Spring in Oregon -  So, just what is a typical Spring day like in the Willamette Valley, one might ask?   This year we've had some unusually beautiful weather early in the year, days and even weeks of sun and mild temperatures. Today, it's wet out there. For most years warm temperatures and a sunny sky can be depended upon only from July through October.  The other eight month ususally provide mostly gray, wet days.  Well, here we are again. We're now into our second day of gloomy, wet weather.  The forecast for today is for 100% chance of rain. Ugh.

You can see why we spend every nice day working outside.  We can never be sure that there will be another one. 

We've completed the spring cleanup for most of the yard.  Many seeds have been planted, and cool weather transplants are in the ground -- where they are now getting a good drenching.  Now we wait to see which plants survive the rain and which will need to be replanted.  Things are a little soggy out there right now.  But . . . . .things could change tomorrow.

So, what does a gardener do on a day like today?  Seems like a good time to read a book, or maybe think about dinner.

Garlic Prawns - another fabulous low-fat meal. When I think of prawns, I always think of butter, the two just go so nicely together. As anyone following this blog knows, butter is a thing of the past in this kitchen.  At least for a couple of more months. . . .   I'll reconsider after my next cholestoral test. But for now, no butter.  Thankfully, I was able to prepare this meal using just olive oil, and it was as flavorful and satisfying as if I had sauteed in butter.  No kidding.

The menu consisted of Garlic Prawns, served with Pasta with Spring Vegetables -  asparagus, snow peas and red pepper, followed by a green salad.  In previous days I would have added cheese to the pasta dish, but I've also eliminated cheese from my diet.  The pasta was delicious and complete with out it. All in all, a very nice combinaiton.  This meal was very quick to prepare.  So quick in fact that it is necessary to prep all of the ingredients ahead of time, since they all cook quickly at nearly the same time -- namely, the last minute.

Pasta with Spring Vegetables

Spaghetti - cook while preparing vegetables
1 TBS olive oil

1 pound, or so, of thin asparagus, cut into 2" lengths
1 cup of snow peas

1/4 cup chopped red pepper
1 clove of garlic, thinly sliced
1 TBS lemon zest
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp dried basil

2 TBS lemon infused olive oil

1/2 cup pasta cooking water
Lemon pepper seasoning

Lightly saute the asparagus and red pepper in olive oil with slivered garlic until just beginning to soften. Add snow peas, lemon zest, and lemon infused oil, cook about 3 minutes, then add basil, lemon juice, lemon pepper and pasta cooking water.  Adjust seasonings and toss with drained pasta.

Garlic Prawns
for two servings I purchased 2/3 of a pound of large wild prawns

1 - 2 TBSP olive oil
1 TBSP lemon pepper seasoning
1 large clove of garlic, slivered
a good sized pinch of red pepper flakes
2 TBSP chopped italian parsley

Clean, rinse and devein the prawns, pat dry with paper towels then toss with the lemon pepper seasoning. Allow to set for at least 10 minutes. Heat the olive oil and garlic in a saute pan, toss in the prawns and cook, turning, just until they are pink in color. Squeeze lemon juice over prawns, sprinkle with parsley, season with salt to taste, and serve over pasta. 

Add a fresh seasonal green salad, some crusty bread, and a nice glass of wine.  A lovely and healthy meal that will be appreciated and will disappear in no time.

Dreaming of Spring.  The past two days have provided nothing but 40 degree dark, rainy, and blustery days.  How quickly the doldrums of winter set in.  It seems like we'll never see the sun again, did we ever?  

Since the weather has kept us out of the garden, lately my thoughts have again turned to food.  Namely desserts.  I've been thinking about delectable, low-fat desserts.  There must be some.  Now, I'm not the kind of cook to use what I consider "fake ingredients".  No non-fat whipping cream for me.  I'm looking for yummy desserts that are naturally low in saturated fat.  I think I've found one. Thanks to the inspiration provided by a member of my Book Club.

Poached Pears are delightful, easy to make, and have no fat . . . .  unless you top them with a caramel sauce.  Hmmm, not a bad idea.  Here's how I made them.

For just the two of us I used only two pears.  I served some of the poaching liquid with the pears and had enough left over to repeat the dessert a second time.

In a sauce pan, heat -

1/2 cup sugar in
1/2 cup water until dissolved.
To get enough liquid to cover the pears I added -
1/2 cup orange juice and
1/2 cup, or so, of rose wine.  Red or white would also work
For flavor I added -
one slice of fresh ginger,
freshly grated nutmeg,
a dash of vanilla
Into this gently drop

2 pears, peeled and cored from the bottom

Cover and poach at a simmer for about 20 minuted, until the pears are soft.

