Busy, busy!

Okay, okay, I promised pictures, but I haven't taken a one. We've been really busy putting the learning center back together for the start of school. Anni started today. Alex finished his classes and has a week off before he begins again. Ari restarts her college classes near the end of September. She got an A in her summer class. (You go girl!)

Today, the farmers pruned the garden. We attacked some overgrown shrubs first. Then it was time to trim the alder and the neighbor's plum tree which had grown so far over the fenceline as to shade the back half of the garden patch. Everytime, we trimmed a branch, a cluster of plums (I believe these were greengage plums) bonked us on the head. Some were very ripe! We returned the good plums to our neighbors along with some tomatoes, zucchini, and a jar of jam. We harvested 12 more zucchini, gave 4 to our neighbor, and 3 became dinner. Zucchini 100: 81 + 12 - 7 = 86 to go.

Harvesting!

Today was a big harvest and paint day. In the garden, we harvested 54 tomatoes, 2 zucchini, sage, lacinato kale, parsley, basil, 2 tomatillos, a bell pepper, beans, and a very large sunflower head. Check out the updated farm stats for this year!

We finished painting the learning center today. We did the baseboards, trims, overheads, and touch-ups. It looks great! (Photos tomorrow).

Dinner tonight was homemade pesto (thanks Lisa for the big bag of basil!), garden tomatoes, and scampi shrimp (local WA coast). Now we just need another 100 tomato and zucchini recipes!

The painting continues...

Our endeavor to rid the funny farmhouse of its sterile white walls continues. We've already painted the fireplace brick solitude blue (more tealy really) and the fireplace wall Ralph's ranchito sueded red. Over the past week or so, we've been painting the other walls ripe wheat (a light soft gold).

Today, I tackled the window casements with the color rye (one shade darker that ripe wheat). Working around the blinds and their ecetera was a real challenge! Hmm, wheat and rye. Now, don't we just sound like farmers?

Tomorrow, it's on to the baseboards, corner trim (both mulling spice), and fireplace trim (Ralph's library mahogany. Then, we have to put all the STUFF back in that room. That may be the most difficult piece. Next on the list, sanding the banister railings, oh joy!

Fruit and Vegfull

Friday's garden harvest!

The first tomatillos of the season! Along with some beans, chives, and parsley.

The tomatoes and basil.

The haul of squash, 8 more! Zucchini 100: 73 + 8 = 81 to go!

Here are the bumpy gourds we found at the farmer's market yesterday. (That's the wall I painted last week behind them) Also at the market this week, we found terrific local oysters from the Washington coast. We BBQed them up for Saturday's dinner along with some spicy sauce, a pot of fresh corn from the market, potatoes from our garden, and cherry tomatoes (garden). We also found some long thin yellow beans from the Root Connection farm, berries, raspberry lavender sauce, potatoes, and a yellow heirloom tomato.

Yesterday evening, we went for a walk along the Sammamish river. As we were drinking our evening coffee, we noticed all the ripe blackberries on the bushes. As we finished our drinks, we filled our cups with juicy berries which I froze for use later in the winter.

This morning, we decided to pick blackberries near the same location for jam. (Local food foragers are free to pick berries in our local county parks where the bushes are unsprayed.) We set out with our buckets to see how many we could pick. We had a contest to see who could fill their bucket first. We found a mathematical correlation between picking the most and getting stuck the most by the pricklers. I picked the most and needed the most Bactine and bandages. (ouch!) We turned our berry bounty into 2 apple-blackberry cobblers and 14 jars of jam! yum!

Our jam making was a real win-win. Many of the jars were garage sale finds from our friend Lisa, the berries were free foraged, and the water used in processing the jam will be reused to water our plants tomorrow!

Where oh where has my produce gone?

Eye'm looking for my CSA box. It wasn't there yesterday when I went to pick it up 3 times yesterday. It wasn't there when I went this morning. I called the farm. Some kind soul had put it in the icebox of the college kitchen due to the warm weather yesterday. I went back once more and collected the box! (The photo is my eye today after the eye doc!)

The long lost CSA box: organic eggs, sweet onions, leeks, red salad onions, potatoes, radishes, pluots, nectarines, plums, apples, grapes, apples, oranges, a lemon, a mango, and some Thai basil.

Tonight's dinner: a trio of colorful garden tomatoes in a salad, a main course of parmesan zucchini rounds with marinara dipping sauce, and a plate of fresh market melon. Veggie and delicious!

Colorific!

