• Tag Archives gazpacho

  • Soup

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall                                          Waxing Blood Moon

    Various financial matters kept me inside till lunch when I took my best gal over to Osaka.  We ate a quiet lunch, both tired from the week.

    Back home I made a 4x serving of gazpacho which Kate will can tomorrow.  I take the recipe as a suggestion.  This time I added leeks, sweet corn and cilantro to the ingredients.  The garlic amount seemed modest to me so I doubled it.  A long time in one spot, but the pot has gone into the refrigerator to cool down.  A tasty soup.

    Tonight I play sheepshead with the Jesuits.  They’re smart guys and take the game seriously though we play for fun.  We’ll see how it goes tonight.


    📂This entry was posted in Cooking 📎and tagged

  • Harvest and Preservation

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Lughnasa                      Waning Harvest Moon

    It changed.  The game.  After half-time most of the time, I expected to see showed up.  How about that 64 yard run by Peterson?  Wow.  Still, it concerned me that we didn’t get more pressure on Brady Quinn.  I’m looking forward to the analysis.

    Kate has made grape juice, a lot, from the grapes I picked this morning.  Next is jelly.  I have a role in the preservation process this week.  We discovered last year that gazpacho is a perfect canned soup.  When chilled, it tastes like it was made that day.  A great treat in the middle of winter, a summer vegetable soup.

    We also several Guatemalan blue squash.  They run about a foot and a half long and 7-8 inches wide.  Heavy, too.  Taste good.   We still have parsnips (next year), turnips, carrots and potatoes in the ground, probably a beet or two hanging around, too.  Above ground we have lettuce, beans, greens and some more tomatoes.  Kate’s put up 36 quarts of tomatoes so far.

    Kate also made use of our dehydrator.  Cucumber chips.  I know, but they taste wonderful.

    There’s a lot of room for improvement in next year’s garden, but we feel good about the production this year.  Next year we should get more fruit from our orchard.


    📂This entry was posted in Cooking Garden permaculture Sport 📎and tagged

  • Ecological Gardens

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    64  bar falls 30.11  4mph  N  dew-point 45  sunrise  6:38  set 7:46

    Waxing Crescent of the Harvest Moon  rise 11:00  set 9:02

    The morning.  More gazpacho.  Another triple batch.  This time Kate will can it.  We had a blind taste test and found we liked the canned gazpacho even more than the fresh.  Go figure.  Making a large batch is not difficult, but it does consume time.  A lot of steps. Cut. Mash. Pulse. (cuisinart)  Dice.  Blend.

    This afternoon.  Kate wanted to see what we won on a scratch game card that came in the newspaper.  So I called.  The result was a canned patter by a nice young woman who wanted to sell us a $4,600 vacuum cleaner and air freshener!  Geez.  We stopped the pitch in mid-stride, she gathered up the Defender and the Majestic and walked out of house.  Whooo.

    At 3 Paula Westmoreland and Lindsay Reban of Ecological Gardens came.  They will develop a phased plan for us that will stretch out over 4-5 years.  Their work has Permaculture as its basis, so they will help move our property further in the direction of sustainability.  I plan to document the process on a companion website to AncienTrails.  I have no name for it, but when I’m ready to get going, I’ll let you know.

    I liked Paula and Lindsay.  They seemed like the kind of folks I understand.  The first product from them will be an orchard plan, then a more comprehensive plan for projects spaced over time.  It will be fun and will take our property into another zone.


    📂This entry was posted in Faith and Spirituality Garden Great Work Our Land and Home Politics 📎and tagged