Sourdough Bread - Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard 4/26/2012

I like to work with sour dough, last time I made flat bread with tomatoes, garlic and herbs

The ingredients are the same -
1 cup sour dough starter
3/4 cup water
2 tbsp olive oil
1-1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup wholewheat flour
1-1/2 cup flour
1 tsp yeast



I mixed the dough in my breadmachine, than divided it in 4 balls and let rest about 2 hr on the pan.
I chopped tomatoes and garlic and let it marinade with olive oil, vinegar, salt, pepper.

 So there are 4 flat bead - one with only herbs and sesame seeds, 2 with marinated tomatoes and one with tomatoes and cheese on top.

 25 minutes on 400F

I like one with cheese especially!

Please look at Robin's blog The Gardener of Eden for the rest of the Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard posts.

My okra is flowering!

I never grew okra before! I ate it very rare

So this is an experiment.
Today I just was thinking of finding a bigger containers for 6 of them and I saw the first buds!

They all are leggy, I do not know what to do, they are on the sunniest windowsill here. This is too early to bring them outdoor I suppose.
If you can give me some advices!

Garden update - squash and tomatoes

The weather here in New England is back to normal, no more 80s. Last weekend was rainy. Before the rain I had a chance to plant 8 first squashes -

1 black beauty, 4 fordhook, 1 mixed Italian summer squash, 1 autumn cup, 1 pinata, 1 small sugar pumpkin.

 And there is the first flower! This is a black beauty zucchini, and this is a male flower but anyway I am very happy.

On 4/21 I also planted 21 first tomatoes

Beefsteak, Red Siberian, red and yellow pear, sun gold. I have them outside on my balcony over 2 weeks, so they are pretty hardy and  I hope they wil fill better in a soil.

  I added about 2 tbsp bone meal to each hole and planted them till the first leaves. They even have a lot of sucklings!

Today I made trellis for them.

There is my first strawberry! Lucky me!

Cucumbers plating

When I was a child, I though that my grandma is crazy!
She spent so much time growing cukes!
"Open the cover, close the cover, water cukes,  and close them again"....
and that's without the end.
For me at my 10th it was so boring, but she always had have the better the earlier cucumbers on the street.
So almost 30 years gone and this is my first year growing cucumbers!

I have 2 variety -


Homemade pickles started 3/1

and

Picklebush started 3/12
I planted them again in my homemade soil -  you can see parts of acorns, wood and other organic materials. I am not sure, may be this soil is too heavy for plants, but I can not buy so much soil for all I need.
I will see how it will works.

GFCF Fruit Pie - Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard 4/19/2012

I have 3 kids this week to help me, they're babysitting me, and because my son is on gluten free, casein free diet, we decided to bake GFCF pie.

1 apple
some frozen raspberry
some raisins
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup  Bob's Red Mill Gluten free vanilla cake mix
1/2 cup corn flour
3 eggs
1/2 tsp guar gum

 I can use any gluten free flour, this time I experiment with regular corn flour and some GF mix,

Lightly beat 3 eggs, stir with sugar, honey, add flour. I use fork to stir, but you can use mixer on low.
I add a little (1/2 tsp) of guar gum to glue the dough.

 We cut apples, add all fruits on the glass form covered with palm butter (casein free).
Than pour dough over, stir a little.

Bake on 350F 40-45 min, check with wooden stick if the pie is read.

Actually this recipe works very well with regular flour and you do not have to add guar gum. And it works with many fruits.
In my childhood this pie was called "Charlottca"
I was very easy to bake just with 1 cup flour+1 cup sugar+3eggs.



Please look at Robin's blog The Gardener of Eden for the rest of the Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard posts.

Tulips time

It seems that every tulip just opened at one day
The weather is so hot, 80F!

This rhododendron purple gem is just started to bloom but I include him anyway.

Harvest Monday - April 16 2012

Today's harvest - greens as usual. Some of them started to bolt. I have komatsuna, some of the leaves are as big as my palm, chives, garlic greens, lettuces and some others I do not know their names.


See what others have harvested at Daphne's Dandelions.

My Garden Update 4/15/2012 - lot of photos

This is very nice idea to make a garden report.
I am going to start with my seedlings.

That is my balcony, the nights are very warm and I do not cover them.

I started my first tomatoes on Feb-16 and they are growing great,
the second butch are not so tall.

and my eggplants and peppers are very small, I do not know why, may be it was cold for them the first month on the second floor here.

Close up look - eggplants, black beauty and long purple.





Close up look - peppers, mostly california wonder and sweet banana.

Another corner of the balcony - beans, peas, cucumbers and mixed greens and flowers.


Close up look - cucumbers, I think I am going to plant them outside next week, Actually they are outside so there will be not difference in temperature, just more soil around. I hope it is time.

My deck garden, the sunniest part of my backyard - mixed greens container

 more greens, mint....

 more chards.....

 squashes containers

 lemon verbena and baby Asian greens

flowering chives






And last - my small garden view

 greens bed

 blueberries

 strawberries

 kale  (red russian)

 onion and garlic

 broccoli, collard and chives

And the first one!!!!!!!!!!!


I know I have to work on the look, clean everything, hide the tools and containers.....
milch, I used shredded twigs on strawberry beds and I hope it nice and works against weeds.

Chard pots update 4/10/2012

Spring... so much to do....and a regular work.....I would like to have 48 hr in a day.....

By the way, my swiss chards pots looks good, actually

the mustard greens are bigger and better, but I hope chard will catch up.

 I would like to get more greens!

More chard pots.

 Okra us still inside on a sunny windowsill.

And this is my squash garden - all of them are outside over a week with 34-40F at night.