The funny farm home has been exploding with color! We're painting again. This time it's the upstairs learning center, in anticipation of the approaching new school year (Hear Alex groan!).
The wall above the fire place is now Ralph Lauren Ranchito sueded red. The fireplace itself is Behr Solitude blue. The side wall are in various stages of Behr Ripe wheat and Behr Rye. To see the true colors check out the websites (because they won't let me copy the colors here). The hardest parts have been 1) moving all the books, toys, and etc in that room, stopping the dog and cats from sticking to the wet paint, and removing Anni's hand prints as she guides down the walls! The trickiest part is going to be painting the wall above the staircase while balancing on a very tall ladder perched on the steps!

The warm weather has returned to Seattle, and the garden is going bonkers. New harvest items today were raspberries (yum!) and the sunflower heads. We're drying the seeds in the oven. We'll use them in our bread making over the next few months. We picked 6 large red tomatoes, 20 cherry tomatoes, and a green zebra striped one. We also harvested beans, kale, chard, and 6 more zucchini! In addition to zucchini, the yellow squash are beginning to explode. We also have acorn, delicata, and cabochon (sp?) squash coming on for the fall. For those of you following the zucchini 100 here are the numbers: 67 + 6 = 73 to go.

Out to another farm!

Yesterday, we took a trip out to Jones Creek Farm with our friend Lisa. The farm is located near Sedro-Woolly, along Highway 20, by milepost 75.

The farm was having its garlic fest. We tasted several types of garlic, ranging from mild to zippy!

Here's the farmer, looking ferocious. "Try the garlic or else!" But seriously, he and his wife are really nice folks with awesome garlic, tomatoes, and tons of fruit.

Here's a pic of the ginormous peaches! We came home and baked 2 peach crisps! Not pictured are the golden plum trees. We picked about 10 pounds of these and then made 12 jars of jam!

Here a pic of the apples! Jones Creek farm grows over 60 varieties of apples and all of them are delicious. We'll be heading back up to pick apples (can you say pie?) in a few weeks.

Check out their awesome website at http://www.SkagitValleyFruit.com.

I buy tomato starts each year from Jones Creek and have never been disappointed (did you see the photos from the last post?). The future funny farmers love apple sampling once all the apple varieties are in season.

It was also farmers market day yesterday. I snagged the last of the black currents for black current syrup. Guess who's having pancakes for breakfast?

Movin' zucchini!

The harvest of garden tomatoes! They're beginning to rival those zucchini! Pictured are cherry tomatoes, chocolate cherry tomatoes, mini Roma's, standard Roma's, early girls, and green zebra-striped.
A close up of the green zebra striped and the chocolate cherries. I'm in tomato heaven!
The chocolate zucchini cake (3 zucchini) and 2 loaves of zucchini harvest bread (2 zucchini).

For dinner we made Parmesan oven 'fried' zucchini rounds (6 more garden zucchini), which we served up with a big bowl of cherry tomatoes (garden) and a dish of tortellini in a sage (garden) cream sauce. Desert was cherry plums from the farmer's market. This was delicious and super easy!

Julie Ann's Multicultural Oven 'fried" Zucchini Rounds

6 medium zucchini (or yellow summer squash or combo), washed and sliced into 1/4 inch rounds
1 cup of milk
1.5 cups of flour

and now pick a cuisine, only one though.

(In parenthesis is the suggested serving sauce. Don't add this to the recipe. Serve it with the cooked rounds at the table, if desired)

Italian:
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
dash of cayenne pepper
(warm marinara sauce)

Indian:
1 Tbsp of curry powder
(plain yogurt and chutney)

Mexican:
1 Tbsp of mild chili powder
or
1/2 tsp of chipotle chili powder
(avocado and salsa)

Chinese:
1 tsp of Chinese 5-spice
(soy sauce or any favorite Asian sauce. The future farmers like sweet and sour)

How to:
1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
2) Cover multiple cookie sheets (large flat pans) with foil. Spray with nonstick spray
3) Mix flour with the cuisine seasoning of your choice in a large bowl.
4) Pour milk in deep, small bowl.
5) Dip zucchini (or squash) rounds into milk, a few at a time.
6) Then immediately dunk into flour mix, coating both sides.
7) Place in a single layer on cookie sheets.
8) Cook for 10 minutes, then flip and cook other side an additional 10 minutes.
9) Serve with cuisine complementary sauce if desired.

Warning: This makes a heaping bunch of rounds. Cut recipe down to your size or be prepared to either feed a crowd, eat zucchini for a week, or feeze a bunch for noshing on later. Enjoy!

Zucchini 100:
73 + 7 (harvested yesterday) = 80 - 11 used in cooking today and - 2 given to our neighbor = 67 to go!

