If you’d like to give a goose something fun to do, give them an entire cucumber (such as this monster I found curled amongst the leaves looking more like a giant green larvae than cuke) and let them work on it. Geese love cucumbers, at least mine do – and it is a challenge, albeit a momentary one, for them to gnaw into it. The first bites take a while, then once the skin is broken, what happiness! The cool, green, summery taste of a juicy cucumber makes geese just as happy as it makes me.
It is a bit late this year – the time in which one goes from picking a not-yet-quite- ripe tomato off the vine and hiding it so you can eat it yourself and not share it with anyone, to the time one feels nonchalantly generous with the rich red fruit. (No, I don’t hide tomatoes. Some woman I know does, who can be forgiven because it is the first tomato, after all…)
In any case, we’re all on the same page now – tomatoes are abundant, delicious, and we’re having them for dinner. One of the best ways to eat tomatoes at dinner is as a Caprese salad. Olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh, soft mozzarella (if the cheese doesn’t feel pillowy soft like you could leave a fingerprint in it, look for a better cheese), basil, and, of course, fresh tomatoes (if the tomato isn’t so tender it feels like you could leave a fingerprint in the perfect skin, pick another tomato).
This salad is so perfect and so simple, the only way you can make a substandard Caprese is with substandard ingredients. Otherwise, layer the tomatoes with slices of cheese and whole leaves of basil, then drizzle balsamic vinegar and really good olive oil, to taste, over the salad. I like some salt, but that’s just me.
I do sometimes mix one part brown sugar to two parts balsamic vinegar (reducing it on the stove to half). then when cooled, whisking the mixture with the olive oil for a nice bubbly dressing.
Not only is this salad delicious, it is also beautiful. I love the different ways one can dish it. I made this circle-themed Caprese salad with several kinds of cherry tomatoes, mozzarella balls, and basil dots.
How did I make basil dots? I used a paper punch! Scrubbed the thing really well first, of course, then folded the leaves and punched away. I think a bigger circle would be better, and I know those punches are available in craft stores…so if you’ve got one, give it a try and let me know how it works.
One more caprese – this one a simple chopped affair, but with the addition of home-made croutons. Cut bread into any size cubes you particularly like, toss with olive oil, salt, perhaps some red pepper, then put under a broiler and stir the cubes several times as they crisp. The difference between home-made croutons and store bought is wide, as is the difference of my appreciation of them.
As for the Caprese Salads – any size, any shape, these salads are the best of summer.
I’m harvesting my borlotti beans and re-planting the vacant beds with more of them. (It’s not too late to plant beans if you haven’t gotten around to it – and Borlotti Beans are a great dried bean to grow. Sigh. I just loooooove borlotti beans.)
They are also called cranberry beans. About the size of a pinto bean, borlottis are white with a beautiful (cranberry) red veining on both their pods and on the beans themselves. They are my favorite beans because of their warm taste and smooth texture. Because home-grown beans are so fresh (most store-bought beans are well over a year old when you buy them) the dried beans cook quickly and are amazingly tender.
I planted these beans in late April. I waited until the pods were drying and filled with well-developed beans (immature beans will be greenish and have no veining), and the leaves of the plant had begun to yellow. I don’t like to wait too long, for if the pods are too dry, they split and drop the beans all over the place as I’m picking them.
I cut the plants at the stem close to the earth, leaving the nitrogen rich roots to the soil, (stump farming!) then pile the cut plants in a protected area to finish air drying.
When the pods are dry, they open easily. I let the shelled beans dry until I can no longer imprint them easily with my fingernail, then store them in a glass jar in the pantry with one or two of those sillica packs that I save out of vitamins. I use some of the dry beans for next year’s garden, but most – I eat.
Try these beans in a vegetarian (even vegan) green chile stew. You won’t miss meat!
Though I have scads, scads of cranberry, pinto, and lamar beans making me look good out in the beds by the sidewalk, I was unprepared to push aside the leaves of the green beans to find so many of the things hanging on the vine. It seemed like the last time I peered into the foliage all I saw were the little kidney shaped flowers. It has been a cold spring, after all.
