Garden Rosemary Potatoes

With our move less than a week away, Zips and I spent a little time digging up spuds under the sunshade in the backyard this afternoon. Not only did we want to enjoy our premature mini-harvest, we also plan to take our cultivated dirt with us. What with packing and moving, raking up the backyard and returning our garden plots to a solid patch of sand, we figured we ought to enjoy the fruits (tubers) of our labors. As you can see, I couldn't keep Zips from supervising the digging up of the yukon golds.

I had already dug up the plants that looked sickly or dying. But with the rest of the plants still looking so good and growing strong, I never imagined some of them had a cluster of fully formed POTATOES!

Bijoux also had to get in on the action.

All in all, here's the full harvest. I almost don't recognize the backyard when I look from my bedroom window, since all of my greenery in the smaller raised bed is gone.

They were enjoyed with dinner (along with some brussels sprouts and quorn turk'y roast) with some rosemary trimmed from the garden wall (and olive oil, salt and pepper).

Breakfast Quesadillas: Good Idea? or a Great Idea?

This morning was crazy exciting. We had planned on having a yard sale today (saturday) to downsize a little before our impending move (next week!) (I haven't hosted a yard sale in over 8 years!). But we only decided at the very last minute to actually got through with it. So on Thursday I posted an ad on craigslist with a couple of bigger items we were selling and our address. Friday I fretted about not having advertised it in the local paper and not buying any posterboard to make signs. And after a fitful night of not sleeping and generally worrying that no one would come after all the trouble of tagging and finding surfaces to use as tables, we decided not to have the yard sale after all. But this morning, there were pickup trucks and early birds waiting a full hour before we had intended on "opening"-- so I went out to tell them all we were postponing our sale. But a frenzy ensued, and we ended up selling stuff for the next hour and a half before toting the scraps leftover to the local animal shelter thrift shop.

And then we feasted. Zips requested a special breakfast (it was all over by 10 am!) so I made her her favorite: breakfast tacos. That's just an egg scrambled with some chopped morningstar farms veggie breakfast sausage patty in a heated flour tortilla, with some salsa on top. The hot sauce of choice in this case is Tapatio ("es una salsa...muy salsa!"):

but since I'm not really interested in eating eggs right now, I decided to mix it up a little, and heated a tortilla in an unoiled nonstick pan, sprinkled a little cheese on half of it, and a little of the scrambled eggs and veggie sausage, folded it over again, and used a smaller pan to press it (macguyver panini!) as it heated. Then I flipped it over and toasted the other side too.

Now I have a new favorite breakfast too when Zips demands her tacos! I've been rewarded with a homemade "java chip"-esque frappuccino. Mmmmm. I may have to get Zips to write out the recipe for me!

Very Easy Jicama Slaw

After writing out and posting photos of our salsa verde perfecto and guacamole, I've been salivating for a big taco extravaganza. As we were getting produce for dinner, I couldn't resist picking up a jicama, even though I've very rarely eaten it at home (what have I bought, like, one in my life?). Not knowing what exactly I was going to do with it, but positive it would be delicious, I brought it home and started looking for recipes for a jicama slaw. Frankly, they all looked weird (Bobby Flay's includes honey, Emeril uses yogurt!?) or really over-dressed (6 Tb Olive Oil??!). So I decided I'd start with the Mexican slaw recipe I worked out copying one of our favorite local place's slaw, and then modify it from there if it was too boring. It turned out to be delicious as is!

Jicama Slaw

1 jicama (peeled, julienned)

1 carrot (ditto)

1/4 small red cabbage (chopped)

1/2 c. cilantro (chopped)

And for the dressing, whisk together:

3/4 c. rice vinegar

2 Tb. vegetable oil

1 1/2 Tb. sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp black pepper

(This dressing is good on just finely sliced green cabbage too. That's our La Posta-style slaw ). Zips is in the kitchen right now slicing avocados. I gotta go!

Homemade Pizza, Handmade Crust!

So before I knew it tonight, it was dinner time and we had no concrete plans and no particular set of ingredients for anything special. After ruling out quesadillas or tacos (a favorite standby) and shoving the leftover lasagna to the side of the fridge to look behind it, I decided on a whim to try making pizza dough from scratch. Even though our kitchen is about 65% packed (both in terms of tools and pantry ingredients), I found a packet of active yeast-- possibly leftover from Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner-- and after looking through a couple recipes online, realized we had just enough of everything else for this to go down. Now I'm admittedly a haphazard and impatient baker. Despite my impatience, this turned out nicely, and much tastier than any prepackaged pizza dough we've ever popped out of a biscuit package.

Zipper's Easy Pizza Dough:

1pk active dry yeast

1 c. warm (not hot) water

let the yeast proof in the water for 10-15 min. (If you're impatient and paranoid like me, you can sprinkle just a little sugar into the water/yeast to make sure those little puppies are alive and, well, active.)

Meanwhile, combine 3c. all purpose flour (one recipe I found called for bread flour, which I didn't have. This worked just fine. Maybe I'll have to get some bread flour for future pizzas, though. Also, recipes asked for anywhere between 2 to 3 1/2 c. flour. I started with 2c. which gave me a gummy, gluey dough, and sprinkled in more flour until I got to a nice sticky dough at 3 c.)

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. sugar

yeast/water mixture

2 Tb. olive oil

Mix these together until you have a stiff dough. Now recipes I found used conflicting terminology and actions at this point. One recipe describes what you may have as a "stiff dough," another asks for a "smooth elastic ball." What I had at this point was a sticky ball and no flour left. (Also, I mixed the dough with a fork then a whisk then my hands. I don't have a KitchenAid mixer or a dough hook. Yet.) So I winged it, kneaded it carefully to preserve as much as possible (about 3 min.) and left it in an oiled bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel over the top for about 40 min. Meanwhile I made PESTO (with sweet basil from our garden)!!!!

