My Name is Willful and I'm a Tomato-Plantaholic

Willful here and I have a problem. My problem is that I anthropomorphize my plants. I give them names and talk to them and ask them if they're having a good day. When I get home from work I check on them before going inside my house. Last year, when a hail storm flattened the top halves of my monster early girl tomato plants I actually cried.

So today I went to the nursery because I had room for one more tomato plant in my garden. I was anticipating picking out a new plant and wondering what I would get. Would it be an heirloom? A large salad tomato? Well I walked into the green house and immediately spotted an early girl variety tomato that was practically busting out of its small container. Its branches were full and leafy and already laden with a few golfball sized green fruit. "Mine!" I said, happily picking up my new friend and turning to walk to the check out counter.

Then I saw them.

Rows upon rows of healthy tomato plants. All lined up under pictures of what the tomatoes would look like from each plant and descriptions of how each one would taste.

Uh oh. Well . . . maybe I could squeeze in one more plant?

But the harder I looked the more difficult the decision became. Did I want one of the Purple Russians, which yields a tomato so dark it almost looks black? Or maybe an orange variety, high in vitamin C? The list went on. I was having serious trouble.

I finally decided on an "Amy's Sugar" plant which advertised "juicy 2 oz. golf balls as sweet as candy." But then I saw the Brandywine plants which yield tomatoes that are "surprisingly large and can weigh up to 2 pounds." Sold! I took one of each.

And then, because once I start buying plants I can't stop, I picked out some eggplants and a few strawberries to put in a hanging basket.

Here are some of the plants I've amassed so far. The tomato at the heading of this post is my new early girl friend. I've decided to call her Punctual.

First zucchini of the season!

Hanging strawberry basket:


Love,
Willful

Hi ya'll.....Deliverance here.

Well the farm is busy. Let's start with the garden and those beautiful strawberries! My first handful and they are sweeties. They are coming along very nicely and they are an early variety so they won't be around very long. So we pick and freeze until we get the whole crop in or we get enough to make that wonderful jam that everyone loves to get in their care packages. So ya'll get ready, there will be a nice crop this year! On the bigger scale is the regular garden. I was very late this year getting it in the ground due to some other business that needed my attention but it turned out to be a good thing this year because the weather has been very hot and cold. Even with the delay it is going along very nicely. Beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, beets, spinach, radishes, pumpkins, melons, squash, cucumbers, and don't forget the tomatoes, my garden it not complete without the tomatoes. I have a very large problem surviving the winter if I don't have enough tomatoes canned and waiting for me to put them in my soup, make a sauce for pasta, or just warm them up and lightly season...yummy! Made myself hunger there, sorry I'll try to get thru this first...! Everything is coming up (along with the weeds!) and looking great. So I'm very excited for a big crop this year and a long canning season.

And now for your chicken update......
I released the youngin's into the general population on Saturday and what a release. I now have chickens everywhere. It is so cool to have hatched these from eggs and watched and helped them grow big enough to run with the big chicks! Saturday was slow going them really where not sure what to do with that open gate and it took most of the day for them to get very brave. The older chickens had no problem go in the nursery to visit the teenagers but there was no blood shed which is a good thing because it is hard to change a chickens mind once they remember they have a mind. By Sunday morning everyone was running free like they have been doing it all along. I also let "Mama" and her babies out of their hutch for the first time and that was interesting. "Mama" is the best hen I have and she hatch out three babies and they have been living in the hutch for the past month. "Mama" was getting a bit restless the last few days and I just decided that I would let her out, leaving the babies to grow a bit more. She thought better of leaving the babies behind. She wasn't out more than a second before she was calling the babies out as well. Some of the older hens were not happy about her being out with the babies. Again no bloodshed but it was a little scary for a bit. Hens get chesty with each other and a lot of clawing when things are changed and they get uncomfortable. "Mama" set them straight and peace reigned the coop! And then there is the matter of Goober, Billy Bob, and Barney....not an easy situation...It took me a while to decide what to do. Goober and Billy Bob are normal (if there is such a thing) and would have no problem being part of the flock. The problem is Barney with the bum leg...he would not last long out with the rest of the flock...chicken kill the weakest or anything that they think is unwell. So I had to make a pretty hard decision,the choices were take the chance that the flock would accept him, twist his neck (the Doc's words), or move him on the porch and finish raising him as a pet. Everyone knows what I did...Goober and Billy Bob are doing great with the rest and Barney is learning to live on his own on the porch. It will be a long road but I think Barney and I will become famous buddies and he will learn to follow me around in the yard and garden and he can live a long life being the "worlds most pampered chicken". By the way I have no idea if this is a hen or rooster. My luck runs towards the rooster but we will see.

