Happy Sunday

Crab Benedict and home fries as per Fritz's request.
Sliced tomatoes as per Ma's Ray request.
Mimosa as per my request.

I love cooking. Especially with all that home grown food. {crab not included...but if I could have an ocean....}

Best request of the morning came from Oma:

What do you call it here in America when you serve wine with breakfast?

My Response:

Sunday 

Good Morning.

It's a bright, beautiful, crisp Autumn day here in the valley.

 

 

 

 

I will spend it gathering up the last of the summer garden goodies before the expected frost tonight.

 

And then playing with this.

 

 

 

A much needed new cooktop with a large double center burner perfect for canning.

 

 

First up, pepper jelly.

 

 

 

 

Then onto apples, tomatoes, and pumpkin.

 

 

 

 

Hope you have a happy day!

 

 



And in Other Food News...

 

Perhaps you can make pasta without a handy glass of wine nearby,

But not I.

The filling was made with my own ricotta, sauteed

Virginia Ham from my favorite farm store  nearby with spinach and garlic from my garden and a little grated nutmeg.

It was wonderful. The flavors that is.

 I need a bit of practice with the skill of making raviolis look as pretty as they taste.

Thank goodness we have the term "Rustic" to adorn to our cooking endeavors.



The Local Food Movement

Very Local.

Neighborly Local.

A few feet away Local.

Farmer Jerry and Family are doing it right.



The Bean TeePee

The little guys are back at their home in CA. I am glad they were here long enough to see it grow and play a bit in it.

A salad of those beans, tomatoes, onions, and fresh mozzarella in a simple vinaigrette.

All except the cheese came from my garden. 

But I have been practicing the cheese making thing...

Always so fun to see all the posts at The Rural Thursday Blog Hop

I always told my kiddos that there was a BIG difference between quiting and fixing a mistake.

Two days ago, I was ready to quit on my garden, thinking that it had been a mistake to imagine that I could grow enough food to keep us happy for a while. At least, that is how I intended to justify it to myself and them.

 A not so cute little bunny family had eaten all the bush bean blossoms and the runners of the sweet potatoes and the strawberries. The summer squash were history, succumbing to heat loving insects. The cantaloupe, pumpkins and watermelon were struggling in the oppressive temps and lack of rain. Grasshoppers everywhere. Curled up yellow and brown leaves abundant.

The weeds...happy and prospering.

 Then my mother showed up for a day of lounging in the pool.

 My New York City born and bred, private girls school raised mother. The one who thought shopping on 5th Avenue was simply Normal.

Who thinks that manicures are as important to life as fire and water.

As I was desperately trying to hand water the succotash with a portable pressure washer tank loaded in the bucket of the tractor, crying,

this mother of mine proclaimed, 'We are not giving up yet.'
Not so much with words, but with swiftness of motion.

She went over to the main garden and started pulling off the rotten tomatoes. And plucking pole beans while I attempted to save what I could with water trickling out of the 150 feet of hose I was dragging around kicking up dust as I went. She suggested rabbit for dinner. I thought at the time it was a joke...

We both got down and dirty pulling weeds, watering ourselves and the plants, climbing up to the barn loft to bring down straw to lay fresh mulch. Laughing and chatting all the while.

She insisted on pushing the wheel barrow, wrapping her jeweled hands around the worn wood handles. 

This morning I went out to the garden expecting to let out a big sigh at the sight of more dead stuff and throw a little pity party for myself.

But the ground was still moist where Ma had worked so hard.
 I spotted a slight bit of evidence of new growth on the cucumbers.

And I picked a handful of tomatoes without rot.

So I weeded, replanted, watered and mulched the rest of the plot until I couldn't take the heat any longer.

It seems that I, a middle aged woman, still have a lot to learn from my mother.

Good Morning

It's a beautiful day upon this ridge, here in this valley.

Many thanks for sharing it with me this morning.

Farm Food

At this point in my life, I rarely buy new cookbooks.

 I'm a dump and stir kind of a cook. Always have been. Measuring spoons are nonexistent in the kitchen.  I do like to look at recipes for inspirations though. I am just really bad at following the directions.

But when I was pointed Ian's Knauer's 'The Farm' by a special friend I could not resist.

It is beautifully written and photographed.

 Knauer's story so reflects our ever evolving philosophy of  food and gardening.

 

{making sauce from last summer's canned tomatoes}

~~~

For more inspirations go to Rural Thursday Blog Hop

Country Cooking

I love cooking when there are lots of folks around to eat. I love cooking even better when I can stop by the farm store and pick up my dairy products from a creamery right here in the Shenandoah Valley and turn them into a yummy pound cake (with a little help)

Or decadent biscuits,

and serve them with Apple Butter made in nearby Stanley, VA

A favorite is to stop by Wilson Farms and stock up on meat, including chicken perfect for frying

or making stock.

 Adding onions, carrots, parsley and dill right from the garden into the chicken stock really makes it worthwhile.

Completing the meal with some fresh picked green beans and sauteing a few patty pan squash from the garden with garlic and olive oil make for some pretty darn good eats.

But no dinner is complete without wonderful people to share it with. Kate's fabulous friends from her high school days visited The Farm this weekend. I so enjoyed cooking for them and their graciousness made me so happy.

Yet another reminder that motherhood lives on.