Rosemary and Onion Focaccia

For Christmas last year from my MiL, I received two books. Both were books on my Amazon.com wishlist. One was a bird identification book (so I could put names to all those birds in my garden and at the lake), and the other was Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.

Earlier this week I made the Boule recipe out of this book. It made four pounds of dough:
3 c lukewarm water
1 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1 1/2 tsp salt
6 1/2 c flour

Mix it all together until moist. Don't knead! Let rise for two hours. Then either put in the fridge, covered, or make some bread!

Then pull off a pound of dough, shape it and let it rise for 40 minutes on a pizza peel covered in cornmeal.

20 minutes before putting the bread in the oven, put a baking stone in the oven and preheat to 450.

Right before putting in the oven, slash the top of the loaf then bake for 30 minutes.

Later in the week, I made pizza.

 Pull off a pound of dough and roll it out to 1/8" thick. Put on a pizza peel covered in cornmeal.
I used half a tomato and several leaves of basil from the farmer's market, olives (quartered), mozzarella and a drizzle of olive oil.

Preheat a baking stone in the oven to 500 20 minutes before baking. Then bake for 10 minutes on a baking stone.

And today, I made Rosemary Onion Focaccia.

Twenty minutes before baking, heat the oven to 425.

Roll out 1 pound of dough to 1/2" to 3/4" thick. Place on a greased cookie sheet, or a silicone baking mat on a cookie sheet.

Saute 1/2 an onion in olive oil until softened. Put on dough, with about 1 tsp of fresh rosemary. Drizzle olive oil. sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Haven't tasted it yet, but it smells delicious!

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Home Soil Test and Garden Report 07.31.11

 A couple years ago we bought a home soil test kit, Mosser Lee Soil Testing Kit. It probably came from Lowe's or Ace. The last two years there's been lower productivity in our garden, so I dug out the test kit...

 Looks like we're ok on PH, nitrogen and potassium. The potassium is supposed to be looked at over top of the black squares on the far right.  The phosphorus is so low it doesn't even have a tinge of blue!

I did a lot of researching and I'll add some bone meal at planting time next spring.

Today in the garden, I pulled up the rest of the European Mesclun Salad mix and the kohlrabi and put it in the compost bin. I only got two kohlrabi that were decent enough size to eat.
I planted a fall crop of greens and carrots, and spread around some winter wheat/clover seed in the empty areas of the garden.
I pulled up the green beans because they still hadn't bloomed and were taken over by spider mites. I sprayed them last week and I thought they would come out of it but then the spider mites came back with a vengeance.

From the garden down at Terry's I harvested 3.5 oz of banana peppers.


Inside, I planted lots of herbs and put them on the seedling heat mat so they'll start germinating. Once they get big enough, I'll transplant them and put them in the greenhouse for the winter.

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Landscaping, Garden Report and Black Bean Burgers

Earlier this week I decided to stop at Lowe's for 12 cubic feet of dirt. I wasn't quite sure it was enough dirt. But I'm glad I didn't buy any more than that. The Garden Soil was 25 pounds a bag (x 8 bags) and the Peat was 40 pounds a bag (x 4 bags). As the Hubs said: "Anna, you had two dead bodies in your hatchback. This probably isn't good on your struts".

 And it wasn't good for the driveway either.

 I spun out. I was laughing the entire time. And then the Hubs noticed a dent in the front bumper and the laughter was supposed to be over. I'm pretty sure the dent came from one of the tree roots that is protruding in the driveway. Which made me laugh even harder.

 So the project was landscaping in front of the porch. I rearranged the landscaping blocks that I already had so that they're just one course high. I might go back and get a second course, but this works for now. To keep the dirt from falling under the porch, I covered the open space between the lattice and the ground with composite landscape edging. In addition to the dirt I bought, I also used about 3 cubic feet of other dirt I bought last week to top off the garden beds.

 A couple weeks ago I bought 7 Stella de Oro daylilies from a local nursery. Family Flowers Greenhouse- they're one of those that has several locations around town in parking lots of other businesses. I prefer buying my plants from them instead of big box stores because they're typically in better shape, cheaper, and my sales benefit a local company instead of some corporate chief executive who sits on his ass and knows nothing about gardening.

 Off my soapbox now. I imagined that I would put 4 daylilies on the right side and 3 on the left. But then I decided once I got home that I should pay attention to the suggested spacing (12") and ended up going back to buy another 10 today...

 I put the daylilies close to the front of the bed so I can put taller plants like irises in the back. I almost bought a Japanese maple to put on the right side, but decided against it. I see some rearranging of existing plants in my future. Which is sad because it took three years for the peonies, yucca and irises to bloom.

Today I harvested:
Black Cherry tomatoes: 2.5 oz (5 tomatoes)
Banana peppers: 2 oz (about 5 small peppers)
Golden Marconi peppers: 1 oz (one pepper)

and now on to Black Bean Burgers. There are several blogs I follow and so I've seen several different versions of these burgers. I made up my own recipe as I went along.

Black Bean Burgers

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 can of Rotel, drained
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
2 banana peppers, seeded and diced
1 Golden Marconi pepper, seeded and diced (I don't expect you to have these, so use another banana pepper.)
cumin
garlic powder
salt and pepper
Sriracha sauce
chili powder

In a skillet, cook the garlic, onion and peppers until tender then turn off the heat.

