Author Archives: admin

How to make stock

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I make a simple stock that is a combination of chicken and veggies. You can make yours all vegetarians very easily. I don’t go out and buy the ingredients for my stock. I kind of just, uh, stockpile them. Hee  hee. What I do is whenever I cut the ends off of carrots, or pull the stems off of parsley, I put the trimmings into a ziploc bag in my freezer. Bones from chicken, woody asparagus ends, whatever I’m cooking with goes in the bag.

When the gallon-sized bag is full, I put everything in a stock pot and cover with a couple of inches of water. I simmer for about an hour, or until the aroma makes my feet lift off the floor and I float towards the kitchen.

I scoop the big pieces out and then pour the stock through a mesh strainer. Voila! It’s much better than those cartons of chicken stock. And it’s already made with everything I like to eat.

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Raised Bed Herb Garden

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If you’ve spent time reading this blog, you will know that the soil in my garden isn’t great. The term to describe it is “rubble.” I don’t really trust growing food items directly in it. Besides the sunniest area of my garden is paved, so that limits my options. This has lead me to trying raised beds. I have a mish-mosh of containers that I hope are creative and fun and not reminiscent of the set of Sanford and Son.

These are the wine crates I salvaged last year. They are holding up well.

This year I’m not going to grow beans or try and coax tomatoes to grow in a partly sunny garden. I’m going to stick to herbs, which do very well in my yard. I love mixing flowers, herbs and vegetables together.

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Nary a Morel to be Found

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This Saturday Neil and I went on a morel foray. Although the spring has been extremely dry, it rained recently and we were hopeful that that would lead to some good morel hunting. Nope. Between about 60 people, only 4 morels were found. I wasn’t one of the ones who found one. Bummer. And it doesn’t help that a good friend from Seattle is practically tripping over morels in her garden. And doesn’t believe me when I tell her they are real morels. So she doesn’t eat them. Wah.

But, it was a beautiful sunny day out of the city. I can’t disclose the location, although with such poor results, I doubt anyone will be banging my door down to tell them. And I saw a turtle. You have to get excited about something, right?

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Martha vs. Mulberry season 20

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This year we finally got smart. Over the last 8 years or so we have had a neighbor’s mulberry tree drop berries in our yard. I have very fond memories of climbing mulberry trees as a child and eating the sweet berries. That was never possible with this tree. The tree isn’t in our yard, so it’s not possible to climb the trunk. And the branches are so high that you cannot reach the fruit. So by the time the berries drop, they are already overripe and starting to ferment.

I am not a fan of people complaining about “messy” trees. The leaves, needles, pollen they produce are part of the package. This mulberry tree has gotten so large in the past couple of years that it shades and overhangs more than 1/3 of my garden. The chickens eat some of the berries, but really cannot make a dent. I lay out landscaping cloth during the 3 weeks of berry drop to catch the berries. You may have seen me waging war in recent years.

Anyhow, this year instead of complaining about it, we decided to do something about it. We hired an arborist to prune the branches that overhang our yard. Seems totally obvious, right? Well, when you are a renter, there is a weird mindset about paying for stuff like this. Anyhow, we are thrilled with the job they did. They had phone lines, a fence and our chicken coop as obstacles, but they didn’t hit any of them. It is money well spent to be able to avoid 3 weeks of rotting berries dropping on our backs when we are in the back of our garden.

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Happy Earth Day

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My daughter’s school celebrated Earth Day  on Friday. It has become an annual event in which I bring my chickens. The kids love seeing our unusual chickens. Many have never seen a live chicken before, so it’s fun to hear their reactions. I bring a big tub of spinach for the kids to feed the chickens.

We had the worm compost table next to the chickens, so the kids had a blast picking out worms and bringing them over to feed the chickens. The chickens ate like queens!

This little guy was smitten with the chickens. Whenever his mother lost him in the crowd, she just came back to me and there he was. She finally gave up and just hung out with us.

A friend brought her beekeeping equipment and lots of photos to show the kids about bees. She had popsicle sticks to dip into the honey for tasting. The smart kids used the sticks to dig for worms and then feed them to the chickens.

Hope you are having as much fun on Earth Day!

 

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Spring in my back garden

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Spring is finally in my garden. It lifts my spirits to look out of our window and see a color other than brown. I have been slowly planting more edible and native plants in my yard. I haven’t ripped out any of the other plants, so there are still some non-native species.

The white crabapple blossoms make your feet lift off the ground when you smell their scent. I know my neighbors are used to seeing me do strange things in the garden, so they probably don’t batt an eyelash seeing me standing under the tree sniffing for minutes on end.

You are looking at the crabapple blossoms, the double cherry tree (ornamental), my little apple tree, which is loaded with blossoms, a blueberry, the bleeding hearts, a Solomon’s Seal and a couple of ramps I planted last year.

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Back in the Saddle

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Around Ground Hog’s Day the days get long enough to trigger my hens laying mechanism. This year I had new ones who layed all winter long. When March began my old biddies didn’t start laying. Weeks went by without an egg, so I thought they must have hit chicken menopause. They are almost 5 years old after all. Actually I have no idea when chickens stop laying.

A few days ago, however, I saw a green egg that looked slightly darker than Edie’s eggs. I wasn’t sure until a white egg appeared. Those belong to Andie my silver laced polish hen. Seems like my old gals have decided to begin laying at the solstice now.

 

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School Fundraiser

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I’ve been organizing a fundraiser at my daughter’s school in conjunction with Earth Day. We are selling oyster mushroom growing kits through Back To The Roots. If you order one, Back To The Roots shares a portion of the profits with my daughter’s school in Brooklyn.

My husband gave me one of their kits for Christmas and they are really fun. C’mon, you know you want to try this! Just make sure to enter “PS58” in the coupon code for the school to get credit. The offer expires on 4/20, which is our school’s Earth Day celebration.

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Sausage Making!

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I’ve been trying to gear myself up to make my own sausage. I’m not sure why, but it’s been intimidating. Neil got me an attachment for my stand mixer and my friend Michael got me a book on charcuterie. I watched loads of Italian and Polish men stuffing sausage on YouTube. But still I was intimidated. I ran into a friend on his way to a “sausage party”. Wasn’t sure if this was a cooking demonstration or a lifestyle party. Turns out he took a sausage making class. We went to their house with pickles a friend of mine and I made (she made pickled eggs) and George showed us how to stuff sausages.

A couple of weeks ago a good friend of mine visited from Toronto. He’s a fabulous cook, so we thought it would be fun to make a nice meal together. We made pasta, which was great because I wanted to see the consistency of his pasta dough (I think I make my dough too wet). And we made sausage. It was a whole family affair. Neil grilled it on the bbq and we were talking about it weeks later. We followed the recipe for a basic sweet Italian sausage, but added fresh basil, ground coriander and a cube of porcini bouillon.

 

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