New England Painted Turtle

The tomatoes look like they're getting blight again.  Big disappointment.  When we moved one of the pots. this guy was hiding behind it. 

New England Painted Box turtle

He didn't hang around, and must have taken off at a pretty good clip.  This is a New England painted box turtle, by the way.

Putting the Garden to Bed for the Winter

By Sept-Oct, the passion for gardening has been subsumed. Just take what's left of the harvest and get on with it. Parsley? Sure. Mint? You betcha. Sage? Perfect for the holidays. Oregano? Still going strong. Tomatoes? Pick for the windowsill.

All well and good. But there's all the "stuff" in pots that must be dealt with, because to leave a nice pot outside in a New England winter is asking for trouble. Freeze, expand, break. Can't do it. Have to take the thyme out of the pot and put in the ground. Planted 24 bulbs of garlic for next summer. Starts to seem like, well, work.

Today I pulled up the rest of the tomato vines, but I don't know what to do with the dirt, because they everything is suspect after the great tomato blight of 2009. Have to figure that out. Also ripped up the nasturtiums and African daisy and other assorted dead annuals. Still some stuff blooming and even budding in one of the pots, and I can't bring myself to rip it out until it's frozen solid.

Already brought in the geraniums and the rosemary. Scrubbed out some pots. The chores are boring and endless. Spring is better with choosing and planting and optimism. Fall?

Homer wrote: As is the generation of leaves, so is that of men. Kind of a downer, as I watch the leaves fall. We have a bumper crop of acorns. Ye gods, you can't walk a step outside without them crunching underfoot. Also lots of pine cones, which make great firestarters if you are old-fashioned enough to have a wood-burning fireplace. Long live real logs!

Yesterday I made a pot of chili. We had an unexpected guest, and everyone ate two (small) bowls, and now there is enough left for tonight but not Monday. No big deal. The recipe is from the New York Times, and I've been making it since I was a young bride. Once we fed hordes of people after an art show, and a man named Joe Witek ate five bowls. Joe sure could eat. A hostess' dream and a hostess' nightmare.

We had a lot of trick and treaters and ran out of candy early, shame on me for getting in there and decimating the Reese's Peanut Butter cups. I have no control about peanut butter. My heroin. Yup. That bad.

Below is the chili recipe. I chopped up a roast and soaked my own pinto beans. Tasted good. I use Penzeys (www.penzeys.com) hot chili powder, and only used 1 and 1/2 T. Otherwise you have to eat it with a box of tissues on the table.

Made the cheddar biscuits again, and something is the matter with the recipe, but they do taste good, so what the hell? They spread all over the baking sheet and the batter is too moist. I had a hell of a time kneading them. WTF?


Chili Con Carne


SERVES: 4

3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 large onion, minced
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin seed, crushed
1 pound chopped beef
1 small bay leaf
3 cups water
2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/3 cups canned tomatoes
1/8 teaspoon basil
1 green pepper, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1.
Heat the butter in a skillet, add the onion and garlic and sauté until golden brown. Add the meat and brown.
2.
Transfer the meat mixture to a large saucepan and add the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the sauce is as thick as desired, or about three hours. If desired, add one can of kidney beans just before serving.


Source: THE NEW YORK TIMES COOKBOOK © 1961 by Craig Claiborne

I made half again as much. This recipe will never win a contest, but it is a good hearty chili.

No Will Power Whatsoever

I no more had the "farmgirl" blog in my emailbox, than I bought 3 boxes of blueberries at .99 each at Roche Brothers. Next I was whipping up a recipes of these so-called Blueberry Breakfast Bars. I say so-called because they are also lunch bars, dinner bars and snack bars. I'm going to freeze some for our road trips. We like to lunch in the byways, parks, and along a lake or a stream. The Blueberry Breakfast Bars would indeed break any fast.

Easy to make, but the 3 layers take a bit of time. Time well spent.

I used 1/4 whole wheat flour instead of all white. Used the Silver Palate special oatmeal which I happened to have. If the berries are sweet like mine were, you can cut down on the sugar. Used half Crisco, half-butter for the streusel topping. Tasted like a million dollars.

http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2006/06/blueberry-breakfast-bars.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_content=46024&utm_campaign=Nightly_%272009-08-15+01%3a30%3a00%27

We are also eating a tomato rice soup from Provence this week, which is lo-cal and extra yummy, conditions which do not always go together. I should have baked a nice loaf of bread but we're eating breadsticks. I like the skinny "grissini."

