and makes the place feel a bit more like home.

There’s a time and a season to every thing and every purpose. In mid October it was my mom’s time to die. Although she’d had cancer for over a year and had been in Intensive Care for nearly two weeks, it still was a shock. She’d always gotten up, always gotten better, always gone on. Until this time — her time — when she didn’t.

I’m mentioning her death on what is ostensibly a gardening site for a couple reasons. This fall, the time of year when Jan and I normally are bringing in last harvest and preserving this bounty, we were busy with other activities. The frequency of our posts here suffered as well. As we prepared a eulogy for Mom’s memorial service, it felt a bit like a harvest, a dark harvest. We gathered together the items collected and produced by her life, and we tried to preserve them as best we could. It seemed very natural to think about death as a “reaper,” a harvest worker. The very force of death as with the forces of life found in the garden is out of our full control but we were called on to ease the transition and gather up the pieces afterward.

It’s been over two months now, and I still can’t get through a day without getting stopped up short, unexpectedly struck to the point of tears. Mom and I didn’t always get along. We squabbled and fought, but I sure miss her.

If there’s anything I learned from the process of sorting through Mom’s belongings — anything like a “take away message”– it’s that I didn’t really have any idea how important a call or a letter is to a lonely person. My mom apparently saved every card she was given. Although she was generally a cheerful and optimistic person, her journals — obviously written when she was alone — spoke of profound sadness and fear. She lived a quarter of a mile away from Jan and me, she had a phone, a cell phone and computer for e-mail. She printed out the email messages she received so she could hold them, touch them. Mom was a part of our every day life but still she was lonely at times.

We made turkey rice soup this week with broth from the carcass and bits of turkey breast that might have been too dry for sandwiches. We would have eaten up every drop but without thinking too much about it, Janice took a quart of it over to the elderly woman next door, the one who lets us use her back yard to garden. This is what we must do. Don’t wait to figure out something perfect. I’d say don’t even wait for someone to tell you they’re lonely because you might not know until after the person is dead.

Find someone. Do something. Don’t think too much about it.