Hay is for Horses, Not Bras

daphne on September 29, 2009

Some of you may have gotten wind of the fact that I’ve got a hankering to be rolling around on the farm with a rugged cowboy.  It’s a beautiful fantasy.  Freshly harvested vegetables pose in a photogenic basket. The scent of fresh hay crushed beneath my back. The vivid blue of the sky peaking through cracks in the old wooden ceiling of the barn.  Somewhere in the distance a rooster cackles.

Oh yeah. It’s hot.

Thing is, much as I may covet a good old fashioned roll in the hay, I never have, actually, rolled in the hay.  And given my current circumstances I probably never will (though if I can get my hands on a hat, Halloween is looking promising.)  While I am ensconced in my life here in the suburbs,  I’ll just bet that somewhere out there someone is rolling in actual hay with an actual cowboy.  So to that lucky lady I must ask:

Doesn’t the hay make your boobs itch?

You see, recently I had the good fortune of experiencing hay in my bra, not from a wild romping in the barn with this guy,

but from the stomping about at Monroe Farm during harvest day, picking basil and carrots and pumpkins and strawberries.   Here, the carrots pose artistically, fresh from the earth–

And the sweet children, with the largest pumpkins they could find upon hearing that said pumpkins would have to be hand carried twenty-seven miles, uphill, in the snow, to the car.

You’d never know it from the handful of fresh strawberries and my cowgirl-ish good looks and cheerful smile–

but trust me, already the hay had worked its way in. And I was one heck of an itchy cowgirl.

I never would have guessed it, but it turns out that hay in the bra can make one feel a tad cranky.  That being said rules are rules; they may seem unfair, they may be difficult to understand, it may even appear to some as though they were made up on the spot out of poking discomfort but I assure you that on the farm rules are made to be followed, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with itchy lady parts.

Take for example this gem that came screeching out of my mouth towards the end of a delightfully long day:

NO! I said no and if you pick up one more grasshopper I will take it and saute it and call it dinner. Do not touch your sister’s grasshopper!  NOT one more grasshopper AND I MEAN IT!

If you think I’m crazy, that’s ok.  City slickers don’t know what it’s really like down on the farm.  Besides, I was just looking out for this guy

Poor Jiminy, he’d already lost his jaunty top hat and cane and I could barely make out the words to his exuberant show tunes.

With the grasshoppers set free and the time for liberating hay from it’s hiding place drawing near, it is time once again for a gratuitous picture of a cow. Those of you who have been around a while know that prior to my infatuation with cowboys, I had a thing for cows.  I’ve even been know to throw in a gratuitous picture of a cow, or two here at the Greener Biener.  It’s been a while, so here you go, one gratuitous picture of a cow

What?  You’ve got a problem with my picture of Bessie?  Perhaps you think you could do better chasing down a wild cow for a photo session with hay in your bra?  (If so, send me your successful picture and I’ll post it on the site, no jealousy, no hard feelings. I promise.)

Happy Birthday, Baby

daphne on September 25, 2009

Oops, that’s not my birthday baby.  Here she is.

Lest there be any confusion, her name is Acadia, not Lorax.  But boy oh boy does she speak for the trees.  If by speaking for the trees you mean throwing down on the lawn and kicking and screaming in protest of a few defenseless branches.

Sweet Acadia.  She doesn’t always manage the birthday with a smile.

Even the Mardi Gras beads didn’t make up for her extreme displeasure over my choice of birthday restraint back in her earlier fling-self-from-rooftops days.

Last weekend we moved some things around in the yard, in preparation for the big backyard birthday blow-out.  We are also weighing options for a still-hypothetical garden relocation project.  Maybe, just maybe the soil on the sunnier side favors the production of girl flowers?

In the heat of the preparations a large plastic climbing object was moved across the yard.  A couple of overhanging branches were cut to make room for playtimes free of eye-pokes.  A couple of branches.  Cut a couple of inches.

The planet patrol lost all control.  Her face turned red with rage.  She stomped her feet.  She clenched her fists. She announced that she WOULD NOT STAND HERE ONE MORE MINUTE AND WATCH US KILL THE TREES.  Then my dear little Lorax flung herself on the ground and cried her heart out.

