Garden Update and Potato Ham Casserole

Nights are finally staying above 50 degrees and the days are warmer, too. That means that I can finally put the seedlings in the ground and expect that they will begin growing soon. The rest of the seedlings, which I grew from seed in my sunspace, are being claimed by neighbors for their gardens, just as I had hoped would happen.

It's not too late to plant seeds yourself. With farmers plowing under their crops because of closed restaurants across the land, come the fall, if not sooner, home grown food will be important to have. You can even put planters on your balcony if you live in an apartment that has one. One year when I lived in a one-bedroom apartment I put a milk crate on the outside stairs to the roof which hardly anyone used. I put a plastic garbage bag inside, used twist ties to secure the top edge and poked a few drainage holes in the bottom, then put in potting soil and grew carrots and a cherry tomato plant. Cherry tomatoes and lettuce are both easy to grow. A friend of mine grew her cherry tomato just outside her window on a wide ledge. Herbs can be grown on an inside window sill...get the idea?

This year I was planning on traveling during the summer and early fall so I was only going to plant one tomato plant and one zucchini and some beans, all where the drip irrigation system would keep them watered while I was gone. Now that I'm going to be staying home I decided to plant a lot more plants, with multiple tomatoes, four kinds of squash, two summer and two winter, cucumbers, three kinds of beans and sunflowers, too. Who knows, I may poke some pumpkin seeds in the ground, too, and see what happens. We don't really get enough heat for peppers or I would grow them, too.

What kinds of veggies do you plan on growing this year? Any?

Life isn't all veggies, sometimes it's flowers and tea. Sweetie and I are celebrating our 40th anniversary today. Time has certainly flown and life has, by and large, been good to us. Here is a photo of the iris blooming right now, surrounding my teacup garden art which is sort of an homage to my Mom and her love of gardens and tea. The photo below is of a similar tea cup stake which I made for a friend for her birthday. She loves to garden, and she says the birds are eating bird seed out of the cup.

Easter this year included a ham. A lot of the leftovers went into the freezer and I made some sandwiches, but I did have an idea one day last week (or was it the week before...it all runs together these days) for using some leftovers for dinner. I have a recipe I enjoy which uses potatoes and onions and chicken broth to make a casserole. I decided to try it with some diced ham added. It was a hit. A nice green salad on the side was all we needed to make this a delicious meal. One of the nice things about this casserole is that it doesn't use milk or cream, so it has a nice clean profile. If you can use a knife to make even, thin potato slices, that makes for easy cleanup, but if not, break out the slicer on the mandolin or food processor since you'll need a lot of slices.

The casserole tastes wonderful the day it's made, but like many things made with onions, it's even better reheated the next day. I used a cast iron skillet, but you can bake it in a shallow casserole dish, too.

Potato Ham Casserole with Broth

3 all-purpose potatoes (about 1 pound), peeled ( I used Idahos)
3 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
2 tablespoons finely minced onion (I used red onion since I was out of yellow and about twice this amount...I love onions)
2 garlic cloves, minced
salt and pepper to taste
nutmeg, freshly grated if possible
1/2 cup diced cooked ham - you can use a larger quantity if desired, up to 1 cup
1 cup beef broth or chicken broth (I used a bit more -see note below -and used chicken broth)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Peel potatoes and slice them 1/8-inch thick. (Rinse in cold water, then drain and pat dry with paper towels - this part I skipped and it came out fine, but you can do it if you like).

Combine the butter, onion and garlic. Use on third of the mixture to grease a shallow 1 quart baking dish or cast iron skillet. (A shallow dish is important so that you get plenty of browned topping!)

Make a single layer of potatoes over the initial butter mixture, seasoned it with salt, pepper and nutmeg and sprinkled on about 1/4 of the diced ham, then put in a second single layer and treated it as I did the first layer, repeated that process until there were no more potatoes to layer...about 4 layers. I also mixed 1/4 cup non-dairy ricotta with 1 egg and put dollops between layers. You can also shred a cheese that melts and do the same.

Pour the broth over all and dot with the remaining butter mixture. Note: I made sure that the broth comes up almost to the top of the layered potatoes so that they will cook evenly throughout...you may need to use more broth than the recipe calls for but it is worth it and the broth cooks into the potatoes and cooks off so the potatoes keep their shape and are not soggy, so it's OK, the potatoes become really tender.Bake for 1 1/4 hours, or until the potatoes are tender throughout and golden brown on top. Serves 4 - 6.

Spring Flowers

Along with the rest of the world, we are weathering the virus pandemic by, mostly, staying at home. We do go into town to walk the dog many days because the roads around our home are dangerous due to ditches and people driving fast. It might look bucolic, but people drive up that hill at 60 MPH. Beyond that Sweetie went to the local mom and pop grocery today to stock up for the next week or so and everyone kept social distance according to him.