I served them warm, sitting in a pool of the poaching liquid.  A really healthy, really delicious dessert.  Chocolate or caramel sauce drizzled over the pears would be a nice addition, but, then there goes the low-fat idea.

Off the shelf.  I sort of let things slip this week.  Instead of my ususal weekly menus, grocery lists, and planned shopping, I took a much more casual approach. I was working in the garden and just didn't want to shift gears.  The only problem with this approach is that come dinner time, I often don't have a clue about what to cook.  When we have a lot of fresh produce from the garden it's not so bad, I just cruise through the garden for inspiration, but at this time of year I must rely on my own stash.  Here is one of my alltime favorite, last minute, dinners. A pasta with tuna in a slow-cooked garlic sauce.  It is sooooo good. If you keep a well stocked pantry, chances are that you have all the necessary ingredients.

The original version of this recipe came from The Joy of Cooking.  They simply called it "Canned Tuna Sauce".  Surely there must be a better name.

Here's what you'll need:

Pasta - I always use spaghetti
1/4 cup olive oil
chopped fresh  italian parsley
8-10 cloves of garlic
1/2 - 3/4 cup chopped kalamata olives
1/2 tsp fennel seeds, crushed
1/4 tsp red pepper flakes - or more

1 can of good quality tuna - I like Oregon caught albacore (Jack's Country Store)
1 tbsp drained capers
a little fresh parsely
salt and pepper

1.Over a low heat, saute the garlic and parsley in olive oil until soft. Allow to cook slowly and not brown.  Stir in olives, fennel, red pepper and about 1/2 cup of cooking water from the pasta.  Cook a few minutes, then remove from the heat and stir in flaked tuna, and capers. Taste for salt and pepper and add the fresh parsley at the last minute.

As you can see, this recipe is very easy, fast, and delicious.  The most important part is slowly cooking the garlic.  This can be done while you make a salad. The olives and capers add a nice zing to the flavors of the garlic and tuna.  Try it, I'm sure you'll like it.

It actually looks like a garden.  Things are really starting to take shape in the garden this week.  The sun has continued to shine periodically and the weather has been fairly mild.  I still worry that we are moving too fast. We've been fooled before, two years ago we had snow on April 4th,  but the ground is not too wet and the fruit trees are blooming. Nonetheless, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that we don't get frozen or rained out.

Reyn's new cold frame has worked very well, he has it filled with seedlings and has been busy this week transplanting cool weather crops directly into the garden.   For years he religiously rototilled the garden after the ground dried out in the spring.  Two years ago we put in new retaining walls and brought in additional soil and compost for the garden.  Since that time he has divided the garden into permanent beds and no longer uses the rototiller.  During the winter he usually plants a cover crop, but this year he covered the entire garden with leaves instead.  Now, when he is ready to plant one of the beds, he simply rakes off the leaves- which go into the compost pile- turns over the soil and plants.  There are surprisingly few weeds in the garden.

Today was a very productive work day.  Reyn transplanted a multitude of Walla Walla Sweet onions - spacing them one hamburger bun's width apart for the perfect sized onions.  It won't be long before I'll start using these onions for scallions. Ours are always so much nicer than those I find at the grocer. He also planted Early Wonder Tall Top beets, Mokum carrots, and four kinds of potatoes.

Garden progress includes a bed of healthy garlic plants, rhubarb that is leafed out and beginning to produce stalks.  This is the third year for one of our two plants, so we should be able to pick with abandon this. We now have 16 asparagus spears up in the new asparagus bed. It was planted just a year ago, so we'll let the asparagus go another year before picking any.  Hard to do, but worth it. The raspberry bushes are leafed out and looking very happy - they've been given a couple of good soakings with my handy fish fertilizer.  I weeded the strawberry bed again today.  This is the second year for these plants.  They have nicely filled out the bed and should produce a good supply of berries for us.  Many of the plants are flowering, but it is way too early for berries.  I'm looking forward to strawberries for breakfast and that good backyard jam.

Garden Notes:

Planted Mokum carrots - 62 days

Planted Early Wonder Tall Top beets

Planted potatoes - Adirondack Blue, Nortoka Russets, fingerlings, Yukon Gold

transplanted Walla Walla Sweet onions

What could be better than fish fertilizer?  This is a photo of the pond (coloquially known as a water feature) that sits just off our deck, adjacent to the garden. My son helped to excavate the hole, and construct the supporting structure about 12 years ago.  Originally I stocked it with 5 little fish known as Shibunkins, which are like gold fish only spotted.  Over the years I have watched them grow and multiply. They seemed to have been pretty happy in their tiny universe.

