Garden update

One of my Nana's ways of saying "How are you?" was to ask "How does your garden grow?" 

Of course, I rarely had a literal garden. Now, I wish Nana were able to see these photos and witness my development as a gardener. I am still pretty small potatoes, but rather proud of myself and happy with the way things are going. 

Of course, gardens are a fine metaphor for life (as my Nana well knew), and so, results are mixed. 

My tomatoes and beans are doing really well:

Tomatoes, marigolds and sweet williams (I don't have a flower garden, but love having some flowers scattered in with my veggies. The marigolds are there for their pest-deterring properties; the sweet williams are there because I love them.)

A flourish of beans (I have a hummingbird who comes around to whirr at the stained glass in my window. I hope it will soon discover my scarlet runner beans – much more satisfying)

Of course, some things haven't gone so well. The slugs decimated my bok choy. 

Bok choy boneyard

But that made room for the herbs that had been sitting in their little pots for 4 weeks (or more) since I brought them home from market...

Bok choy boneyard converted to herb garden

And the bok choy's sacrifice may have preserved the lives of the less-favoured-by-slugs arugula and kale. 

My peas were a flop and my brussell sprouts are completely static. I think they may be the leeks of 2017. (I didn't bother to plant leeks this year: although they did not die last year, they also did not grow). 

My potato patch is thriving and the potato bugs don't seem to have found us yet. 

Potatoes and some teeny, tiny beet plants

Last night, on my way home from a music show at the West Dublin Hall, I remembered that I had my headlamp in the car and so I finally took the time to stop and gather up a bit of seaweed to hill these beauties with.

Potatoes hilled with seaweed

I could stand to get a little more seaweed. I hope it won't take me another month to find an opportune moment. And I hope I don't remember at 11 pm again. Although it was kind of fun feeling clandestine on the dark beach, disturbing the sand flies was not pleasant.

Best of all is the daily-ness of the garden for me. Every morning, I have some mindful, undistracted garden time. I go out and hunt for slugs, I water if it's going to be sunny (and if I have any water in my rain barrel), I check on the progress of things, see if anything is ready to harvest and graze on a few greens.

Items on my to-do list like "hill potatoes", "stake and tie tomatoes", "netting for beans" inject some more grounded and less stressful activities into my daily, peri-menopausal life. And happily, weeding is limited. Gardening in the forest, most of my weeds are ferns and baby trees. I don't have many of the typical, super-annoying garden weeds, at least not yet.

And almost always, there is this guy in the garden. On the hot days he sits under the ferns to keep cool, and deters the mice and squirrels. Now, if only I could teach him to hunt slugs...

My garden helper/familiar (the hugelkultur beds are great at deterring Sal from sleeping on top of the gardens themselves – too lumpy!

High Maintenance Crock Pot Rabbit Stew

I don't think I've ever presented a recipe on this blog before, but the stew I made last night is worthy of sharing.

I come from a family of great "throw-in, stir-in" cooks. Whether it's whipping up an interesting marinade or simmering soup on the stove, we love to get the flavour into and out of our food. From long experience, we know what works and we go from there.

I bought a rabbit this summer from friends and West Dublin Marketeers, Mikee and Jeny. I always meant to cook it up for Sunday Supper for me and my landmates, but summer does not lend itself to roasts or stews and it just never happened. Then, I was invited over for a jam last night at the old homestead and I offered to make and bring supper. With carrots from the garden of my friends and neighbours, John and Debbie; onions, shallots and shitakes from the Lunenburg Farmers Market and garlic from my folks, this was a delicious and very local meal.

I didn't plan ahead or anything, so yesterday morning found me trying to defrost a rabbit in the sink. (I wish I had taken pictures, but I didn't realize at the time that I was going to write this up for my blog.)

A few warnings: Rabbit can be a little fatty. I like fatty foods, but if you don't, you can be more carefully about trimming the fat off your bunny. Also, this is not a set-it-and-forget-it kind of recipe. Because I tinker with flavours and want my veggies not to be disgusting mush, I tended this recipe through the day, adding different things at different times and using the stovetop in tandem with the crock pot for better flavour development. You'll need about 6-8 hours for this recipe. Most of that will be hands-off cooking time, but you are likely to spend a total of about an hour through the day standing over the cutting board and stovetop. Like most stews, while this is very tasty the first day, it tastes even better the next day. Also, rabbits have LOTS of little bones. Please eat with care and warn any guests.

Beware the tiny bunny bones

 

 High Maintenance Crock Pot Rabbit Stew

Hack up 1 rabbit into random pieces and throw them in a large oval crock pot. (I got impatient with the defrosting and my rabbit was still half-frozen when I started cooking it. This was not a problem, but probably added to my cooking time)

Chop one medium onion, one large shallot and mince (or press) 4 cloves of garlic. Sauté in olive oil on the stove top. Add to the crock pot.

Pour in 1.5–2 litres of chicken stock, one bottle Propeller IPA (if you are non-Maritime and don't have access to Propeller beer, any Indian Pale Ale will do) and 1 large can of diced tomatoes with their juices. Add about 1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme and 1 teaspoon ground coriander. Grind black pepper generously over the top. Stir. Cover, turn the crock pot on High and leave to cook. (I would have added a couple of bay leaves, too, except I haven't been able to find them since I moved.)

At about the 4 hour mark, mince (or grate, if you prefer) a two-inch piece of fresh ginger and cut 5-7 carrots into large dice. Sauté the carrots and ginger on the stove top. Add sliced fresh shitake mushrooms and about 3 tablespoons of ketchup. (I can't be bothered to keep tomato paste in the house and use ketchup as a shortcut). Stir and cook until the mushrooms start to soften. Add several ladles of the liquid from the crock pot to the veggies. Stir, cover, bring to a boil, then uncover and simmer until the carrots just begin to get soft and the liquid is somewhat reduced and thickened. Add this mixture to the crock pot. Let cook for one more hour.

Taste the broth. If, like me, you find it a little bland, ladle around 9 ladles-full into a pan on the stove top. Bring to a boil and simmer to reduce. Add about 1 Tablespoon of Grace Jerk Marinade and about 1/2 Tablespoon of fancy molasses. Simmer until it has reduced by about 1/3 to a half. Return to the crock pot. Check the internal temperature of the rabbit. At this point, mine was about 188 degrees Farenheit and getting loose of the bones. If that is also the case for you, your meal is now safely cooked. Change the temperature on the crock pot to Low and continue cooking for another hour or two, just to develop the flavours. During the last hour, cook up some rice (or other preferred starch – I made a blend of Lundburg Country Wild and long-grain brown rice).

Then, if you're driving an hour to supper like I was, leave the stew in the crock pot on the floor of the car and pray it doesn't spill too much. When you get to your destination, turn it back on at High for a half hour or so to bring it up to temp. (You can take its temperature if you're feeling kind of anal, but it should be fine, as long as there hasn't been any cross contamination. )

Serve with rice or other starch. Others at our dinner last night provided delicious roasted veggies (beets, sweet potatoes, potatoes) and a curried apple and sunflower sprout salad. It was an awesome meal – YUM!

Greasy good leftovers for breakfast this morning.
Om nom nom!