Fall Waxing Autumn Moon
We had our final straight from the garden meal last night. Roasted potatoes, onions, fennel, carrots and a lone beet. Raspberries for dessert. Marinated chicken for protein, not from here.
Today I cut up the leeks, cooked some chicken breasts, carrots, celery, peas and corn (none of these ours), and cooked the leeks in salt water for five minutes. After shredding the chicken, a roux thickened the broth with the vegetables. The shredded chicken went in the pie crust, then the leeks (our own), and after that the thickened broth and vegetables.
A rolled out pie crust for a top to the pies and they went in the oven. 4 chicken/leek pot pies, frozen now, treats we can have when we get back from South America along with raspberry pie.
Had an aha about our garden while cutting up the leeks. We’re not feeding ourselves in any significant way with our garden, though we do eat several meals a year with our own produce and fruit. What we can grow, and the leeks, garlic, heirloom tomatoes and heirloom potatoes are good examples, are specialty vegetables that, even if we wanted them, probably wouldn’t be available and would certainly not be available fresh from the garden.
We preserve tomatoes, store potatoes and onions, garlic and honey. Kate makes currant jam and wild grape jelly. We have raspberry pies frozen and now the chicken/leek pot pies. We also freeze chard and spinach. Our garden supplements our diet in ways that would not be possible without it.
It also gives us a joint project, a place we can work together, while keeping us in touch with the Great Wheel and the ways of the vegetative world. We get a lot from our garden.
singing, no poker, no beer?” Nope.
keep on growing, too, also up in the hydroponics once they become youngsters and not babies, but they will go in the ground outside as soon the ground can be worked. (I think. May be a bit later.) Over February, March and April other plants will follow the same process, growing up to two leaves, then getting transferred to the nutrient baths of the hydroponics. Each one, in its own time, will go outside to the waiting beds. They will augment the garlic, the strawberries, the raspberries, the asparagus already growing there.
winter, but delighted. I’d understand if only two made it, but I’d be disappointed with one. I’ve got a long ways to go before I’m a good bee-keeper, but I have years to go before I sleep. Time enough.
potatoes, dug just before cooking. They had a distinct flavor, a nutty earthy tone unfamiliar from the long since harvested potatoes typical of both home and restaurant cooking. This meal included our garlic, our kale and chard, the potatoes garnished with our flat parsley and a bowl of sugar snap peas as an appetizer.