I will sign off here. Happy Spring to everyone and good night~
Deliverance

Canoe Cake

Ok. Wilful here. I've posted about my "Cavecakes", which are cupcakes with giant sinkholes in the middle. Now I've got to tell you about Canoe Cake, which is a loaf cake that does the same thing.

The first time I made Canoe Cake it turned out beautifully: golden brown and moist, with a perfectly risen high dome. There were no witnesses to this miracle as I ate almost the whole loaf by myself. The second time I made the cake, something went terribly wrong.
The cake is question is from Nigella Lawson's book "How to be a Domestic Goddess." She calls it Lemon Syrup Loaf Cake and it's divine, even when it sinks so much that a tiny person could sit in the middle of the loaf and paddle the cake around a small lake.

After examining the recipe many times I think my problem is that I'm not using cake flour. Nigella specifies "Self rising cake flour", which is just too British to find in America with any ease. I found a conversion online for how to make your own and the first time I made the recipe I used cake flour combined with baking powder. Every time after that I've used regular flour because I haven't had any cake flour around. If you make this cake I would recommend you use cake flour. I'm going to try that next time and I'll post about how it turns out.
Anyway, this is a fantastically delicious cake that you should make. If it sinks in the middle like mine did, just cut it up into cubes, layer it with whipped cream and fruit and call it a trifle. No one will know it came out of the oven looking like a canoe.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 Cup butter, unsalted
  
• 1/2 Cup + 1 Tbls. Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• Zest of one Lemon
• 1 Cup plus 1 Tablespoon self rising cake flour OR 1 Cup + 1 Tablespoon Cake flour mixed with 1 1/2 Teaspoons Baking Powder
• Pinch Salt
• 4 Tablespoons Milk

For the Syrup:

• 4 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
• 1/2 Cup Sugar
• Fresh Thyme Sprigs (Optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a loaf pan and line it with parchment paper (NOT WAX PAPER). Cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs and lemon zest. Add flour and salt and then mix in the milk. Bake cake for 45 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean.
While cake is baking, make the lemon syrup: boil the lemon juice and sugar together until the sugar has dissolved completely. if you like, strip some leaves off of from fresh Thyme springs and add the to syrup while it's cooking. These will add a light herbal scent to the cake.

Now for the fun part: poke the cake all over with a skewer or chopstick. Pour the syrup over the cake and let it cool while the lemony goodness soaks in.

SPRING IS FINALLY HERE! I HOPE...

Hey ya'll...Deliverance here.

I can not believe how long winter has been this year. It is the third of May and usually by now I have my garden in and spending most of my time fighting back the weeds (and not winning!), but this year I have tomato starts in the garage to be hardened off so I might be able to plant this coming weekend. Last weekend Frederick managed to get the garden tilled up between rain and snow storms. God love him! He is such a great help around here. We normally would have it tilled for a couple of weeks and watering about every other day to get the weeds started so he could till them under again and that helps to keep them down. This year I don't know how much this is going to help, I think I'm more worried about the last frost, which I hope has past. Today is beautiful...80 degrees...sunshine...blue skies...and those spring breezes! Just fantastic weather. So I guess that tomorrow will snow about 6 inches and I will have to find my overcoat again! But enough of that....