Now, 12 years later, only two of the original fish have survived, Spot and Benji, but they have spawned a multitude of offspring.  While it may be fun to have lots of fish, it does create problems, overpopulation being foremost. Too many eaters and too much fish waste.  The water becomes a rich habitat for algae and the filter must be cleaned often.  And what, you may ask, is in the filter?  . . . . . . very rich fish-waste muck.  For 12 years I have been hosing out the filter and dumping the mucky water wherever I could.  I tried to put it on the garden, but it's a lot of muck and by the time I clean the filter, I'm usually not interested in carrying it around the garden.  Thus, my brilliant idea.  An holding tank, easily accessible to both pond and garden. Voila!

I purchased a rain barrel, retrofitted with a 1" ball valve, large enough to allow the mucky water to run freely through the pipe.  It has been fitted with a hose to carry the rich fertilizer down to the garden.  The top of the barrel is covered by a piece of hogwire which allows me to set the filter material on top of it and spray it clean with water.  All the drippings drain into the barrel.  The pond is above the retaining wall, the garden below.  No more carrying heavy buckets of water.

Now the garden has a ready supply of natural fertilizer.  It's ready and waiting in the barrel, which I plan to cover with a lid to discourage mosquitoes.  The gardener will be happy, the plants will be happy, and I'll be using a valuable byproduct of my "water feature".  Why didn't I think of this before?

In pursuit of low-fat treats - I'm sticking to my resolve to reduce my cholesterol by eating less saturated fat.  We've been having great meals with lots of flavor, color and variety, but, I am a snacker. I need more than three meals a day.  In the past I've relied on a handful of nuts here and there, or a rice cake with almond butter to get me by.  Now that I'm trying to avoid the additional fat I've reduced my intake of nuts.  I do eat a lot of fruit, but would like to add more protein to my snacks.

I've discovered that a tall glass of freshly made carrot juice, with a few of these crisp and spicy Chickpeas is just the thing.  Crunchy, with a little salt and Middle Eastern style spice, these make a great nutritious snack.

I make a lot of hummus, and have always used canned chickpeas.  For some reason I thought that it took an inordinate amount of time to cook dry chickpeas.  Not the case.  I parboiled, then cooked these beans in far less time than I imagined, I think it was about an hour.  If you don't want to bother with dry beans, I'm sure that canned would work just as well.

Crunchy Chickpeas

2 cups of cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
1 TBS olive oil

1/2 tsp each of salt, pepper, ground cumin, and ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees
Drain well and blot the chickpeas dry.  Toss with the oil, salt, and spices.  Spread on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown and crisp.

The next time I make these, which will be later today, I'm going to add whole cumin seed.  A nice healthy addition to the snack table.

Ah, the Pests -  there was once a time when I loved the sighting of a deer.  You remember, don't you?  Those beautiful creatures bounding off into the woods.  So graceful, so innocent looking.  Sometimes seen near campgrounds or county parks; oh, and occasionally in someone's front yard.  But, not mine. 

We have lived peacefully in our house for 23 years. Our neighborhood is quiet - good neighbors, not much traffic, not many fences. We've always had a garden and were bothered only by the squirrels and a few pesky raccoons.  Well . . . . .  in the past few years that has all changed.  We are a just few blocks from the Willamette River with a strip of woods abutting our back yard - one might call it a wildlife corridor.  To our dismay, we have seen an ever increasing number of deer munching their way through our garden.

At first we thought they were cute, then we clapped our hands and shooed them away, then we threw pebbles, then attempted to scare them off with a BB gun.  Last summer we found something that worked pretty well, if we remembered to turn it on: a high powered sprinkler head with a motion sensor. This little genius is called a Scare Crow.  It delivers a sharp burst of water whenever something walks in front of the sensor.  While it's true that everyone in the family received a few wet surprises last summer, it did deter the deer. Although effective, it's difficult to protect the entire perimeter of the garden without a large arsenal of sensors. We managed to protect the plum tree and raspberries, but were unable to keep the deer completely out of the yard.

Well, we've had enough. This is the year of the Final Solution.  After much searching online, we decided to try a 7 1/2 foot polypropolene deer fence.  The fence is relatively easy to install and difficult to see, for deer and others.  The theory is that the deer can't see how tall it is and won't attempt to jump it. Today we succeeded in surrounding the garden with the fence. Just in the nick of time.

In the last couple of days the deer have dined more than once on the tender new leaves of the raspberry patch.  But, no more. They will have a much harder time, I'm hoping impossible time, sneaking into our garden now. I only wish that we could watch their surprise when they attempt to step in tonight for their treat.

Another beautiful Sunday in the Willamette Valley.  It seems like we haven't really had much of a winter this year. (Easy for me to say today, not so easy last week.) Oh, yes, it's been cold, and it's been rainy, but we haven't had many of our usual protracted gray, damp, cold, and dreary days, weeks, or often, months. In the past week we experienced three of those days which resulted in an entire city of grumpy, depressed people.  How quickly we forget.

It was  34 degrees when I walked Ollie this morning, but it warmed up quickly.  I enjoyed a nice long run along the mill race and Willamette River.  The flowering trees are in bloom, the woodland bushes are putting out their fresh green leaves, and the water fowl are very active.  I expect to see baby ducks and geese any day. I truly appreciate living near miles and miles of running and biking trails. It was a great day to be outside. 

Ollie joined us outside for a little garden work.  He napped while I cleaned out and weeded another bed.  It certainly looks better, but I have a number of Hebe plants that suffered during our bit of cold weather.  I'm waiting to see if they'll come back.  It's not looking good.

Reyn's cold-frame is working beautifully.  It was 84 degrees under the frame shortly before noon today.  It is steamy in there and the plants are all loving it.  He started new lettuce seeds last week and chose today to transplant his first starts into the garden.  As always, he was surprised to find out exactly how many little plants he had propogated.  After giving starts to the neighbors, he tucked in his progeny wherever space and good soil could be found.  We now have several kinds of lettuce, spinach, and chard growing in and around much of the garden - under the blueberries, between the rhubarb, next to the asparagus.  When the plants get a little larger we'll have beautiful edible borders all around the yard.  I'm thinking about those salads already.

Garden Notes:  3/12 - planted radishes and Merida carrots.  Carrots overwinter, 240 days to maturity.

                           3/14 - lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard transplanted to garden

This has been the strangest week of late.  Just when we became accustomed to lovely spring weather, we were thrown back into the dead of winter.  Rain, rain, rain, and cold winds. Day after day, or so it seemed.  We had two nights of  frost just after I transplanted my baby peppergrass into the herb garden.  Such tiny little things. Fortunately, they seem to be pretty hardy little plants.  All of them have survived.  Reyn brought his seedlings in from the cold-frame during the freeze, but they are now all back outside and doing well.

Today while conducting my garden tour I noticed that the peas Reyn planted last week are just beginning to show themselves.  I found a few more asparagus spears, and the rhubard leaves are unfurling themselves with a passion.  Our baby plum tree has been in full bloom now for about a week.  We're hoping for pollination, but I haven't seen any bees, which casues me to worry. I'm concerned that the combination of early flowering and the wet weather may keep us from seeing much, if any, fruit on the little tree this year.

It has been a good week for indoor projects, so yesterday I started cilantro and chive seeds.  I have been wanting to try making newspaper pots in which to plant the seeds. That will allow me to simply set the plants, pot and all, into the ground at transplanting time, avoiding shock to the seedlings when pulling them out of the soil to be divided.  I cut strips of newspaper about 8" wide.  Wraped the paper around a tin can, and folded up the bottom.  You can staple the sides closed, but it doesn't seem to be necessary.  I put a small piece of tape on the folded up bottom to secure it until I filled it with soil.

Then simply fill the nice little cups with potting soil, add seeds, and sprinkle with water.  Voila!  The newspaper gets damp, but holds the soil and plants securely until they are ready for the garden. After transplanting into garden soil, the paper quickly decomposes.  It' simple, avoids plastic pots, is easy on the plants, and is free of harmful bacteria.  Simply worth a try.

Ginger Pepper Crusted Halibut - I have spent so much time working in the garden the past few days that my meal planning has taken a back seat. I have been really careful to avoid saturated fats, and plan to continue to avoid all that I can until, at least, the end of May.  I had been digging through my cookbooks for low fat ideas and last week enjoyed trying some new things. But, right now I'm falling back on some of my favorite tried and true recipes.

This meal is colorful, tasty, healthy, and easy to prepare.  You can't ask for more than that.

