Category Archives: Garden

Tunneling

My favorite gardener constructed this nifty little low tunnel to extend the growing season.  We should be able to harvest spinach almost all winter.

I’m not sure how this stacks up environmentally, since what you’re looking at there is a lot of plastic.  Sure, it’s heavy duty plastic that should last multiple growing seasons, but still.

It may be better than buying plastic bagged spinach shipped in from California, but the greenest option would be to just eat local spinach during the regular not-extended-with-tunnels growing season.  That said, it will be fun to get something out of the garden when fresh, local produce is scarce.

When life gives you lemons . . .

. . . be patient and wait until they ripen; they’ll taste better that way.

I bet you didn’t know you could grow lemons and limes in Missouri! We’ve watched these guys growing all summer, and they’re getting oh so close.  After they put on size, they were strangely light weight, similar to the fake lemon that my mom uses as a practical joke.  Now they’re putting on weight and starting to lighten to yellow.

We’re also growing key limes!  This tree didn’t set fruit for a long time, which had us worried, but now it’s going strong.

I sense a key lime pie in my future.  The best part?  We can zest our lemons and limes and enjoy our culinary creations knowing that we won’t be consuming “food-grade” wax.

Little dumplings everywhere

We discovered the wonders of butternut squash gnocchi back in February, when we were enjoying last year’s winter squash harvest.  Last week, we made our first batch with this year’s squash.

We used this recipe for butternut dumplings (AKA gnocchi) with sage brown butter.  We substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the all purpose flour, as always.

If you’ve never made gnocchi before, it’s a bit of work, but worth the effort!

After the dough comes together, take a chunk and roll it into a long rope (back of above picture).  Then cut the rope into small chunks.  If you’re feeling lazy, you can stop here, but they cook better (and look fun) if you make an indentation with fork tines and then wrap around the handle of a spoon to make a nice C-shape.

After boiling for a few minutes, you have finished gnocchi.  Drizzle the sage browned butter on top, and dinner is served!

This recipe makes a lot of gnocchi.  After the shaping step, but BEFORE the cooking step, we set half of the gnocchi on plates in a single layer to freeze.

Once they’re frozen, toss them in a container or baggy for a quick, delicious meal some other night.