A joy during this scary time has been my garden. I've been planting seeds and seedlings. Some of those in pots and planters were moved inside last night due to frost this morning...which showed up as announced. The planters will stay inside today and go out tomorrow since tonight's low  is still in the lower 30s. The lily bulbs are starting to send up their new growth, too, like in the photo above. Weeding is being done, slowly, so I don't injure myself. Best of all, I've been enjoying the spring bulbs as they bloom and the fruit trees as they bloom.

We have had plums and quince and are now having pear blossoms. Soon will come blackberry blooms and apple blossoms.

The flowers have included grape hyacinth, now finished, plus daffodils and tulips and pot marigolds and deep pink azaleas.

The first California poppies just opened yesterday and it happens to be one that has overwintered twice and has a beautiful flower with stripes of orange and terra cotta on the petals. I's a double, too, so very spectacular.

Hope that you are staying safe and healthy and able to enjoy the change of seasons, too. Will have recipes soon.

XO, Elle

Garden At The Moment

I confess, I have not been spending much time being creative in the kitchen. I have made the May bread for the Bread Baking Babes, but that won't be posted until May 16th. There has been the usual cooking for dinners for the two of us, but that is almost always something easy, tried, and true...and already posted on this blog.

The reason for less time in the kitchen has been that I've been spending more time in the garden. When the usual time (in this area) for weeding and garden prep came around in February and March I wasn't feeling well and had no energy.

Fortunately for me Mother Nature decided to ignore the calendar and give us rain in April quite a few times. That loosened up the soil enough for me to do April weeding and some planting, too. Sweetie dug some holes for putting gopher baskets and plants into the ground..a rose bush, a Meyer lemon bush and a daphne bush.

Those pesky gophers are not to be trusted, so almost anything that goes into the ground has to be encased in a wire basket to discourage the gophers from munching on the roots or even the whole plant. I lost 10 rose bushes the first year we lived here since I didn't know better and planted the roses right in the ground. I think those creatures are still showing up every year hoping I'll be that foolish again!

With May underway the containers that keep the plants happy and out of the ground are being filled with potting soil and I've gotten a few seedlings planted and a number of seeds, too. Rain is expected sometime during the next three days, so everything will get a welcome soaking.

Last, but not least, I've hauled quite a few bags worth of mulch to spread and keep weeds at bay. Since my strength is still not full force, I usually scoop about a third of the bag into a smaller container, spread that, scoop the next third, spread that, then haul the bag itself to be tipped and spread. It takes longer, but works just as well as trying to tip the whole bag out all at once.

Most years I plant a lot of tomato and squash seeds into little cells in February and start them in our sunspace indoors. Now that I have to restrict my consumption of tomatoes, that seemed like a lot of work for no reason, so I only did some squash plants that way

and purchased two tomato seedlings so that Sweetie would have tomatoes for his salads. These are all planted and doing well. Next I'm going to address the plants (and weeds) closer to the house. Don't expect too many posts, OK? The garden siren song is calling again.

Snippets of Now

For some folks who know me this blog is a way of keeping up with what is going on in my life at the moment. As you can see blog posts are few and far between. The same thing is pretty much true for baking and cooking.

I have baked bread recently, but it was a sourdough loaf pretty much the same as some others posted in the past. I've been making things like a turkey breast roasted over some stuffing, but the stuffing has been posted in the past, too, and I didn't do much to the turkey breast other than a sprinkle of poultry seasoning and some pepper. Lots of salads, but pretty standard mixed greens with cucumbers and tomato and maybe some avocado. Again not really blog-worthy.

I did make some personal size chocolate whiskey cakes last weekend, (photo at top) with the rest of the batter going into a loaf pan. They turned out pretty cute and helped to cheer me up...I have been missing my dog quite a bit. He would have enjoyed licking the whipped cream bowl. Sweetie and I enjoyed the cake (baked in a 5" springform pan) while watching an episode of a British TV series from the late 90s...the House of Eliott...which we got through Netflicks.

Here is the link to the Chocolate Whiskey Cake, Bundt version: http://feedingmyenthusiasms.blogspot.com/2007/02/how-do-i-love-thee-as-do-gooder_09.html

The main things keeping me out of the kitchen have been work, my garden, and 'the project'. Work continues to be a challenge but the work is still interesting. The last couple of weeks have been all spreadsheets all the time...not my favorite but necessary.

The garden is finally giving forth ripe tomatoes

and continues to bless us with zucchini and chard and cucumbers.

The haricot verts are pretty much done. Lots of roses, sweet peas, Queen Anne's Lace, and some nigella keep things looking pretty and smelling sweet. Watering, feeding, and weeding are constant tasks and lately I've been tying up tomato branches as they get heavy with fruit. (Yes, tomatoes are a fruit.)

The task that consumes the most energy is the second story deck refurbishment. Today was a red letter day...we secured the first plank of Trex, the lumber substitute we are using. Prior days have included joist work, securing and staining and caulking the plywood sub floor, drip edge work by Sweetie,


staining of railing components by yours truly,

and installation of posts, a true team effort. With luck it will all be done in a couple more weeks, just in time for me to be inundated with homework. I started an InDesign class last Monday. The homework for the first few weeks is pretty simple but it should be more challenging in another two weeks or so. Our instructor, Paulette Bell, is quite a good teacher with a nice mix of stressing technical aspects of the program and a warm, humerous attitude that isn't stressful. Serious when needed, fun the rest of the time. I'm also enjoying taking the class with a couple of friends from the scholarship group. Very eco-friendly...we ride-share.