It's raining! (finally)

The rain finally returned to Seattle. We were feeling alittle parched after our recent heat wave. The garden smiled and immediately churned out zucchini! We used 2 in the recipe for dinner, but harvested 7 more! If you're keeping count on the Zucchini 100, we were at 68 - 2 + 7 = 73 to go. Time to bake more zucchini bread and another chocolate zucchini cake!
Here's the haul from today's garden harvest: red, white, and blue (ok technically purple) potatoes, chard, Lacinato kale, green and purple beans, 7 zucchini, a yellow summer squash, our first acorn squash, 1 big red tomato, 1 green zebra stripe tomato (yes, it's ripe), 9 cherry tomatoes, and chives.

The refrigerator is ready to explode due to the volume of veggies. What to do?

Whip up a big batch of Julie Ann's Versatile Gumbo.


6 Tbsp of your favorite fat: olive oil, butter, margarine, bacon grease, etc.
6 Tbsp of flour
2 large onions: white, yellow, red, sweet or sharp, diced
1 cup of celery or bell pepper (red, yellow, orange, or green) or some of both, diced
2 more Tbsp of your favorite fat
1 lb of okra or green beans or some of both
1 lb of zucchini (yeah!!!) and/or summer squash
3 cloves of garlic minced
1 16oz can of diced tomatoes with juice reserved
2 quarts of your favorite stock: shrimp, veggie, chicken, etc
1-2 pounds of your favorite protein: seafood (shrimp, crab), sausage, chicken, or firm tofu (all work)
1 tsp thyme
4 bay leaves
3 sprigs of fresh parsley
Salt and pepper to taste
Louisiana hot pepper sauce

How to:
1) Make a dark roux by gently heating the 6 Tbsp of fat in a heavy skillet. Stir in flour. Cook until roux is caramelly colored (or darker if you like a stronger blackened flavor).
2) Add onion and celery and/or bell pepper. Cook until tender. Transfer to large stock pot.
3) Add remaining oil to skillet. Saute okra and/or beans with zucchini and/or summer squash for 10-15 minutes, until tender.
4) Add drained tomatoes (reserve liquid) and garlic. Cook another 5 minutes.
5) Add veggie mix to large stock pot along with 2 cups of stock and reserved tomato juice.
6) Add thyme and bay leaves. Stir well.
7) Add remaining stock. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes
8) Prepare your protein:
a) Rinse shrimp and/or crab
b) Brown sausages or chicken pieces in skillet
c) Pan fry tofu cubes
9) If using sausage or chicken, add to stock pot and simmer another 20-30 minutes. If using seafood or tofu, let stock pot simmer another 20 minutes, then add these in the last 5 minutes of cooking.
10) Season to taste with salt, pepper, and pepper sauce. Garnish with parsley sprigs.

Notes:
A) This can also go into a crock pot at stage 2 and simmer on low all day. Add the prepared sausage or chicken during the last hour and switch to high. If using tofu or seafood, add during the last 15 minutes on high.
B) We served this up over brown rice and with a bowl of fresh corn on the cob.

Enjoy!

Y of U?

Can you guess where we went on our urban adventure today? Here's a piece of a tree (cactus? succulent?) we found lying on the ground.

Alex entrapped by the strange downed plant. Note the buildings in the background.

Time to get your ducks in a row if your guessing.

This fountain is an enormous clue.

These roses ring the fountain.

Lots of roses.

Lots and lots of roses.Even more!
Lisa and Mary among the roses.

Cone flowers down in the gardens.

Another cool flower.

A fuzzy flannel bush flower.

Artichoke ginormous!

And finally a hollyhock. Note the background.

Did you guess?

Here are a few more clues:

The buildings behind Alex lead to the Quad. The fountain with its rose gardens are iconic, and the botany green houses peek out behind the hollyhock.

And the answer is the U of W.

We went to the grounds of the University of Washington with Lisa and her niece, Mary. We visited the Burke Museum and then had lunch on the Ave which sadly to say has suffered significant decline and decay since the opening of a large snazzy shopping center nearby. Almost all the cute little shops and eateries are gone!

We finished up our trip with to Archie McPhees, Seattle's own superstore of the wild, weird, and funtastic. Here you can find boxing nun puppets, a bacon belt, rubber chickens, devil duckies, and life size inflatable aliens. The teenagers had a blast exploring the store. (ok, ok, so did us adults!).

And the fun was not over yet... After we dropped off Lisa and Mary, we took a nap (much needed) and then went to the Kirkland Crit Bike Races where brave souls race their bikes around a small circuit of downtown at breakneck speeds! It was very exciting!!!

We ended the day with David taking the kids for pizza while I went to a movie. Phew! I need a weekend to recover from the weekend!