Sunday, October 02, 2005

Rain rain go away

Waiting for a coffee delivery near Macrina on Queen Anne.

Last night and this morning it rained a lot. A good soaking rain, but definitely not good if you are walking around in ballet flats and without a hat. The garden can use a soak and the lawn is greening up. Honestly, if you don't have to be out, it is a good day to stay home and curl up on the couch with a good book. In my case, it is readings on the theory of planning. I'll leave the new Earl Emerson for the evening after my seminar.

So today we hit the West Seattle Farmer's market in search of roasted green chiles, made a lovely omelette. Yum.

I managed to coax mom to give me her recipe for candied arctic kiwis that she serves as a compote. I hope it works and is lovely as hers. I also finished cooking up the last of the home grown tomatoes into sauce. It isn't the usual bounty, so I'll be freezing instead of canning.

Kiwi Compote - Step by Step.



1. Get the ingredients together. 1 cup water, 1.5 cups of sugar, 1 pt container of firm, but ripish arctic kiwis.

2. Make a simple syrup of sugar and water. Bring to a boil and then cool.

3. Add kiwis and gently heat, you don't want them to burst, like cranberries. However, that would be novel for Thanksgiving.



4. Once they are heated through, you can take them off the heat, put them in another container and refrigerate. The sugar will be absorbed and you will have glaceed kiwis suitable as a compote.

Also picked the rouge vif d'etampes pumpkins and our hubbard squashes (tiny, weeny and bubba) and started putting the P-patch to bed. Unlike last year, we did not have a bumper crop of winter squash. One lone delicata squash in one bed. It was sort of pathetic. However, live, learn and next year, plant acorn squash.

Saturday, October 01, 2005

Feels like Fall

Long Island Cheese Pumpkins et al. at the Tonnemaker's stand at U. District Market
Cool, grey with hints of blue this morning. Hit the gym bright and early and went to the U District farmer's market and TJ's with our friend B. Nice to be back into the normal routine for at least eight days. The squash are lovely as are the roasting peppers. It is nice to see Booth Family Orchards back this year with some very lovely apples. I picked up my five for my daily baked apple and two for a fennel and apple salad.

Choice had bulbs, only picked up some Emily MacKenzies as I figured we'd see what we could find at the Arboreteum Sale.

Sale was great, we spent lots of money, got lots of very cool bulbs. On the way home , I realized that I had a whole new bed to plant as I just dug out all the old raspberries that were in a very strange part of the garden. Sweet. This is the part of the garden I see from my study, so I'm very stoked. Time to get the bulb names written down in the book and the decide where the heck we're going to plant them!

Other than that, just a normal, grey Seattle Fall Saturday, without the joy of football hoards clogging the streets around the University. :)

Baked Apple Recipe:

Core as many apples as you want
Stuff center with muscavado sugar (I'm thinking 1/2 t)
Add a pinch of pumpkin pie spice (or a combo of nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and allspice)
Stuff the rest of the core with muesli or granola (we're featuring apple granola from TJ's)

Bake in a 350 oven until soft. Try and keep those apples from collapsing, but they taste great anyways.

Cool and serve with Fage Total Greek Yoghurt.

Yum.

nm

Friday, September 30, 2005

Another Friday night















Narcissus --- March 2005 chez nm

Tired from the week, a short week at that, but still a week. Best laid plans for the evening were changed at the last minute, so we went to the 'Ave' to pick up my readings for my seminar. Very exciting indeed. I think I have about 150 pages to read this weekend. Anyhow, the 'Ave' is skankier than I remember, sad but true. I remember being a teenager and hanging out in all the used record stores looking for bootlegs of concerts and if I was lucky, maybe going to The Frankfurter.

Anyhow, now I'm just catching up with my upstairs/downstairs dvds and trying to decide what bulbs to pick up tomorrow at the Arboreteum Bulb Sale. :)


nm