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Local fruit adventures

31 Jul 2010

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Grapes and pears and blueberries, oh my!

The last of the rabbiteye blueberries went today. We bought 3 pints and ate most of a pint this morning! The late-season rabbiteye blueberries are the sweetest of the season. Some have already gone into multi-grain muffins but we’ll probably eat the rest raw.

Tiny grapes!

The grapes are an experiment. They are more tart than sweet and have lots of seeds.

Pears are finally in season and I am making the best of them. I think this particular Florida variety of pear may be my favorite truly local food so far. I know I’ve talked about them before; crunchy, juicy, crisp pears with more floral aroma and crunch than sweetness. They may have ruined me for all other pears forever. Funny thing is, they are amazingly ugly to look at, lumpy and mottled green with thick bulbous stems and thick, tough skin. I must find out the varietal name and convince someone to plant some of these trees.

Look Mom, I'm food styling!

Pear-cardamom-almond muffins

1 c AP flour

1 c whole wheat flour

1 tbl baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c finely chopped almonds

1/2 c sugar

1/4 tsp. cardamom powder

1 egg

1 c milk

1/4 c oil

2 c grated pear, peeled if you want

Heat oven to 375 and line a muffin tin with papers or butter thoroughly. Mix egg through pear in one bowl, and flour through cardamom powder in another bowl. Pour wet mixture into dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Spoon into muffin tin and take until done and lightly browned- 15-20 minutes.

By: Andi Houston Category: Recipes!, What's in the Basket?

Community Garden victim=me

29 Jul 2010

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You are now reading the blog of the new (only) community garden volunteer for McCrory Community Garden.

Johnsongrass is the suck. These weeds are 7 feet tall.

The garden’s in bad shape. Several plots are untended and the paths and fences are severely overgrown with weeds. The garden’s coordinator is sadly burned out. I can’t blame her. Volunteering for a job and then getting stuck with it far longer than expected is draining and demoralizing.

I can only do an hour a week on a regular basis. The most important thing is to get the garden mown and the paths mulched to smother the weeds. Right now you can’t even see where the beds and paths are.

All I can see is how beautiful it could be.

Wish me luck.

By: Andi Houston Category: Garden Updates

Death of tomatoes, what’s in the basket

25 Jul 2010

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Yesterday my daughter and I pulled up my disease- and bug-ridden tomato plants. The last few tomatoes were cracked and full of fly larvae, and with temperatures over 100 for the last week solid all the blossoms fell. I teared up as I was pulling them out and going over everything I had done wrong this year. Starting with the preparation of the garden beds (I used too much uncomposted yard clippings, which pulled nitrogen from the soil, leaving little for the plants) to overplanting the bed (the tomatoes shaded the peppers out almost completely) this was definitely my trial-and-error season, heavy on the errors. I left the herbs and peppers in place and hope they will start producing better now that they aren’t competing with the huge tomatoes for light and scarce nutrients. Many lessons learned this season. The other bed is still resting under its solarizing plastic.

The 441 market was bustling yesterday morning. We’re nearing the “season of rest” here in North Central Florida. Many gardeners take their break here in late July and August since little produces in the fiercest heat of the year. Soon all that will be found at the market is watermelons, chili peppers and eggplants, with little else in the way of variety. High summer is the challenging season here. Soon the farmers will start their fall planting soon, but until the fall produce starts arriving we’ll find lots of creative things to do with the eggplant.

Yesterday I bought: tiny striped eggplants, cherry tomatoes, large slicing tomatoes, 3 pints of the sweetest rabbiteye blueberries imaginable, the first of the sand pears, garlic chives, fresh thyme and Thai basil, sweet potatoes, huge twining striped cucumbers, red peppers, goat cheese, and a bag of squash blossoms.

I am most excited about the sand pears and the squash blossoms. The squash blossoms are destined for dinner tonight, filled with the locally produced goat cheese, garlic and fresh thyme, and a little rigani from my garden, then lightly battered and fried in olive oil. The sand pears, a local variety of pear I have written about before, will be sliced and simmered lovingly with Florida raw sugar and a whole vanilla bean and a few bruised cardamom pods, to be jarred up for the fridge. The pears are a wonderful topping for anything; I love to spoon them over pancakes with ricotta cheese, or ice cream.

By: Andi Houston Category: Recipes!, What's in the Basket?

Agricultural Urbanism and Urban Agriculture

25 Jul 2010

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… are, believe it or not, two entirely different things.

Agricultural Urbanism is “a planning, policy, and design framework that focuses on integrating a wide range of sustainable food system elements into urban planning projects and neighbourhoods.” This is about city planning, starting at the construction (or restructuring) phase to integrate agriculture into urban and suburban planning. Grist.org had a good article on Agricultural Urbanism last week, and the article focused on Prairie Crossing in IL. The neighborhood sounds like any backyard gardener and local foodie’s wet dream, except that it’s packed full of luxury homes and condos. So where do all of the service people live? Where do the maids, the janitors and the waiters live? Does Prairie Crossing have a ghetto, and do they get to participate in the Prairie Crossing Institute? Do their children get to go to Prairie Crossing charter school? If not, is it really a sustainable community?

Urban Agriculture has me much more hopeful right now. Urban Agriculture is fitting gardening or farming into the urban landscape, using empty lots and abandoned properties to produce food. I just bought my first issue of Urban Farm magazine, and I’m really excited to see a magazine that focuses on inexpensive solutions, work-sharing and do-it-yourselfing rather than just “go out and buy this thing”. I found the articles informative and inspirational, to be honest. As someone trying to organize a community garden at my apartment complex and gardening in pots in my tiny backyard, urban agriculture hits much closer to home for me, and I’m sure it will for most people until Agricultural Urbanism development can reach those in the middle- and lower-income brackets.

By: Andi Houston Category: Politics and Movement

Downtown market, mushrooms, exciting new CSA

22 Jul 2010

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Yesterday I ventured down to the Wednesday market just a few blocks from my office. The downtown farmer’s market is a dangerous place for me. This market is not just produce growers. There are booths selling sauces and dips, artisan cheeses, tempeh, candles, and home baked goods. There is at least one booth now selling frozen meat from local farms and another selling frozen shrimp caught over near Melbourne. There are local farms and produce resellers, but the resellers are easy to spot. There are bakery booths and several booths of imported clothes and hippie goods.

It’s a dangerous place because I spend so. much. money. I bounce from booth to booth like a pinball. For some reason this market attracts local growers that tend towards the more eclectic crops and more fruit, possibly the downtown mixed crowd is considered more urbane and sophisticated, I don’t know.

Loot!

My small budget for yesterday went quickly. I bought a pound of huge Florida pink shrimp for $8, a 1/3 lb hunk of locally produced artisan gouda for $6.50, a basket of ripe blackberries, a $6 jar of Graham Farms plum jam, some peaches and cucumbers, and the coup of the day…

shiitake, oyster, and chanterelle mushrooms FTW!

Mushrooms! There are several mushroom farming outfits selling at the various markets but they all sell shiitakes which grow well here. I buy them often, usually for about $10 per pound. Oyster mushrooms are a rare find so of course I bought those, but I was truly excited about the chanterelles. I have never in my life eaten fresh chanterelle mushrooms and think this dish will show them off the best. That will be my dinner Saturday.

The most amazing plum jam ever

Graham Farms is also starting a new CSA. This makes the 3rd new CSA I’ve heard of in the past six months or so. Graham Farms CSA is different though. Instead of paying a large chunk of money and receiving whatever vegetables the farm wants to give you, you pay Graham Farms $100 or more and you *choose* what goes into your box and how much. When you spend your deposit down, you just send in another $100.

We belonged to a CSA with very similar rules in Nashville and *loved* it. This is a fantastic system for families with picky eaters or dietary restrictions, or people who simply want control over what produce they eat each week. Graham Farms is also including their jams, pickles and honey in their CSA plan. Even though I still think $6 for an 8-ounce jar of jam is outrageous, I will pay it for their plum jam. It’s that good.

When I spoke to Marvin Graham yesterday about the CSA I urged him to try to find eggs for his CSA customers. I have written before about the price and scarcity of local eggs here. If he could include eggs for a good price I am sure his CSA shares would sell like crazy. If’n you’re interested:

Graham Farms

Marvin & Kathy Graham

2520 W State Road 235

Brooker, FL 32622

dirtfarmers@windstream.net

By: Andi Houston Category: Eat Local Challenge, What's in the Basket? Tags:

Community Gardens, Sweet Potato Biscuits

17 Jul 2010

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Did you know there are five community gardens in Gainesville? I only knew about two! One of them is just a few blocks from my office. It’s horribly unkempt and overgrown. I wonder who volunteers there?

I buy sweet potatoes at the farmer’s market every week. We eat a lot of sweet potatoes and I’m always looking for new uses for leftover baked sweet potato. This one was a real winner, and is great for the end of the week when you’re out of eggs and milk. I think leftover baked hard squash would work in this recipe too, I’m going to try it tomorrow!