Another ripe tomato from he garden, but the cherry tomatos have the blight. Damn, they were doing so well.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Next Food Network Star

The garden, lush and colorful. The bag of impatiens has been particularly good this year, and the geraniums are loaded with blooms. The red nasturtiums have also been fine. The tiny hummingbird visited the new feeder and also the purple sage (not visible) where he went up and down the blooms. The blasted ants just won't leave the feeder alone.

My small guest watched the Next Food Network Star with me and we didn't think Melissa had a chance but she suprised us. Last night I tried her four step dinner plan: bread the meat and saute, add aromatics, add liquid, return meat, swirl in butter and serve. I had some chicken tenders and I used an egg then panko for the breading. Sauteed in half-butter, half-canola oil, the yin and yang if you will. When the chicken was cooked, I put it in a warm oven and added 4 split green onions to the pan, 2 big cloves of garlic, slivered, and 2 home grown plum tomatoes, sliced. Added white wine to get up all the "fond," then returned the chicken to the pan and swirled in the butter. We ate it on a bed of microwaved spinach. Yum! I just used the ingredients on hand, which was Melissa's plan, too. It really works. Would have never thought of serving on the spinach, but we are in light-diet mode, and carbs are carefully chosen.

Tonight, I'm making shrimp with tomatoes, olives, herbs and feta. Another low-carb affair. We have discovered that grissini, thin breadsticks, have few carbs and calories. A salad will round out the meal. We're doing either soup, salad or diet fare the rest of the month. I'll report in on how much weight, if any, was lost.

The plum tomatoes appear to have avoided the blight, as have the cherry and some in a pot on the other side of the house.

The herbs are in full swing, and I need to replant cilantro and dill. We love cucumbers in dill and cilantro in anything. Thinking some tortilla soup would go down easily. Bon appetit.

Grapeshot

The tomato blight

Sigh! This was the year that I would have tomato soup, tomato bread salad, home made salsa, gazpacho, tomatoes provencal. Well, you know.

Instead we had 6 weeks of rain and now the blight. I still have three plants in pots, but the tomato plants in the garden have been destroyed. The best laid plans of mice and men, but I don't think mice actually make too many plans. What they make is nests in the garage. Even in the doll house. Bad mousie!

The last houseguest left today, and except for a mountain of laundry, yea, veritable alps of laundry, we're all set. I've been away from my book for so long that I printed it out to read and discover what I had actually written. So far, I am impressed with the beginning. Did I actually write that? Not bad.

The papers have had stories about information warfare and I always wonder if it really happened, then would The Shadow Warriors take off? Who knows?

I watched the finals of The Next Food Network Star, and like both finalists, even tried the winners 4 step dinner plan tonight and it was a winner, too. Of course, after the pasta and the ice cream and all the meals out, we will have to go into serious diet mode. Summer salads beckon. Hey, it can't be THAT BAD. Well, can it?

Grapeshot

Deja Vu all over again

We just completed our annual trip to Nantucket. I liked how the Hi-Line called the slow ferry the "traditional" ferry and the high speed, of course, was the high-speed. Both were full on Friday morning. Windy and cool, but warm on land.

We ate, as is our wont, at the Rope Walk, right on the water, and the fish and chips were so good and the wine, a Pinot Grigio "Oggi" was fab. A walk up Main Street with some things the same and others different. Lots of "blingy" jewelry stores and less art galleries, a comment on the kind of money that has moved into town the last fifteen years.

I love the cottage gardens and the funk and that Murray's Toggery hasn't changed much in 40 years. Arno's still there, still crowded. The movie theater has been rased, where there is unfortunately a missing plaque commenorating that Grapeshot questioned the proprietor as to whether the popcorn contained "real" butter and was told of course. Never mind that the so-called butter was orange as a tropical sunset. The entire family agrees that the last movie seen there was The Posidon Adventure.

We had ice cream at the Juice Bar and it wasn't beach weather, so we didn't go, but we prowled thru the town and our small guest bought a few souvenirs and I found a brown t-shirt, so practical but hard to find. That's Murray's for you.

Traffic terrible, and people on cell phones and otherwise clueless. (see next post).

I was very tempted by a big-assed wind gong at the Whaling Museum that sounds like the bell buoy coming into the harbor, but was fearful the neighbors might object, as it was damned loud.

This morning my cute little hummingbird was at the NEW feeder, and he ate and ate. Fighting the tomato blight. Most seem all right. First the rain then the fungus. Weird orange stuff growing in the wildflower garden. Pretty but deadly looking.

I went to Kate's Mystery books to help pack up the store which is closing. The end of an era. Alas and alack.