As you can see, never a dull moment around here. One day soon I might even post a recipe or two. In the meantime, lots of the blogs on the sidebar are fun to visit and often have delicious things to try, so check 'em out if you have time.If you do, tell 'en I say 'Hi', too. Visiting other blogs has also been a tabled activity of late, unfortunately. Hope to visit them myself soon.

XO Elle

Yay Food Bloggers!

One of the hallmarks of the food blogging community is positivity. In much of the blogosphere negativity is common, so it is such a nice realization to consider the warmth and caring that is constantly shown by food bloggers. Comments are usually upbeat, funny, affirming and encouraging. Yay for food bloggers!

Thanks to all of you who come by, commenter and 'lurkers' alike!

Even though it takes some time to blog, I find it very rewarding.

Trouble is that I can spend time thinking about what to cook or bake, taking the time to cook or bake it, photograph it, do what is necessary in Photoshop to make the photos ready for the blog, then do the write up, add the photos, spell check (mostly), make links were needed, and, finally post OR go around and look at the fantastic blogs of other food bloggers, make comments, make notes on inspiration that has come because of their excellence, or even blogs to return to for recipes, etc. That doesn't even include the time taken to read e-mails and post the comments to the blog and post answers (sometimes), nor to create recipes for 'original' things cooked or baked. It seems difficult these days to find enough time to do it all, especially with the garden calling to me every day.

So if I don't get around to your blog or post very often bear with me. I wouldn't be surprised if you have the same problem if you are a food blogger. Oops, gotta go, the squash are demanding to be harvested....again!

Into The Garden

A month ago the garden was calling to me to come away from the keyboard, out into the sunshine and fresh air and to get my seedlings planted, the weeds pulled, some flower seed started, and some mulch spread. I was looking forward to squash and tomatoes and wildflowers at the very least.



A month later and I made my first harvest today of some small green and yellow zucchini. The plants are growing and seem to be happy, the first tomato blossoms are opening and a couple of the wildflowers are blooming. The wildflower area is filled with plants in a mat of various kinds of foliage. Next month, if not sooner, I'll have photos to show you. Should be beautiful!


Some new things have been added in the last month. A friend gave me some bright geraniums and I bought a six pack of deep blue lobelia. Sweetie bought me some Russian Red Basil, which is in one of the planters with the lobelia.


I planted some morning glories and sweet peas. No flowers yet, but the plants are starting to climb the supports. I started some seed of regular cucumbers, lemon cucumbers, and chard. Yesterday they were big enough to plant. Most went into containers (look at the last container on the walkway), but a couple went into the ground, protected with anti-gopher wire netting.


I discovered that some violas, nasturtium, calendula and poppy plants self-seeded. I weeded carefully around them, so they are now ready to bloom. Parts of the garden even received bark mulch. Now I need to weed again and spread some more mulch.


It is so much fun to go out into the garden and harvest the first fruits of my labor...squash, sweet squash. Keep an eye out in the coming month for recipes that make use of the 'future food' that is now food ready for the kitchen.

Future Food

There is a pull, irresistible and steady, pulling me away from the kitchen, out into the garden.

It all started innocently enough. I purchased some seed packets for six kinds of heirloom tomatoes and four kinds of squash. This is not really new...I grow a few things from seed many years. What was different this year was that almost every seed sprouted. And then, almost every sprouted seed turned into a seedling. And then none of the seedlings died. Well, that's a lot of seedlings let me tell you.

While they were little, it wasn't a problem. A month ago they were in our sunspace, bringing some welcome green when the rains were here. But then they needed to be put into soil in larger pots, and then I had to feed them and find room in the garden.

If I had the kind of garden where you just dig a hold and pop a plant in, I suspect that every one would have found a home. But by August I would be in trouble...too mahy squash by far (not sure that too many tomatoes is possible). As it is, my garden is overrun with gophers. This requires that plants be put into planters like half barrels, or that I put gopher cages in the ground first and put the plants inside. We used to have a cat who caught the gophers, but she is gone and Xam, our lab, shown here, tries to catch them but just digs up the yard in the process.

I did some of each kind of planting and now have enough seedlings planted to allow for a few to be eaten by critters, a few to not like their spot and to not thrive, and a whole bunch to fill my garden by harvest time with a rainbow of tomatoes, summer and winter squash, chard, cucumbers, beans and maybe even some peppers (I might buy a plant or two).

Now comes the daily watering, weeding, watching and enjoying their progress. When you raise them from seed, they are sort of like your progeny...more personal than something from the hardware or home store. I even found good people to give homes to many of the seedlings that wouldn't fit into my garden. Still have a few squash plants without homes. Any takers?