Meanwhile, smash up the drained beans in a bowl (a potato masher is a great tool for this, otherwise a fork is good).

Then add the rotel, onion mixture, and spices to taste.

I apparently didn't get the beans and rotel drained enough because I had to add a cup of cornmeal to soak up the juices.

Heat up a nonstick skillet (the same one used for the onion mixture) and drizzle a little olive oil in it. Divide the batter in fourths and cook until brown on each side. This is the same way I make falafel, instead of frying them in oil.

 The Sriracha gave it a sneaky kick. I topped the burgers with feta cheese and had a glass of Mad Housewife Cabernet Sauvignon. No joke, the label says "This is your time [...] The dishes can wait. Dinner be damned." It's been one of those kind of weeks.

Lesson for next time: drain the beans better!

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Walleye Gumbo

Last night we tried another recipe from the 1998 NAFC Members' Cookbook, Walleye Gumbo.

We increased the amount of walleye, because the Hubs thawed a package that had about 2-3 pounds in it.

Walleye Gumbo

1/2 lb bacon
Flour
8 c chicken broth
3 smoked sausage links, cut into 1/4" pieces
1 green pepper, chopped
1 c celery, chopped (about 4 stalks)
1 c mushrooms, sliced
1 c carrots, chopped
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp pepper
1 Tbsp oregano
1Tbsp thyme
1Tbsp cayenne pepper
2 bay leaves
1 lb walleye fillets, cut into 1/2" to 1" pieces
can of stewed tomatoes
1 c minute rice (I used 5 minute rice because that's what we had)

Brown bacon. Drain and set aside, keeping grease in pan. Heat bacon grease until it begins to smoke, then add an equal amount of flour. Whisk until mixture turns the color of a "brown paper bag" (no joke, that's what the recipe says! I guess this is like a roux?).

In a stockpot, cook the sausage. Remove and set aside.

Heat the chicken broth in the stockopt. Add the bacon grease mixture.

Add the veggies and spices. Cook for 15 minutes.

Add fish, sausage, bacon and tomatoes. Cook for 10 minutes.

Remove from heat and add the rice. Wait a few minutes for it to soften before serving.(Or add 5 minute rice halfway into the cooking time for the meat.)

This was pretty good. It smelled amazing. I had leftovers for lunch today.

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Music Monday: Jason Aldean - Fly Over States

I live in a "Fly Over State" and I wouldn't have it any other way. I live in a small city, but it's still difficult to see the stars through the city lights and track down the moon past all the houses and buildings.

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Garden Report 07.24.11

 There are a lot of cherry tomatoes setting on.

 and Thessaloniki tomatoes.

and banana peppers.

Today I saw the praying mantis again, but I didn't have my camera and by the time I got back outside with it he was in hiding again. I have been looking for him all week but didn't see him because he is no longer green. He now has on his hunter camo!

The tomatoes and green beans have been attacked by spider mites. I sprayed them down with pyrethrin and dipel dust. Hopefully that gets rid of them...

The Japanese beetles arrived this week but they aren't near as bad as last year.

This week I reapplied fertilizer to select plants. As a control group, I have only fertilized the plants that have the name tags. I can't really tell a difference in growth or health between fertilized and unfertilized plants. I also put calcium nitrate around some of the peppers because I noticed some blossom end rot.

I put some bagged dirt in the root veggie bed. The dirt in the beds settled quite a bit since it was put in.

Today, I also started working on the landscaping in front of the house. I rearranged the landscape block so it curves around to the porch steps. I'm thinking of putting landscape edging along the backside of it so dirt doesn't escape under the porch. I can't decide if I want one or two layers of block. A second layer will cost about $50...

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Peach Pie

This recipe comes from The Taste of Home Baking Book that my roomie Amanda gave me. I made the pie Monday night.

Classic Pie Pastry
For double-crust pie:
2 c all purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
2/3 c shortening
6 to 7 Tbsp cold water

Combine the flour and salt. Then cut in the shortening with a pastry blender until it forms coarse crumbs. Add water a tablespoon at a time until a ball forms. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Divide dough into two balls, with one slightly larger. Roll out and transfer to a 9 or 10 inch pie plate. (The easy way to do this: after you roll out the pie crust to the desired thickness, roll the pie crust around the rolling pin and then unroll it across the top of the pie pan.)
Trim pastry even with edge of pie plate.

Then add the filling:
5 c sliced fresh peaches
2 tsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp almond extract
1 c sugar
1/4 c cornstarch
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbsp butter

Combine peaches, lemon juice and almond extract. In separate bowl, combine sugar, cornstarch, nutmeg and salt. (I just mixed all this into the peaches because I didn't want to dirty up another bowl.) Add to peach mixture and mix. Pour into crust. Dot with butter.

Roll out the top crust, place over filling and flute edges. Cover edges loosely with aluminum foil.

Bake at 400 for 40 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

The peach filling recipe also called for 1/2 tsp grated orange peel, but I didn't add that. I forgot to add the salt to the filling and could definitely tell.

And.... I didn't take a picture because 1) it was late and I was ready for bed, 2) I can't flute pie edges and 3) The pie is almost gone. It's really good for breakfast.

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