Perhaps they felt the sun, finally, and shot way ahead of themselves, growing faster than beans usually do…or perhaps I felt the sun and allowed lazy days to pass by in a blur and forgot to check the green bean progress…in any case I laud the sun for either effect.
Now to cook the beans. A bit of steam, a toss in some lovely vinagrette with a bit of feta and a bouquet of spinach leaves…the first cucumber, a handful of sweet cherry tomatoes and eggs, (thank you-s to Kalliopi and the Shades) and I’ve got a salad worthy of dinner.
Sun, salad, summer….ahhhhh.
There’s a new page on The Quarter Acre Farm – Frequently Asked Questions – To be quick about it we’re calling it FAQs on the QAF. See it on the menu?
If you don’t see your question answered there, let me know. I think I’ve missed a few as I’ve taken a bit to get to them. :( I’ll be faster in the future- promise!
New Author photos as well. Which, if any, should I use?
The next photos will be of Hypsipyle…her first birthday is coming up! What kind of cake do geese like? I have a feeling she wouldn’t care for balloons, but she has the perfect party dress to wear!
Back from a flurry of events which, of course, took place over the hottest days of the year so that leaving the farm was an exercise in cataloguing all the plants that I’d failed to water fully before we left…
And yet, everything lived.
There’s one more event to come this week – at The Book Seller in Grass Valley on Saturday at four p.m. I will be sure to water the Quarter Acre Farm well before we begin our journey into the Sierra. See you there?
Ask me a question, any question (well, almost any question), ask me TEN questions, so that I may put together a page of those questions on my website that is being re-vamped as we speak. Save me from having to think them up myself! Help, fellow readers, farmers, writers, please!
WHAT DO BEES, QUINOA, ICE CREAM, BIBA, BISCUITS, and SPRING have in common? URBAN AG FEST!
Slow Food Sacramento presents our third annual
Common Table: Urban Ag Fest: June 18th
Tickets: This event will sell out. Visit http://3rdurbanagfest.eventbrite.com/ to purchase nonrefundable tickets. Tickets by advance sale only.
Our partner and beneficiary: Plates Café and Catering, a project of St. John’ s Shelter
for Women and Children, trains formerly homeless women with culinary skills. This
event raises money for a vegetable garden at Plates to bring good, clean, fair food to all.
The Reception: This year’ s Urban Ag Fest begins with an optional Reception ($25/
person) at 4 p.m. featuring Urban Farming 101: Grow Your Own Groceries. Enjoy
wine and fresh, ultra-local appetizers as you eat, sip, and learn with these experts:
Learn the healthy pleasures of backyard chickens from CLUCK
Consider the wonders of beekeeping from Sac Beekeepers Assn.
Learn how to mingle edibles in your yard from CA Victory Garden
Learn to install raised vegetable beds from Sac Yard Farmer
Find out about produce sharing and swapping from Oak Park Crop Swap
Learn to preserve what you grow from Sac Food Preservers
The Dinner: ($85/person) begins at 6 p.m. This is a white tablecloth catered dinner by
Plates Café & Catering. Chef Stuart Edgecombe and Bobbin Mulvaney, of Mulvaney’ s
B& L, have teamed up to create a menu full of sunshine and America’ s best summer food
traditions, featuring:
Plates starter salad with fresh, local greens
Quinoa salad with fresh local summer vegetables
Slow roasted pork with arugula
Roasted fingerling potatoes and romanesco
Housemade biscuits with local honey and creamery butter
Pies, pies, more pies with handmade vanilla ice cream
Keynote speaker: Spring Warren will regale us with lessons learned as an amateur urban
farmer when she embarked on a goal to grow 75 percent of the food she consumed for
one year in her own yard. Her book “The Quarter-Acre Farm” skillfully captures her
urban farming travails and triumphs featured in her talk.
Live Auction: Bid on food, cooking, and dining related items like:
A year’s worth of Family Dinners for 2 at Mulvaney’s
Pasta lessons for 8 with Pasta Dave
Drinks with Biba followed by four-course dinner for 4
Pizza lessons for 20 with Tuli’s acclaimed chef
Here’s the whole auction list – team up with friends for fantastic, unique opportunities
to enjoy Sacramento’s finest food for a good cause.