Menu
Ginger and Pepper Crusted Halibut with Mango Salsa
Roasted Sweet Potato rounds
Asparagus
Salad greens with Jicama, oranges, and almonds

Roasted Sweet Potatoes

2 large sweet potatoes or yams

1 Tbs olive oil

salt and peper

Peel yams and slice into rounds.  In a bowl, toss with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Heat oven to 425 degrees. Coat a baking pan lightly with olive oil and put in the oven to preheat.  When the pan is hot, pour in the potatoes and arrange in one layer.  Bake until done and lightly browned, about 30 min.

Ginger and Pepper Crusted Halibut

2 Halibut filets

1 -2 Tbs. fresh pepper corns

1 - 2" knob of ginger, grated or minced

salt to taste

In a mortar and pestle, crush the pepper corns, combine with minced ginger, and salt. Brush both sides of the fish with a light coating of olive oil, place on baking pan, then coat top side with ginger/pepper mixture.  Bake fish at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes per inch of thickness.  The fish can be placed in the oven about 20 minutes after the yams. Serve with Mango Salsa

Mango Salsa

1 Mango, cubed

2 Tbs chopped sweet onion

1 Tbs jalepeno, minced (I used pickled jalepeno)

2 Tbs cilantro, chopped

Juice of 1 lime

salt

For salsa, combine all ingredients and taste for salt.  Add more jalepeno if you like more heat.

Add your favorite vegetable and salad and enjoy!

Time to trasnplant -  Reyn's seedlings are continuing to thrive, they are strong and healthy, and are producing secondary leaves. He is no longer bringing them inside during the night. The plants are now staying in the cold frame both day and night.  The first night outside is always worrisome, the seedlings seem like such fragile little things and we've had a few cold nights lately.  The protection of the cold frame has most certainly assisted the transition.

Reyn has added two more support ribs to the cold frame and covered it with plastic sheeting.  That gives us essentially a 4' x 8' mini-greenhouse.  He has planted another round of lettuce, this time using freshly purchased seeds.  In less than a week the new seeds have germinated and are looking good.  If all goes well, we'll soon have more lettuce than we can eat.  I'm so looking forward to our own salad greens again.

I've been working in my herb garden this week.  I have once again learned the lesson offered by the Oregano-with-a mind-of-it's-own.  I do like oregano.  I cook with it and enjoy the foliage and summer flowers, but why can't it just mind it's own business?  I dug an entire 5 gallon bucket of baby oregano plants out of my garden.  I think that I got it all out, but I also remain certain that enough will show up to meet my needs for the herb.

Garden notes: Transplanted pepper grass into herb garden

                                      Rhubarb coming up

                                      Seedlings moved to cold-frame

                                      Magnolia, crocus, hyacinth, primroses, violets, daphne, and plum tree all in bloom

                                      Pesky squirrels digging holes around newly planted peas

                                      Worried about deer munching on tasty plum tree

Glorious - the only work to describe our Magnolia which is now proudly showing it's color.  The tree is blooming a full three weeks early this year.  It's been fun to watch the progression to flowering, which has happened so fast.  Today was another lovely warm day, probably in the 60's.  Some of the flowers were fully open this morning, but by afternoon the mass of blossoms on the west side of the tree were basking in the sun, while those on the east were being a little more cautious.  I hope they will continue to show a some restraint, and in doing so, prolong the glory.

I've been continuing to work outside as the weather permits, mostly raking leaves, pulling weeds, and generally just cleaning up my perennial beds.  Last Fall we decided not to remove the fallen leaves from the beds, hoping that they would protect the soil and prevent some of the weeds from germinating.  Our plan seems to have worked.  As I remove the sodden leaves I'm finding very few weeds and surprisingly few snails.  I had assumed that the leaves would become the perfect habitat for snail production. Fortunately, that hasn't happened.  The good news; no snails, but yes, ladybugs.

I think that this is going to be a great year in the garden.  I'm having a very good time, working at a measured pace when the weather is good, and am ahead of my ususal schedule.  We have a number of very old and beautiful peony plants in our yard.  Some of them get quite tall, inevitably the flowers become heavy with rain and fall over, breaking the stems.  Each year I try to support them, but I usually get to it too late and have had only limited success.

Last week I noticed that they were coming up.  I made a quick trip to our local recycler and was lucky enough to find several tomato cages for sale.  They are probably not sturdy enough to support a large tomato plant, but I think they'll work nicely for the peonies.  I put a cage around each plant, then used garden twine to crisscross up and down the frame adding additional support.  I'll now just have to wait and see what happens.  Hopefully, this will be the year that I get it right.