The dough rose and I pressed it down and let it rise more about 10 min. Then I cut of about 1/3 of it to make my own mini pizza with just pesto, mozzarella and slices of our roma grape tomatoes (from our garden). The dough was pretty easy to work into a flat, thin pie crust (and no, I don't know how to toss it. Yet.)

For the rest of the fam, I used the other 2/3 of the dough for a larger pie. This time it was harder to work. Some areas were too threadbare, so I balled it up and actually rolled it out with some effort, a sprinkle of corn meal, and the *very* last of the flour. The rolling-out actually produced a very nice, soft, smooth pie crust. So I topped it with tomato sauce, garlic, onion, tomato, fennel, basil, and some leftover veggie italian sausage (the best is Trader Joe's!)

Here's my finished pesto pizza! I baked them for 20 min. at 350. They were a huge hit!

In the future, I'll work on making the crust a little more exciting. They turned out a little blonde. Perhaps if I brush them with some olive oil? We're all in pizza comas now. nom nom nom nom.

What's Next? Homemade Vegan Donuts?

After those donuts we had at Herbivore, it's been a new goal to create and perfect our own vegan donuts. Hell, we'd settle for perfected homemade donuts. Especially since we've discovered that the closest gas station to our house has our hallucinogenic narcotic of choice: Krispy Kreme blueberry cake donuts. (**mmmmmm oooooohh** )

I'm trying to wean the household from getting these every couple of weeks by looking for healthier alternatives, which brought me to Vegan Yum Yum's post on baked mini-donuts. Our batter turned out much more liquid than how hers looks, and yes, those are blueberries that I added. Since these are baked (and we don't have a donut pan, but apparently really need one now!), I spooned about 1/4 c. of the batter into each part of a cupcake pan. So our donuts turned out as kind of dense but delicious muffins. I followed her glaze recipe, but then added some lemon juice and zest (since lemon goes really well with blueberries). For my chocolate glaze, I melted about 6oz. of chocolate chips with a dash of brandy (old fondue trick), a dot of vanilla extract, some soy milk, and a tiny dash of vegetable oil (this is a trick to help keep your chocolate glaze shiny that I'm sure I got from some health guru like Paula Deen). They were delicious. Not terribly donut-y, but close enough to get your fix. Did I mention they're vegan?

Tiny Yukon Golds, Salsa Verde, and other Summer Magic

I know it's probably not the smartest thing in the world to plant a whole bed of baby yukon gold potatoes in the middle of summer in southern New Mexico, but I was so excited when I saw them for sale at our local garden/hardware store, I couldn't resist. Even more thrilling was when they emerged from little eyelets into full grown plants. Almost ALL of them!!

Now I'm just waiting around for them to grow grow grow those magical tubers. Hopefully their harvest will happen to coincide with when we have to move (about two weeks). The other day I noticed a couple of the plants was looking wilty-- okay more like on death's door, so I couldn't resist feeling around its roots and voila!

Potatoes!!!!! Now I realize they're not going to win any ribbons at the state fair, but it brings back that amazing feeling I had when we had a plot at the community gardens in Indiana, and I grew a whole row of potatoes, soybeans, more tomatoes than I knew what to do with, celery, brussels sprouts, and what not (see the earliest postings, it's part of why I started this blog). I GREW FOOD in the GROUND! And I'm going to EAT IT!

One of my summer readings is Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. She writes in the very first pages "We wanted to live in a place that could feed us: where rain falls, crops grow, and drinking water bubbles up out of the ground." I understand that sentiment, even after living only 2 years in the dry southwest. But it's nice to see that we can indulge green-thumbed desires here. Knowing that we'll have to pack up and move a little ways down the road, we're trying to emotionally part with the lovely backyard that we fell in love with, and planted all our tomatoes, lettuces, basils and catnips in pots.

In addition to my tiny potato excitement, Zips is thrilled to be growing several tiny tomatillo plants. When we had our garden plot in Indiana, we had more tomatillos early on than we knew what to do with. I wrote long ago about our "salsa verde crudo." But now Zips has perfected her Salsa Verde:

Zipper's Salsa Verde Perfecto

2 lb. tomatillos (husked, rinsed, chopped)

1 medium onion

1-2 whole serrano chiles

1/2 c. cilantro

1-2 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lime

salt & (secret ingredient) ground celery seed (or celery salt)!

Chuck everything into your food processor and chop until everything is well combined. It may help to start chopping the harder foods first (onion, garlic, chiles) then add the juicy parts that you wouldn't want to accidently liquify (tomatillo), before adding and adjusting the cilantro, lime, ground celery seed and salt. I've never posted a photo of our Salsa Verde before, because we usually eat it all before I've had a chance (I once posted a photo of an empty glass bowl). But we've discovered that this actually keeps in the fridge pretty well, and if the serranos start off too spicy, it actually mellows in the fridge.

The other magical summer staple that Zips has utterly perfected lately is her heavenly guacamole. The magic, in our case, is in the molcajete she bought me last christmas:
I had a revelation (way too late) that those little black plastic tripod bowls that you sometimes get salsa in at Mexican restaurants are, basically, fake molcajetes. So this is a rough, heavy mortar and pestle made of volcanic stone that you season by grinding rice and rock salt until the inside starts to smooth out. Then you grind raw garlic cloves, cumin, salt into a paste and let it sit 24 hours. If you aren't driven mad with how good it smells, it will give your guacamole the most amazing flavors. We use avocado, lime, and just a little onion, tomato, cilantro, serrano, and garlic and a dash of salt (no measurements you cry? tweak em till it's perfect!). If we have a bag of the local tortillaria's chips, and we make both of these, it will be a good night indeed!