Food from our garden

Apparently, our growing season here is off to a late start, but since this is the first garden Matt and I have had, we don't really know the difference. All we know is that we're excited to reap the benefits of our hard work in prepping and maintaining our garden!

Our teeny plum tree has lots of delicious, marble-sized fruits.

Last night I made collard wraps along with some pineapple ginger couscous.

From the garden: collards, a beet (pictured above,) parsley.

The wraps contained black-eyed peas, quinoa, carrot, tomato, yellow bell pepper, parsley, and a sunflower seed spread that I whipped up. It was so good that I want to share it with you!

Lemony Sunflower Seed Spread

Ingredients:
1/8 cup sunflower seeds, soaked for a couple of hours, then drained
juice from 1/2 lemon
2-3 tbsp miso paste
1 large clove garlic
cayenne powder to taste
sprig of parsley
handful of black-eyed peas

Directions:
1. Mix everything in a food processor. I added the black-eyed peas because I had a batch already cooked up and the consistency helped bring everything together.
2. Resist eating the spread right from the food processor, instead plopping it inside your favorite wrap.


Our collard leaves were tiny and we had lots of 'innards' left over, so I just made them into a side salad with a fresh beet from the garden!

With our 70ish tomato and pepper plants, I expect to soon be over-run by tomatoes and peppers. In the mean time, it's fun watching the progress, like the tomatoes growing on this volunteer plant that popped up among our strawberries. Roma tomatoes, perhaps?
Lastly, a photo of the carrot we pulled up today in order to gauge their progress.

Happy summer!

Lately, we've had a delightful paring of warmish days and cool evenings in Portland. I love it. And the boys are certainly loving it.
Tonight we honored the coming of the season with yummy (and appropriately named) summer rolls! We were told by our Vietnamese friends that this is a relaxing meal, meant to be enjoyed with loved ones, as you put together your summer rolls just the way you like.

The fillings included baked tofu, homegrown spinach and lettuce, sauteed carrot and onion, homegrown spearmint, orange bell pepper, and cucumber. I made two dipping sauces: a sweet tamarind peanut sauce and a chili garlic sauce. Really yummy!

(This photo doesn't really make the summer rolls seem appetizing. I think it needed a dash of dipping sauce to liven it up! They were good. I promise.)

I also made a batch of herbal sun tea and cooled it down with a couple of frozen boysenberries.
Aaaand we had our first strawberry harvest of the season. They were deeelish!

Happy summer to you, folks in the Northern Hemisphere!

We grew it and we ate it

Well, our garden is thriving. We have a ton of stuff popping up every day. Some of it we can even identify! On the deck, we've sewn a few galvanized planters with a variety of seeds and our arugula/lettuce mix was ready to eat today!
Doc didn't need any convincing to collect our salad.
Emerson hearts arugula.
I threw together a simple green salad of steamed kale and arugula with a tangy tahini garlic dressing.
I also made some yellow pea soup, based on the Swedish soup that Fanny made while visiting, and roasted garlic couscous. It was a really nice dinner, especially sitting outside in the setting sun on our newly painted Craigslist chairs with our lovely new Etsy cushions.

Voodoo Doughnuts

Fanny and Martin from Cooking Vegan Food Up North are visiting, so of course we took an obligatory trip to Voodoo Doughnut. We got the Vegan Dozen, a great assortment of raised and cake donuts.

Fanny's expression more accurately captures the excitement!

Then there were three

I'm about to run out with Doc to finish ripping out the grass from our vegetable bed so that we can begin planting tomorrow, but before I go, I wanted to post this update.

Remember this chair? I found it on the Philly streets, sad and broken. I breathed new life into it and I love it! Now it has company. I found two chairs in Portland as a neighbor was cleaning out his grandmother's house. One was missing an arm and both were in terrible need of reupholstering, but they had nice structure and were in decent shape (much better than their older sibling.)

My plan is to collect five "street chairs" total, fix them up, paint them the same color, and cover the seats in the same fabric. They will sit around our lovely farm table, coordinated, but not too matchy. Two more free chairs to go!

Isa's Genius "Mac and Shews"

I was craving something casserole-y and thought of doing a mac a cheese. Serendipitously, an unrelated visit to the ppk blog resulted in a drool-worthy shot of "Mac and Shews" in my face, and dinner plans were made! I love the star ingredient, saurkraut, but often struggle with getting through an entire jar of it.

This recipe is good hot or cold, but I don't know that I would put it in the same category as "mac and cheese." With some tweaking I think you could get more creaminess and less tang, but I love this recipe as is, and for what it is.
I paired the Mac and Shews with a Caesar salad, using my now world-famous dressing and toasting some croutons. The dressing is never measured and always thrown together. This particular incarnation included Vegenaise, dijon mustard, capers in brine, raw garlic, olive oil, nooch, pepper, and lemon juice.

It was a nice, tangy meal. Followed up with chocolate pudding. Two thumbs up!

A preview of what's to come

Under the guidance of a Mr. Joel Verdon, I have been working on several furniture building projects of late. Most excitingly for me, I've begun work on a work/storage station for the kitchen. This beaut will sit in my "nook" area and will house spices, herbs, teas, produce, oils, vinegars, etc. I've installed two rustic shelves full of vintage mason jars containing beautiful legumes and grains above where the station will go. I love how it looks and can't wait until the station is complete!

So far, we've created the legs, beautifully tapered by Joel, and the apron, the front of which will also become drawer space for spices and teas. I brought in a jar of mung beans to my local paint store and found the PERFECT color to match. (This is my absolute favorite color- love it!) The legs and apron have been sanded a few times and painted twice. Each leg has a double bolt to provide extra stability for those awesome doughs I'll be kneading.
More photos soon! Hopefully the entire project will be complete by next week.

A couple of cuddling doggle shots:

Andy and Em enjoying the fleeting sunshine. Notice Andy's arm around Emerson.

Doc snapped this one when Emerson came to cuddle with me on the sofa last night and put his arms around my neck. A very unflattering photo of me.