Eventually the heart-heaving sobs quieted, but she continued to mope around, forlorn, staring at the mistreated grass and communing with the flowers that somehow had the misfortune to fall under the evil reign of her own parents.

Sweet sensitive soul. In her haste to castigate us she overlooked the fact that she claims as parents two of the biggest tree hugging hippies one could find.  Never mind that we committed to diligently recycle and compost and carry reusable bags.  No sound arguments would make it through whilst the sap on her friends’ wounds still oozed fresh.

We appeased her by letting her plant flowers, however many and wherever she thought best. It turned out the flowers felt they should be randomly scattered strategically placed in beds all over the lawn.

And with that the Lorax was back in business. She grabbed hold of that big old shovel and set right to work restoring balance to the planet.

She set sister Kira to task too.

While the irises were busy contemplating the next stop in their total domination of the yard, I questioned Acadia about her birthday wish list.  Turns out that there are, in fact, a couple of things that might make her stony facade break into smile.  They are, not necessarily in this order:

  1. Clothes for her dolls.
  2. A horse.
  3. And a promise on behalf of her parents to leave her leafy large friends alone.

Smash it! Mash it! Turn it into Juice!

daphne on September 20, 2009

There was an old vibrantly stunning woman,

Who lived in a shoe the suburbs,

She had so many children melons,

She didn’t know what to do wanted to hurl them off the roof for a satisfying splat.

Watermelon has never been my favorite fruit. It’s ok.  It’s fine in a fruit salad if someone else has cubed it and dealt with all the wrangling of the thing and the resultant sticky elbows. But frankly a 20 pound piece of food represents more of a commitment than I’m willing to make.

Thanks to the CSA, I was at my watermelon-y wits end.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was sighing and mopping my brow and wringing my apron strings when all over a sudden help arrived–

Yes, ladies it’s true. I was at a loss until Jack Lalanne came along.  Not in this form, exactly. Climbing that mountain barefoot and naked and waiting 50 + years for my melon distress would have proven too much even for that manly man.  Nope, this is the form that Jack Lalanne took when he came to my rescue. My neighbor’s Jack Lalanne Power Juicer—

While I was absorbed with the complex assembly of Mr. Lalanne, the girls and Dave determined that, based primarily on the fact that our actual apple tree didn’t fruit, the “not crab” apple tree could play the part of a real apple tree this year. The fruit was beautiful,

but despite the new marketing campaign it still tasted like bitter dirt which in my book is a dead giveaway.  That, and the greenish tint to its hard flesh. The children were not deterred.

Acadia quickly put on her cowboy boots, a halter top, and a wrap-around skirt and clamored up the ladder. What? It may not be a real apple tree, but we would never consider wearing anything less to a harvest.

As it turns out the tart “not crab” apples provided a nice balance to our juice plans. Here, some of the fruit awaits it’s fate–

The girls, along with Mr. Lalanne, made short work of 50 pounds of watermelon and 100s of “not crab” apples.  At the end of the day our melon problem had been solved. No more melons.  However, we now had a bit of a juice problem.  Gallons and gallons of juice.

There was green juice

And pink juice

And green juice with a pink stripe

And pink and green juice with penny loafers and little alligators with their collars up.   Wait, wrong decade. For a minute there I was transported back to seventh grade.  That’s just how powerful Jack Lalanne can be.

We drank some juice.  We sent some juice to the neighbors. We spilled enough on the floor that Kira may remain routed to that spot for a couple of years.  We filled pitchers and loaded up the fridge.  Then we pretty much hit the juice wall and so we froze whatever we could fit into ice cube trays.

And muffin tins.

And plastic cups.

And toilet paper rolls.

And old dolly heads.

Green Beans are good for you, M+Ms are good for me

daphne on September 14, 2009

I realize that the following admission might call into question my rightful ownership of the domain Greener Biener (it IS pronounced bean-er,) as indeed it is true that no green beans were consumed by me in the making of this site.  Green M+Ms? For sure.  Green Beans? No thank you.

I was not a kid who fluttered with thoughts of a perfect wedding, nor did I trace the names of my future children onto my notebooks.  The stuff of my dreams was heftier:  One day I would be the boss of my vegetable domain.  I would choose which healthy stuff to eat and which to show the door.  It would be glorious.

When I grew up I would not eat green beans.  No one could make me.  So there.