Our sponsors: The financial support of these firms have made this event possible
Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood LLP · Jacobsen & M cElroy PC · Kenyon Yeates LLP · Kershaw, Cutter, Ratinoff LLP · M ulvaney’s B& L
Read more about Plates at http://www.eatatplates.com/. Bobbin Mulvaney was
recognized by Congresswoman Matsui as one of the 1,000 points of light for her work
with Plates. http://www.stjohnsshelter.org/
This probably goes in the category of – Things I shouldn’t tell anyone about. But I’m going to anyway. Yes, this is our house, and this is our lamp, and apparently, this is our rat climbing up our lamp in our house. We were watching a movie, I was stretched out on the couch, and this not-so-little guy scaled the lamp and watched us watching him. I had enough time to get off the couch, get my camera and take a picture!
He’s cute. Admit it.
Where did he come from? I think he squeezed into the house through a crack between attic and hallway. At least there was a bit of insulation inexplicably scattered on the floor by said crack several weeks ago. I think he was a little lithe pre-teen rat and then he spent two weeks hiding out chez Warren and quickly aged into an angst-ridden, ravenous, in your face adolescent rat with an acne-ridden complexion under that fur of his. That journey up the lamp – Challenge, pure challenge.
So we cut him loose, broomed him out the door and said, “Go ahead, try to make it on your own. Good luck. Don’t get anyone pregnant.” Just what we don’t need on the farm – more lamp rats.
Slow Food Sacramento presents the third annual
Common Table: Urban Ag Fest: June 18, 2011
Our annual fundraiser promotes urban agriculture in Sacramento and benefits a partner in our effort to bring good, clean, fair food to all.
Our partner and beneficiary: This year’s beneficiary is Plates Café and Catering, a project of St. John’s Shelter for Women and Children. Plates trains formerly homeless women to cook and cater and helps place its graduates in related employment. Slow Food Sacramento is raising money for a garden at Plates that will provide fresh vegetables to the Café and Shelter and will teach related gardening skills. Read more at http://www.eatatplates.com/ Bobbin Mulvaney was recognized by Congresswoman Matsui as one of the 1,000 points of light for her work with Plates. http://www.stjohnsshelter.org/
The Event: This year’s Urban Ag Fest begins with an optional Reception ($25/person) at 4 p.m. featuring Urban Ag 101: Grow Your Own Groceries. Experienced, enthusiastic urban agronomists will demonstrate beekeeping, chicken raising, raised vegetable beds, food preservation, how to share your excess produce through Sacramento Harvest, and more. You can do it! We have paired the demonstrations with wine and fresh, ultra-local appetizers. Eat, sip, and learn with the experts.
The Dinner: ($75/person before May 15 and $85/person after May 15) begins at 6 p.m. It will be a white tablecloth affair catered dinner by Plates Café & Catering. Chef Stuart Edgecombe and Bobbin Mulvaney, of Mulvaney’s B&L, have teamed up to create a menu full of sunshine and America’s best summer food traditions.
Keynote speaker Spring Warren will regale us with lessons learned by an amateur urban farmer, which she captures skillfully in “The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn and Fed My Family for a Year”
Link to Spring Warren: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/05/04/3598748/quarter-acre-farm-feeds-this-davis.html#ixzz1LQdL0pLy
The evening also includes a live auction with the opportunity to bid on food, cooking, and dining related items. Bring the experts to your home, visit them at their homes, ride along on a restaurant review, enjoy the generosity and skill of the best of Sacramento’s finest good food enthusiasts. Click here to view the list of auction and raffle items.
Our sponsors: The financial support of these firms have made this event possible
Dreyer Babich Buccola Wood LLP • Jacobsen & McElroy PC • Kenyon Yeates LLP • Kershaw, Cutter, Ratinoff LLP • Mulvaney’s B&L
Tickets are limited. This event will sell out. All proceeds benefit the garden project at Plates Café & Catering.
Visit http://3rdurbanagfest.eventbrite.com/ to purchase tickets. Sorry, no refunds.
