Baking When It's 93 Degrees Outside

Baking When It's 93 Degrees Outside - Or, She's Really Nuts

Hubby and I are taking a little roadtrip this weekend. In an effort to avoid spending good money on lousy food and get to our destination more quickly, we'll be eating while we drive. It's never a problem coming up with good vegan food to prepare, but a dessert seemed to be in order today. So, I made a quickbread. Today's choice was a blueberry semolina concoction, which turned out quite nicely, if I do say so myself. The recipe is a McDougall compliant creation. I adapted it from a recipe by Jan Tz, who has posted many of her quickbread recipes on the forum on the McDougall website.

Blueberry Semolina Quickbread

Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease an 8" square or round cake pan.

Combine:
1 and 1/4 cup unsweetened ricemilk (or soymilk or water)
1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. white vinegar

Let stand while you mix the dry ingredients:
1 cup semolina flour
1 cup white wheat flour
4 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda

1 to 1 1/2 cups blueberries

When the oven reaches temp., pour the soured soymilk into the dry ingredients. Add blueberries. Mix quickly, and don't overmix (mix just until the dry ingredients are incorporated - this will ensure your quickbread will rise nicely). Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 minutes. When done, the top will be golden and a toothpick inserted in center will come out clean. Let stand to cool before trying to cut.

Pickin' and Grinnin'

I'm thrilled to have picked a bunch of good stuff from the garden today. And, it's mostly already prepped and ready to eat. And, I'm really happy to report that I picked my first sungold cherry tomatoes! Got about a quarter pound and ate them right away. Mega yum. I'm looking forward to my first fresh basil of the year as well.

I made a curried potato salad. It tastes great, and it's McDougally delicious. It's adapted to be lowfat and vegan and comes from the San Francisco Chronicle Website. The peas, onions, and hot pepper were all grown in the meadow. Fresh and local!

Curried Potato Salad with Peas

Serves 6
From former Chronicle staff writer Robin Davis, now food editor at the
Columbus Dispatch.

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound unshelled fresh peas
Salt to taste
3 pounds small white creamer potatoes, quartered
1 cup unsweetened soy yogurt (I used Wildwood brand - nice and tangy)
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons chopped mint leaves
Freshly ground pepper to taste
1 small red onion, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS:
Shell the peas; discard pods. Cook the peas in a small pot
of boiling salted water until tender; it will take from 10 to 30 minutes
depending on the maturity of the peas. Drain. Cool.
Steam the potatoes until just tender, about 15 minutes. Cool.
Whisk together the yogurt, vinegar, curry powder and cayenne. Stir in 2
tablespoons of the mint. Season with salt and pepper.
Combine the peas, potatoes and onion in a large bowl. Add the dressing and
toss to coat. Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon mint.



I also made wilted cucumber salad and grilled some round zucchini. Luckily, the zucchini finished cooking just as the propane tank ran out of gas. Now I just have to wait for my hubby to finish cutting the grass and we'll be eating some good lunch!

The Squash Parade Begins

The march of the summer squash officially began last evening, when I harvested 3/4 of a pound (inclusive of some squash blossoms, which are also edible and yummy) of round zucchini. The seed packet caught my eye at Big Lots recently, and for a buck, why not try something new? I planted a few seeds in little hills three feet apart, mulched the whole thing heavily, watered, and waited. These bush-type plants are doing wonderfully. I also randomly planted some of these seeds in a flower bed. Of course, those plants are bigger than the plants in their own squash bed. What's up with that?

This photo is from seedfest.co.uk, as I need to charge my camera.

I picked a small bowlful of small, slightly larger than golfball size zukes, along with male blossoms. You can tell the blossoms are male if they are on a long stem. Female blossoms have a tiny baby squash-ette attached. Leave those until they are of harvesting size.

I simply prepared the veggie of the day by trimming off the ends and slicing the small orbs in half. Then, I steamed them until they were nice and tender. At the last minute or so, I added the squash blossoms, stamens removed and discarded, blossoms sliced into thin strips.

