Archive for June 28, 2010

28 Jun 2010
Dairy recipe • Desserts • Fruit recipe • Harvest • locavore log

Blueberry Season

Yesterday I knew summer was here.

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How did I know it? No, not because the temperature was – again! – over 90 (over 32 C) in the shade; 116 (47 C!!!) in the sun insisted the thermometer (wish I misread that). Not because the creek is drying up – although it is and we need rain badly. Not because it’s muggy, because it surely is and it has been feeling like August for too many days (somebody actually installed a small fan in the new chicklets’ pen – that’s how hot and stifling it is).

No, it’s  because the day before yesterday the first empty cicada shell was spotted, still hanging onto the smoke tree trunk, split open in the back -  the cicada who lived in it for many years under the earth now gone to live in the sun for a few months, singing. Yesterday I heard the first cicada sing. The sure sign of summer. Cicadas do not make mistakes.

Yesterday morning I also picked blueberries at a small pick-your-own bramble farm, a few miles from me. I suppose that’s another sign of summer Read more

sylvie | 10 comments | Tags: ,
22 Jun 2010
Desserts • Fruit recipe • locavore log

Sour Cherry Ice-Cream Without An Ice-Cream Maker

I do not recommend trying to make ice-cream at a 4-H Camp without an ice-cream maker, without electricity, in 90 ° F weather (32 C) and in 20 minutes. It just does.not.work.  The kids were good sports about tossing or shaking leaky bags full of ice, but it was a complete failure. They were also very good sports about the eating the “milk shake”; at least there were roasted bananas and cherries to go with that… sigh…

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But you can make ice-cream without an ice-cream maker -  and pretty decent ones at that. Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: ,
20 Jun 2010
Garden • Harvest • Kitchen Garden • locavore log

The June Garden

The June garden can be quite overwhelming. There is a lot to seed still, a lot to rip out, a lot to build, a lot to maintain,  a lot to harvest, and a lot to clear and get ready for the next crop. We plant continuously here at Laughing Duck gardens, and try to put something in as soon as we rip something out.

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Lets see… We have harvesting mustard greens (still. again!), strawberries, Swiss chard, beets, zucchini & summer squash, all kinds of herbs, and green beans. We are seeing the last of the kale (there was not much to start with anyway). We just finished harvesting  the last of the shelling peas and, all the currants. And I have picked the last of the asparagus for this year ( I am now letting the fern grow). Read more

sylvie | 4 comments | Tags:
16 Jun 2010
Cookery • Harvest • locavore log

Le Temps Des Cerises

It’s sour cherry time – or rather, sour cherries are just over here in the Virginia Piedmont. A kind cherry tree owner offered me their tree to pick, and I gratefully enjoyed the privilege. But as the garden is going gangbusters (with  planting, harvesting, cleaning and maintaining – ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!), I have little time to write down recipes, so photos is all we get. Maybe I’ll scribble down some of the recipes in the next few posts…

When sour cherries are in season, one rushes to pick, pick, pick and then pit, pit, pit and process. Because the season is very brief: on Memorial day they are blushing, on June 15, they are over!

So what to do with sour cherries:

- pit them, toss them with sugar, other berries and enjoy as a sweet-tart refreshing dessert

- pit and freeze for later use

- sour cherry preserves

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Read more

sylvie | 5 comments | Tags: ,
07 Jun 2010
fruit • Kitchen Garden • locavore log

In Strawberries We Delight

Picking up strawberries in the garden on a warm day is a true sensual experience.

My eyes are attracted to the bright vermilion peeking not-so-shyly from under dark green leaves; my fingers reach eagerly yet carefully for the plump berries; I can feel the hot noon sun radiating on my back ; the whole garden is humming around me; the heady perfume of strawberry hangs heavily in the air, and finally … the taste of that warm ripe strawberry explodes in my mouth.

Yes indeed that dainty delicacy is full of pleasures. When picked ripe – at its peak.

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One can't grow enough strawberries. From top left, scarlet Virginia strawberry, fragile Alpine strawberry, and water deprived (therefore small) garden strawberry 'Tristar'

The strawberry is a relatively new comer to our gardens – especially when compared to the apple or the quince. Read more

sylvie | 3 comments | Tags: