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Day #15 & 16 – Grass Cutting (Again??)

And so it begins, the suburban arms race. Just last week, the couple across the street was struggling away with their rotary push mower and now, I hear the growl of a gas-powered monster from their yard. And part of what I’m feeling is that sense of remorse that my lawn will no longer be the only cut and vacuumed one on the block. Yup, we live on a block where the status quo, more or less, has been ragged lawns, hacked by hand-powered mowers. I’d be surprised to learn that many folks use weed and feed. I’m certain only few use an edger. It sounds quaint, like a little cul de sac of the 1940’s. Did I contribute to it’s destruction? What a weird variety of buyer’s remorse.

Regardless, the lawn needed cutting again today. And I am particularly glad to tell you that Jan did it! It really should count as several days worth of work: maybe 20 minutes for the front yard, 20 minutes for the lady next door’s yard and 15 or so for the back yard. But then again the time spent doing the yard next door might not really “count.”

The harvest of clippings was less that last week, but I was able to mulch all the planted beds with them.

And the yard looks just spectacular. Magazine cover good!

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By 20 Minute Jim – May 15, 2007

Solar Cooking: Reheating Rice

Today I discovered how simple and perfect solar cooking is for reheating already cooked rice. We consume an enormous amount of rice in our household. We cook a good-sized pot of it for a meal and then store the left-overs in the refrigerator so there’s usually cold rice in there. We’re fairly skillful at reheating it in the microwave but I thought I’d give the solar cooker the job today and it performed marvelously.

I put 3 cups of rice in the pan and added 1/3 cup of water. The lid went on and the pot went into the solar cooker. Five hours later, when a rare treat– venison steaks– were coming off the grill, the tender, fluffy rice was ready to accompany our meal. Again, minimal effort with wonderful results– all while saving energy.

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By 20 Minute Jan – May 14, 2007

Day #14 – Peppers and Eggplant

For today’s 20 minutes, I planted and mulched a “wedge” of jalapeño peppers and a “wedge” of “Ichiban” eggplant.

All I needed to do to prepare the beds was to rake off the brown and shriveled vines from last year. Usually we collect all that material for a compost at the end of the season but the barn builders came too quickly so we didn’t have a chance to put our garden to bed. And seeing how easy it was to rake the dead vines out of the way now, I think we might just skip some of the end-of-season rituals that we used to think were so important.

I used the edge my hoe to dig four holes in a diamond formation. Then I poured a little water in each hole and let it sink in. The peppers and the eggplant both went in the same. When I was finished I took a few handfuls of fresh grass clippings and mulched around all the plants. A good thick layer of mulch is import because part of it’s job is to discourage weeds.

We usually plant two kinds of eggplant. The “Italian” style with its plump round body and dark purple skin which is great for Eggplant Parmesan and Babaganooj. But we also love the slender, lighter purple fruits of the “Asian” style eggplant. Jan has a recipe for stir-fried eggplant with a slightly sweet sauce (of soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and mirin) that we VERY much enjoy over helpings of rice.

The little tags for these seedlings say the the jalapeños will mature in 72 days and that the “ichiban” eggplant will mature in 50 – 60 days.

We frequently put cloches over the eggplants until they develop a few extra leaves. They don’t seem to need protection from the cold as much as from these tiny little mites that will eat their leaves to lace. The mites aren’t enough of a problem to investigate poison but we don’t want to stunt the growth of the eggplant when they’re so small.

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By 20 Minute Jim – May 14, 2007

Day #13 – Shopping

We spent most of “today’s” 20 minutes shopping even though it took us a total of an hour start to finish. We left our house at 1 PM and strolled up to Downtown Home & Garden, our local garden store where we picked up a pound of full sun grass-seed, a pound of plow-down rye and a big bag of dried blood (also known as blood meal.)

Don’t let the sound of “dried blood” scare you off — I find it absolutely necessary. For one thing it’s great source of nitrogen that’s also organic but that’s not it’s major attraction. Blood meal TERRIFIES squirrels. I love all of God’s creatures but I admit few of them make me angrier than the common red squirrel. I suppose it doesn’t help matters that someone up the street from us feeds them peanuts and English walnuts like they were fluffy-tailed songbirds. More than a little of that squirrel-chow ends up buried in our yard, often in holes dug right dangerously close to garden plants. Furthermore, our neighborhood squirrels do things that seem either mean-spirited or just dumb. For instance, every year, we’ll lose a couple Italian eggplants just when they’re getting plump enough to make a nice parmesan. The little furry critters will pull them off the stem, take maybe three bites and and discard the ruined remains. I’d mind it far less if the squirrel just ate the whole thing; I certainly don’t mind sharing. I know this all sounds petty and, in my heart, I know it is. But a good sprinkling of blood meal every couple weeks will keep the squirrels and their hijinx out of my yard.

We also wandered up to the Farmer’s Market and got a few more seedlings:

  • jalapeños (four for $1.50)
  • Asian eggplant (four for $1.50)
  • Italian eggplant (four for $1.50)
  • acorn squash (four for $2)
  • yellow crookneck squash (four for $2)
  • an “Early Girl” tomato for our neighbor ($2)

And we also did a little browsing in a nice used bookstore that’s also on the way. We picked up a copy of Uprisings: the Whole Grain Baker’s Book. It’s a 20 year old collection of recipes from various collective bakeries, mostly in the Midwest. One of those bakeries was located here in Ann Arbor, right down the street from the Farmer’s Market we frequent and in fact, right next door to the place where this bookstore now is. Jan and I remember stopping in the bakery on Saturday mornings, not to buy bread because we made that ourselves at home, but for a slice of this incredible vegetable pizza they’d make every week. It was piled high with things that we didn’t normally expect to see on a pizza, like broccoli, sweet potato, zuccini… and was delicious! The book reminded us of the Wildflour Bakery and our smiles grew deeper when we noticed that one of the recipes in the book was for this wonderful pizza.

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By 20 Minute Jim – May 13, 2007

Solar Cooking: Spinach Bake 1

I’ve only come to appreciate spinach more fully in the last couple of years. Prior to that, I merely tolerated spinach’s raw presence in salads or cooked form in other dishes. I would avoid anything where spinach was the main ingredient in any form.

I guess my taste buds are still maturing because at some point I found out a culinary secret: spinach is pretty good. Moreover, spinach is enormously flexible and generous. Not only can spinach dress up a vegetable lasagna, an omelette or something florentine, spinach can stand on its own… with the right ingredients.

This is my new favorite way to make spinach and I do it in the solar cooker.

Start with 10 oz of frozen spinach. Defrost it in the microwave or however you like. Combine the spinach with 1 beaten egg, 4 ounces softened cream cheese, 1 tsp garlic powder, 4-6 ounces of a favorite cheese, like mozerella, cheddar, whatever, depending on your mood. Mix well and put into a pre-sprayed small pan. Bake it in the sun all day while you go to work or do your laundry or run errands.

When you return, when you are ready to eat, lovely creamy flavorful yet mild and light spinach bake will be waiting for you.

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By 20 Minute Jan – May 12, 2007