Life on the farm is going along at its normal pace for the most part. I have moved the toddler- chicks out to the "nursery" so they can start getting use to seeing those big hens and big roosters. They spend alot of time in their coop not real sure about the other critters on the other side of that fence. I would imagine that in a couple of more weeks those other critters won't seem so big anymore and they will start getting a bit braver.

I took Barney, Goober, and Billy Bob out to the fresh tilled garden for a field trip. They have had a blast all day long. This is the first time they feet have been dirty and they were none too happy at first. I have very spoiled chicks around here. But they warmed up to the idea and started to act like chickens, it is so hard to see your children grow up, and chickens do it fast! They too are not sure about those other critters but they seem less worried about them. Of course these chicks have been around Jake the dog and Zipper the cat so another chicken is really no big deal and besides Mom would not let anything happen to us! Right? I really don't know what I am going to do with the trio. Goober and Billy Bob could probably be put in with the rest of the flock once they get some size on them, but Barney would not fair so well with that bum leg. I called Doc last week and ask him if he ever set a chicken's leg before or maybe it would be better to amputate, but he never called me back. So I figure that he is still laughing at me or the question put him in the ground. Doc has been a Godsend around here but the chicken question may have put him over the edge. I mean there is only so much a Doc can do right? Well, we keep him on his toes with this band of misfits we have around here.

Well, I had better get my butt in gear and get some dinner on before the boss gets home. That soup that Willful made sure looked good. I made some pork broth last week so maybe I will use that and make a nice homemade soup and fresh bread. Willful you have saved me again with your great ideas. That is it for now. Ya'll have a great evening and I'll be back soon.

Deliverance

Chicken Broth as a Sign of What's Wrong with the World

It seems quite sadistic to write about making chicken broth after we've written so many posts about hatching baby chicks. Still, this is the farm, where life comes and goes and where cute fuzzy babies eventually grow up and become someone's dinner.

Anyway, my problem with chicken broth started yesterday when I realized that I had the remains of a roasted bird in the fridge that needed to be dealt with in one way or another. I decided stock was the way to go, but I'd never actually made broth before. I had a vague notion that it involved covering a chicken carcass and some vegetables with water and boiling the whole thing until it magically transformed into soup. Still, I thought I would see what Martha Stewart had to say about the subject, since she is my go to mentor for complicated-recipes-I-want-to-make-despite-my-better -judgment.

However, Martha's chicken broth, astounded me, not with its inclusion of one and a half pounds of chicken "backs", but with it's specification for 12 cups of canned chicken broth. I've included the link here, if you don't believe me.

Why would you endeavor to make homemade broth if you were in possession of twelve cups of the canned variety? I know, I know . . . I'm sure stock made with stock is one heck of a potent brew, but surely it's completely counter to the point of broth.

For eons, people have simmered the bony remains of their dinners, drawing out the last traces of nutrients from the inedible gristle of a carcass. Isn't broth a sort of culinary alchemy? A something from almost-nothing that's sustained countless cave people and frugal housewives? Making broth from broth seems about as wasteful as buying a new dress only to rip the seams and sew yourself a new one. Perhaps you would make one heck of a gown, but wouldn't it have been more ultimately satisfying to pull a Scarlet and use the curtains?

I rejected Martha's recipe with disgust, opting instead to rely on intuition and the ghosts of several food network shows that had been imbued into my brain. Here's my broth recipe:

Ingredients:

• One chicken carcass (having some meat still attached is good)
• Two carrots hacked into barbarically uneven chunks
• Three stalks of celery, cut up (if you have any stalks with leaves, throw them in too)
• One onion, peeled and quartered
• Some herbs (fresh parsley, springs of rosemary and thyme, whatever you have)

Throw everything in a pot, add water to cover and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook for three hours or until everything falls apart and it tastes good. Skim off any nasty foamy stuff as it boils and add salt to taste. Separate out the chicken and veggies, strain the broth through a fine sieve (or a tea strainer, whatever) and add any chicken meat back to the broth.

Here's the chicken and escarole soup I eventually made with my broth. With some buttered french bread it was even good enough for Martha.



Love,
Wilful