2 c all purpose, white whole wheat or maybe whole wheat pastry flour
1 tbl baking powder
1 tsp. salt
6 tbl cold butter
1 c mashed sweet potato

Heat oven to 425. Combine the dry ingredients in the food processor, whir a couple of times. Cut the butter into little pieces, dump on top of the flour, pulse just until the butter is combined and the mixture looks like chunky sand. Spoon the sweet potato on top of the mixture in a few places and pulse just enough for the dough to come together in a ball. My sweet potato must’ve been a little dry, I had to add a tablespoon or two of kefir to get it to come together. You can add anything like that if you have to, but something fermented like buttermilk, kefir or yogurt will make the biscuits rise more. Sprinkle the kneading board with flour. Dump the wet dough onto the floured board and knead it just 2 or 3 turns. Then pat the dough with floured hands into a circle until the dough’s only 1/2 an inch thick or so. Cut the biscuits with a sharp cutter (don’t twist!) and roll and pat the scraps out last. I just pat the scraps in a round and cut them like scones.  Bake until lightly browned. Delicious!

I added a half-teaspoon of five spice powder to this batch and it was damn good, maybe a little strong on the anise. I’ll try a bit of allspice in the next batch. It may be tomorrow morning!

By: Andi Houston Category: Garden Updates, Recipes!

“Add Anything” Cake

13 Jul 2010

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I have been gently reminded that I’m supposed to be posting recipes to this thing!

This is an excellent cake for using up fruit when you’ve gone a little crazy at the farmer’s market. It’s fast, relatively healthy, and really delicious.

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour, or any combination of flours

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/3 cup plain whole-milk yogurt

2 cups whole berries or chopped fresh fruit

1 1/3 c sugar, I use Florida evaporated cane juice

3 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil or melted butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2  8 ½ inch round cake pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, sugar, and the eggs. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With a rubber spatula, fold the vegetable oil into the batter, making sure it’s all incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pans, top with fruit, and bake for about 40 to 45 minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Additions:

Our favorite is lemon-blueberry. Drop spoons full of lemon curd over batter, scatter a cup of berries over, and make a simple crumble topping. You can also add lemon juice and lemon rind to batter.

Blackberry-almond. Add 1/2 tsp almond extract, or substitute 1/3 c amaretto for 1/3 c yogurt. Drop a cup of blackberries and 1/3 c sliced or chopped almonds over cake batter. Top with crumble topping or leave plain.

Peach-Vanilla. Add a full teaspoon of vanilla extract to batter, preferably vanilla bean paste. Top with chopped peaches and a sprinkling of coarse sugar.

Any fruit can also be combined with homemade preserves! Drop spoons of homemade preserves or fruit butters on top of the batter, drop fruit on top, and then top with crumble.

An excellent crumble can be made with granola! Mix the granola with a little flour and cold butter and drop on top of fruit.

By: Andi Houston Category: Recipes!

The death of a garden bed

11 Jul 2010

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Yesterday I ripped everything out of my cucumber and zucchini bed. I left for Denver for five days, everything was plugging along when I left, but while I was gone we had three wet rainy days. During that time the infection crept up to head height and the mold was everywhere.

Zucchini with mold and possibly mosaic virus

Zucchini with mold and possibly mosaic virus

I spent two days deciding what to do. By that time it was obvious I would get no more fruit, the remaining cucumbers all had blossom end rot and the vines were dying, even though they will still trying to flower.

Piles of cucumber vines

I decided finally to give up on this season for that bed and just pull it all. Solarizing the bed, putting a thick sheet of clear plastic over the bed to trap the heat in the soil, should kill the virus and any other nasty plant diseases. Six weeks of 140 degree soil will speed decomposition and stimulate the good soil fungi too.

The bed with almost everything pulled

I also spent an hour or so yesterday trimming the non-producing tomato vines and re-tying the producing vines to the stakes. I also sprayed the whole tomato bed with Bt spray. I was really trying not to spray again but the caterpillars were completely out of control. Two different cutworms, cabbage loopers, and tomato hornworms have all been glutting themselves on the plants and the damn cutworms actually chew into the fruit. So frustrating. Now it’s raining, which means I’ll have to spray again tomorrow.

Showing cutworm damage on one of the tomatoes

Showing tomato cutworm damage on the tomatoes

I’m already planning the second season. The first year of Florida vegetable gardening has certainly been a learning experience.

By: Andi Houston Category: Garden Updates