In those early dreams of a bean-free future, I didn’t figure on joining a CSA as a ploy to convince myself to sample otherwise ignored vegetables.  Nor did I factor in the possibility that I’d be surrounded by a bunch of green bean-eating traitors.

Yesterday I had a day.  The kind of day that should only be concluded with a dinner of red wine and M+Ms.  But it was not to be.  For there was a family to feed and daughters for whom an example must be set.  Apparently there was also a husband who thought it’d be cute to add green beans to an otherwise innocuous spinach salad.

I kid you not.  He added green beans to my salad.

Normally he’s a decent guy. A really good guy who pitches in and spends time with the kids and helps with dinner and all that jazz. He’s even agreed to dress as a cowboy for Halloween, so you know he’s got my best interest at heart.  Of course I was blindsided  by his staggeringly despicable bean transgression.

I did what any whiny toddler self-possessed woman would do. I wrinkled my nose and plucked the offensive things from my plate. Oh, I was sly. The children would never know that mommy gets dessert without finishing her veggies.

“WHO’S BEANS ARE THESE?” Dave bellowed, in a blatant attempt to rat me out.  I glowered at him, expressing with one evil eye how I felt about his egregious choice of broadcasting my action around the kitchen.

The kids remained oblivious.  Kira shrugged and munched contentedly.  Acadia dipped a bean in ranch dressing.  I played like I had already devoured my share.

But now they’ve got me rethinking this whole anti-bean campaign.  After all, the girls really seem to enjoy the snappy green things.  And they are loaded with all that good stuff that makes for heart-healthy, bone-strong little bodies.

Ahh, what the heck?  Let them eat beans.

But please, oh please, leave me to my M+Ms.

Noooooo! Not My Squash

daphne on September 8, 2009

The same deluge that’s been teasing out the ragweed and the thistles in miserable numbers has been working wonders on our garden.  Instead of popping out with one of two nuggets of goodness, vines are bursting forth in clusters of fruitfulness.  I should be pleased. I should be grateful.  But I’m sulking.

Sure, the tomatoes are tantalizing

And yes, the raspberries are remarkable,

And I suppose we are enjoying the piles of purple potatoes,

But it’s not enough.  Remember Big Bertha?  That feminine nugget on which I pinned all my butternut hopes and dreams?

She is no more.  She was my lone female, and now she’s gone before the bees even had a chance to do their business.  It’s not good.  There comes a time in every woman’s life where she has to draw the line.  She has to say Enough is Enough.  That time, my friends, has come.

Incensed, I marched inside and called the extension program over at Colorado State University and left a message about the peculiar gender trends taking place in my back yard.  Surely there is a PhD student out there just waiting to tackle my plight, restore balance to my backyard, and write an award-winning thesis to boot.

Surprisingly, no student was readily available, so I spoke instead to a master gardener.  Now perhaps under other circumstances she’s a decent human being.  But good intentioned or not, she had the audacity to suggest that perhaps my soil was nitrogen-heavy.  Or phosphorous-light.   She doesn’t even know us and here she casually insinuating that my garden has a chemical imbalance?  Pah-lease.  At least she didn’t second the opinion of her colleague, the scientist who gently offered that some squash, not necessarily mine, but some do show hermaphroditic tendencies when they get toward their terminus.  Really? You want to go there, do you?

It was hard to hear at first, but I am nothing if not a caring and nurturing mother gardener.  And so I will ship off a sample of my sweet innocent, albeit potentially imbalanced, soil.  I’ll send it out there into the science world to be judged.  I will do whatever my baby needs to be make it in this cold, dark, mean world.  Especially if that means my garden is happy.

Because if my garden is happy, then I am happy.  Mmmm, I am just about as hungry happy as a clam with a mouthful of my favorite butternut squash pasta. Have you tried this ambrosia of a dinner yet?  It is time. It’s delicious. It’s easy.  It’s wonderful.  And if the squash gods aren’t shining down on you, it’s ok.   Someone, somewhere is having success growing the gourds.  Pick one up at the farm stand.  It’s even, gulp, worth a trip to the market.

