All ten essential amino acids, together!

(Black Bean Burgers from the Veganomicon, as was the rice)

Stone-Ground Whole Wheat bread, a layer of spinach, thinly-sliced tomatoes, black bean burger, Tillamook Cheddar Cheese, Onions, Ketchup, and Stone-Ground Whole Wheat.

Word.

On average, the temperature this time of year ranges from highs in the mid to low 40s, and lows in the mid to low 30s.

December and January are also the cloudiest months of the year, a ceiling of clouds hovering for 50 of the 62 days in these months.

Which is to say,  I’m spending a lot of time indoors, and a lot of time honing my planting calendar.  I have two calendars.  One focuses on the plants themselves, and the other is organized by task (indoor starts, outdoor starts, transplanting, bed preparation, hardening off, fertilizing, etc).

I’m also playing with cloche and cold frame designs.  Most of the ones I’ve seen so far cost far more than is really worthwhile, so I think I’ll poke through the scrap lumbar and plastic in the barn and build things that will work.

Right now I’m also practicing with database software, so I’m thinking of experimenting with organizing a planting in that way.  We’ll see, I guess.

Anyhow, since a lot of my projects cost cash monies, I’m going to at least temporarily repurpose this blog into my gardening blog.  Inspired by a couple other suburban farming blogs, I started an EPIC grow calendar that allows me to schedule staggered start, planting and transplanting dates so I can have a ongoing harvest of veggies.

This is a screenshot of my planting calendar, more for display than actually showing my planting schedule

I used a planting calendar from the wonderful and reliable Portland Nursery that works from the average Willamete Valley weather (average last day of frost, etc) which means I can theoretically work much more effectively.  Mid-January, I’ll be starting onions, which I’m pretty excited about.  I’m also getting together a few local friends to join my faux-CSA: In exchange for buying the seeds and soil amendments for the things they’ll want to eat, I’ll do my best to grow them and deliver them.

I think this sounds like an awesome plan that will keep me occupied and full of vegetables, which are two of my favorite things.

My tomatoes!

There are few things I enjoy more than a bowl of tomato soup with a grilled cheese sandwich.  Failing that, I just like soup and toast.  Anyhow, this is a fairly simple, though time consuming soup to make.

This is a rough outline of what goes into the soup–my soups always change based on what’s available and what I remember to put in it:

3-4 pounds of tomatoes
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 yellow onion, chopped
4-6 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 teaspoon sugar (I think it helps counteract the acidity of the tomatoes)
2 ounces toasted country bread, broken into small chunks
Lotsa fresh basil
Salt, Pepper, Cumin, Coriander, Thyme, Chili Powder
2 cups water

Anyhow, with the tomatoes, I lined a cookie sheet (with a lip!  the lip is super important) with aluminum foil, and moved the rack in the oven to one of the higher places it goes in the oven.

the foil is important for cleanup, it is

Then I put the tomatoes in, and put them on “HI BROIL” until they were lightly charred.  Then I turned them over, and let the other side get charred too.

NOM

Then they came out of the oven, and while they cooled, I started with the onions.  I put them in a large pot with the olive oil, cooked them until they started smelling exciting, and dumped in the garlic until the excitement was unbearable.  This was on a very very low heat, so while the onions and garlic were cooking, I was also skinning, coring and coarsely chopping my roasted tomatoes, and assembling my spices.

The Other Ingredient (except for the onion)

I didn’t measure anything, but I’d guess things were kept to between a half-teaspoon and a full teaspoon.  Once that was accomplished, everything left got dumped into the pot, and cooked for ten minutes on a medium heat.

Things Cookin'

THEN, in small batches, I ran this concoction through the blender.

This is too much to effectively blend at one time, incidentally

And then it goes in the fridge, for me to take for lunch tomorrow.  Hooray!

Lunch!

Yarn and the Cast-On

About a foot in

Halfway through

Faggot Stitch

Finished!

Loooooove this scarf!