Bring on the parade!

Doing the Weave

So far, I have 36 tomato plants in one really long bed. Some of the varieties are:

• Cherokee Purple
• Sungold Cherry
• German Johnson
• Celebrity
• Roma
• Better Boy
  

Thirty-six plants are quite a few tomatoes. Rather than get caught up with staking each one and trying to keep up with tying the plants (and inevitably falling behind quickly in that task each year), or spending too much money on flimsy round wire cages that are useless once the plants grow higher than three feet, or the welds break, I am on the second year of a system used by commercial growers. (I think that is one really long sentence I just typed!)

This system is called the Florida weave. I've also seen mention of the German weave. Maybe so, since Germans are known to be so efficient at things (and I'm of German descent, so occasionally it rubs off). Basically, five to six foot long wooden stakes or metal posts are driven into the ground, spaced so two plants are between each stake. My stakes are five feet long. The stakes at the end of each row should be at an angle, away from the plants. Think of the letter "v" for the direction the end stakes will face. You'll also need a spool of heavy jute twine.

So, to get started, drive the stakes into the ground with a mallet. If using wood stakes, wear heavy gloves, so you don't get splinters. This is strenuous work. Enlist a good helper if you aren't too strong yet. Last year, I had my hubby do this work for me. I was able to do it myself this time around, thanks to all the CrossFit workouts I have been doing since January. Still, it's hard work, but you want the stakes to be firmly anchored into the ground. Your plants should be spaced anywhere from 18 to 36 inches apart, depending on soil quality. I have pretty good soil, thanks to all the manure from my neighbors' horses, so I space my tomato plants 18 inches apart. The rows are about three feet apart. I have found it's best to plant the tomatoes first, and then drive the stakes and weave the twine. Also, mulch heavily while the plants are small, and this will help keep the soil moist and cool as the weather heats up (and heat up it does, here in central NC).

After getting the stakes in, tie a firm knot about six inches from the ground at the end of the row, on the outward angled stake. I also like to wrap the twine around the stake a few times. Then, unravel the twine and run it to the next stake, holding the twine taught,and wrap it around the next stake firmly. Continue to the subsequent stakes in the row, until you get to the end. Then, wrap the twine around the end stake, and come back down the row. When you get back to the starting point, wrap again, and firmly tie off the twine and cut. Repeat up the stakes, about every six inches, until you get to the top of the stakes.

As the plants grow, all you need to do is visit the plants every couple days and tuck the growing tip between the two lines of the twine. It will only take a few minutes. This is a fast, easy, and inexpensive way to support your tomatoes. At the end of the season, remove the stakes from the ground, and store them in a dry place. Then, you can reuse them next year. The twine can go in the compost bin as a source of carbon.

Different varieties of tomato plants in various stages of growth.

Close-up of the method at work.

I'm still here!

I am really still here. Things have been happening at Maggie's Meadow. I have 36 tomato plants in the ground, eggplants, hot and sweet peppers of different varieties, cukes, pole beans, corn, yellow and green summer squash, butternut winter squash, pumpkins (including Dill's Atlantic Giant), potatoes, Swiss chard, and a few herbs. I got all the peas picked and need to get those frozen (still holding in the fridge). There's lots to show and tell. So, once I get my camera situated....

This week, I made strawberry jam and strawberry preserves with some of the last of the local strawberries. Strawberry season is coming to an all too quick close here in central North Carolina. I made six half-pint jars of jam and six half-pints of preserves. There is not much difference: strawberries, sugar, lemon juice. The berries in the jam get crushed, and the the preserve berries do not. However, they are both DELICIOUS! Mine don't gel as firm as some do, but I tend to use superripe berries. Pectin is what causes the gelling action, and very ripe fruits have less naturally occurring pectin than partially ripened fruit. I'd love the delirious scent and flavor of the berries.