I Am In Love

daphne on September 2, 2009

I am. I’m in love.  It’s ok, my husband knows and while he doesn’t exactly seem thrilled, he is resigned to the fact.  It’s love, come on, what’s he going to do?  Well, maybe love isn’t exactly right.  It’s more like an obsession.  Nah, that makes me sound like a cowboy-crazed stalker. (Note, this is a plea for help: I am on the brink of becoming a cowboy-crazed stalker.)

Hey! I am not a stalker.  Now look what you’ve done.  Why do you have to go and turn this beautiful thing into something dirty?  It’s nothing. It’s no big deal. I’m just spending every waking hour shirking my responsibilities so that I can languish vicariously in the land of the great wide open.  Yes, the laundry is piling up and the beds are unmade but out there somewhere in the wild blue yonder a cowboy is rustling something and I need to be part of that.  You understand, right?   I am simply in love obsessed envious an enthusiastic supporter of The Pioneer Woman.

I love her love story.  I am intrigued by her recipes, and her retro-pictures and her incredible photography and…Ewww, yuck will you listen to me?  I’m in deep. Someone rescue me. Hank? Buck? Help?

Sigh.  Why didn’t I marry a cowboy?

Like Pioneer Woman did. She married a cowboy and damn if she didn’t just ride off into the sunset wrapped tightly in those deeply bronzed biceps of his.  And now not only does she have her hunky cowboy, but she’s got a life chock full of adventure to write about.

Me?  I can report on whether or not the children are eating chard. I can even get a little steamy talking about squash sex. But the likelihood of you logging in here one morning to reports of cattle wrangling and coyote howling are remote.  The chances of me awakening to the swish of leather chaps as I am whisked off for a romp in the hay beneath a harvest moon is, alas, nil.

Don’t get me wrong, no one reboots my hard drive like my sexy techie of a man.  I’m one lucky lady perched here on the plush lap of suburbia.  I just wonder what would happen if my guy rode up one evening on a stallion instead of a Maxima?  And what, oh goodness, if he happened to be wearing overalls instead of khakis?  Well, then we might have ourselves a steamy little story of our own.

Until then, I’ll be getting my cowboy fix by peering through windows over at The Pioneer Woman.

Giddy-up.

Peachy Keen

daphne on August 27, 2009

I haven’t asked them directly, but I think there’s a chance that my parents–and I say this with deep respect–don’t like peaches.  Perhaps my memories are tainted by that fateful rhubarb incident, but I don’t know.  Inundated as I’ve been lately with the juicy orbs, not one childhood image of a peach comes to mind.  Sticky pools gather at the elbows of my own ecstatic peach-eating children.  We have been contentedly working our way through recipes thick with the tantalizing fruit, yet not one rings a personal bell.

Without peaches to pave the way down memory lane, I’ve got a bit of lost time to recover.  And so I baked this incredible cake.

It’s so wholesome looking I had no problem calling it lunch and serving it to my friend Leslie.  I spruced up a recipe from Gourmet magazine called Stone Fruit Tea Cake, which sounds rather British and unappealing, don’t you agree old chap?  I call mine Shortbread Cake with Peaches and Berries, which is much better and as long as the children aren’t around, it does make the perfect lunch.

Leslie, on loan to me from pioneer days, stopped by to teach me how to can peaches yesterday, a full day before Gourmet magazine’s Can Do approach to canning landed in my inbox.  I am cutting edge, in a pioneering sort of way of course.

My initial thought was that a pot that big should hold nothing but succulent lobsters, but then I remembered that we were fresh off the covered wagon and putting up our reserves for the harsh winter ahead, so I pushed away thoughts of tasty crustaceans and pulled out the peaches.  I gave them a quick boiling bath followed by a dunk in icy water.  They practically slipped right out of their skins.

We then sliced them, and soaked them in a citric acid bath (more soothing than it sounds) to prevent browning.

Next we added the slices and syrup to the jars, and while they steamed away stovetop,

we strolled through the gardens (still feeling a little British from our lunch I suppose) where I selected a much healthier snack for my unsuspecting children–fresh chard, tomatoes and sage.  I swear they’ll be thrilled (as long as I don’t let on about my own choice for lunch.)

We also dropped in on the squash vines.

So lush, so healthy looking, and yet still sporting only one tiny female.  As I watch squash in other gardens already ripening to the size of mini coopers, I worry that mine is not destined to become much of a meal.  Sad, but true, I have gourd envy.

The sound of the timer called us back to the homestead, where we pulled the 12 jars from their bath, stacked them up nice and pretty, and gloated.

We’ve got another CSA delivery today; is it selfish to hope for more peaches?  After all, we are down to a sole uncanned peach, and I am already craving more of Dave’s Outrageously Good Salsa, with ripe peaches and tomatoes straight from the vine.  Not to mention that lunch time today holds no promise of cake. How am I going to lure friends over for lunch without a cake?

In conclusion, let me paraphrase my winsome teenage self–this fruit is totally awesome.  It’s psychedelic.  It’s peachy keen, man.   There are many, many ways to enjoy a peach, so what do you say Mom? Dad?

You lived the 60s.  Give Peach a chance.

Shortbread Cake with Peaches and Raspberries

daphne on August 27, 2009

I adapted this recipe from the Stone Fruit Tea Cake recipe in Gourmet magazine (because raspberries make it taste better, and my name sounds yummier.)

Ingredients–

  • 2 cups diced and peeled peaches (about 2 large peaches)
  • ½ cup raspberries
  • 2 ¼ cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup sugar
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 3 eggs
  • 1 Tbls vanilla extract
  • 1 Tbls turbinado sugar (optional)

1. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.

2. Cream sugar and butter for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla.

4. Add flour mixture and stir until just combined in a sticky dough.

5. Wrap in plastic wrap and smoosh down into a 1 inch disk. Freeze dough for ½ hour.

6. Preheat oven to 375°. Butter a round baking pan.

7. Divide dough in half. Spread one half the dough evenly on the bottom of the pan. Spread the fruit over the dough. Break the rest of the dough into 4-5 inch pieces and place on top of the fruit (they will spread and mash together.)

8. Sprinkle turbinado sugar across the top.  This is optional–it is not needed for taste since the cake is sweet enough, but it does add a little glitz and sparkle to the top of the cake, you know, if you’re serving it to princesses.

9.   Bake 30-40 minutes, or until golden brown. Let cool a little before serving.

Dave’s Crazy Good Peach Salsa

daphne on August 27, 2009

This salsa fresca is unbelievably good.  This version is medium-mild, but you can always increase the number of jalepenos if you like it hot hot hot.  The key here is using ultra-fresh ingredients.

  • 2 c diced tomatoes
  • 1/2 c diced yellow bell pepper
  • 1 large diced, peeled peach
  • 1/4 seeded and diced jalapeno (more or less to taste)
  • 1/2 c chopped red onion
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1 tbls lime juice

Add all ingredients together and toss lightly.  Put it in the fridge for about an hour and serve cold.  The extra liquid can be drained off before serving.

Footloose and Sneezy-free

daphne on August 22, 2009

Thank you to all for the plethora of suggestions on how to beat the seasonal snotties.  I take it you were not impressed with my plan of barring the doors and windows and never venturing forth into polite company again?

Worries over me becoming a hermit are groundless.  Why just today I strolled out through the door and into my garden.  I made it almost 5 minutes before the allergens launched their merciless attack.  And despite the onslaught I lasted another half hour past that, long enough to photograph the progress of the garden.  Because, yippee, we are making progress.

Not only have the cucumbers finally gone co-ed, but they’ve been (getting) busy.  They are not big, they are not ready, but they are going to be tasty. . .if they reach their teens before the first frost. (Note, objects taken at extreme close-up may actually be just a tiny fraction of apparent size.)

Not quite as far along socially are the squash vines.  Still, credit where credit is due–they too are showing signs of leaving bachelorhood behind.  Here, without further ado, is our first female flower.

Allow me to introduce you to Big Bertha, our beautiful butternut babe-to-be.  I am expecting big things from her, assuming some studly male steps up and does his duty.

I am impressed by the perseverance of the rainbow chard.  I had given it up as gone to the bugs when we returned home to find the leaves holey and frail; but when I trimmed them back new growth sprung forth.  Looks like the cucumbers may have someone to play with after all (you know, on my salad plate.)

The raspberries are numerous and ripening fast–

Ahh, and the tomatoes.  The tomatoes are hanging heavy.  Really heavy.

Is it wrong to think that it might be time for my produce to get a bra?