Plant a Seed and Consume its Sweetness

One of my favorite memories as a child was watching my grandpa in his garden.  I used to help him with the harvests and we would sit under the willow tree in the front yard and snap beans and shell peas.  I learned a lot about life during the conversations that we had.  I was so blessed to have someone sit and listen to my childhood ramblings for hours.  I have a hard time doing that now.  I really think our grandparents know that children inherit the Earth, so they take time to listen and less time to gossip.  Since I have started gardening, I am reminded of the parable in the bible about planting seeds on good soil.  To me, good soil is the faith and truth you put into it in order to yield a large harvest.  We can apply the meaning of this parable to many different things.  It truly does outline the image of total health.  I hope to achieve this with people in my own neighborhood.  I see this coming to fruition throughout many neighborhoods in my community. 

One of the hardest tasks I encounter is trying to balance my professional life with my family life, but I really try to keep up with the haps in my own community.  One project I have been looking at is Project Feed the Hood. They organize to help eliminate food deserts by engaging with communities through gardening and helping to build self-efficacy in low-income and diverse populations by providing the opportunity and the right to feed their families healthy meals without having to travel far or spend a lot of money for fruits and vegetables. In addition, providing food that you have worked to grow gives a person something to be proud of. They have an urban garden in the SE heights, a food desert near the air force base.  They also have a garden in the Westgate area to provide the opportunity for those who live in an area that is not only a food desert, but face challenges planting their own gardens due to lack of space and sandy dry terrain. Another project with the same idea in mind is East Central Ministries.  It is a micro-business in the International District to help the community through gardening and selling gardening products.  You can find vegetable and herb plants and ollas at Whole Foods Market.

These are not the only places doing this.  More and more people throughout the U.S. are developing areas to combat food insecurity.  They do run into challenges like cost, lack of water, and property issues.  In the next month many of us gardeners are going to see an increase in water use rates due to lack of revenue by the Water Utility Authority claiming that all the conservation efforts has backfired and now they are strapped for cash.  I have faith that we will still meet these challenges and continue with these very important projects. 

On to sweetness, blueberries are in season and I made something to celebrate their sweet and nutritious qualities and I didn’t have to add a whole lot of sweetener. 

GF Blueberry Cobbler w/Lemon Cornmeal Topping

For the berries

5 cups blueberries

1/3 cup cane sugar

Juice from one lemon

1 tbls cornstarch

Mix all ingredients together and set aside to let juices macerate a little

For the cobbler

1 cup of cornmeal

½ cup brown rice flour

1/3 cup of tapioca starch

½ tsp salt

3 tbls sugar

Zest from one whole lemon

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp xantham gum

2 eggs

1 cup buttermilk a little more or less, you could use any milk but use less

3 tbl melted butter

Mix dry ingredients and then mix wet ingredients.  Combine wet ingredients with dry ingredients and mix until it is like a drop biscuit dough.  Pour blueberries into a buttered 8x8 casserole dish or cast iron pan. Drop biscuit dough on top and put in a 325 degree oven for about 35-45 minutes.  Crust will be a golden yellow and blueberries should have leaked their juices through some of the dough.   *Note: You can probably use about 2 cups of regular flour for the gf flours.

Setbacks and Accomplishments with a Side of Creamed Corn

I do not consider myself a lazy person, but I digress.  I am when it comes to this blog.  I really don’t want to try and make this fresh new design that really puts this blog on the map.  I have spent about four or five hours doing this and I keep coming up with nothing.  I feel a bit like Daffy Duck trying to find the easy way out.  I would rather be updating everyone on a new week of fun projects and such or cooking something awesome and I definitely have some weeding and more planting to do.  But noooo.   I spend hours trying to find an easy way to not spend a lot of time using the free download of Photoshop to design a simple header.  This is one of my summer projects and the most daunting aside from the sprinkler line in the backyard busted when we installed timers on for our garden sprinklers.  Oh and the huge gaping hole in our ceiling due to a leaky pipe that cracked during the deep freeze in February. 

I finally have a new header.  I had to search for my Illustrator software just to make it.  There are still a few other things that I want to figure out like make a recipe index, but that will wait until I have a larger inventory of recipes to put in an index.  Meanwhile, our family has started a garden site in the area around the greenhouse at my son’s school.  We did a quick prep in the soil today and I am excited to plant tomorrow.  I get a little impatient though because since it is summer and it is a school, I don’t get a lot of communication of what I am allowed to do in order to advertise this expenditure.   I really want to create a page in a social network to get our garden out there in the city of Albuquerque at least.  So far the hopes for this garden is to provide a learning opportunity for the students who attend the school and parish (It is a Catholic School) and I hope to get crops for some tasting classes and for local food banks.   Below is a picture of the site and I hope to provide more with plants soon.

                  

I plan to plant corn, squash, and beans.  I already have tomatoes, bell peppers, basil, carrots and lettuce in the green house that are ready to go in the ground.  I will also plant a pumpkin plant, lavender and melons.  I am excited to see how it goes.  For now, I am going to share a corn recipe.  Corn is versatile as a vegetable and a grain.  I like it as both, but nothing beats a sweet ear of corn with rich butter and some light seasoning.  One of my favorite ways to eat it is creamed.  I know the first image is the soupy syrupy stuff in the can.  Gross. I hate that especially because creamed corn is so easy to make and can be as simple or as complex as you like.   It is a star side dish that complements many foods and may demote the main course.

Spicy Creamed Corn

4 cups of corn (frozen or fresh, you do need the corn milk, the white milky liquid that comes from corn).

1 cup of cream, milk, or a mixture (you may not need this if you have enough corn milk (you can add more if you want a thinner consistency)

½ chopped onion

1 tbl butter or bacon fat

1 tbl olive oil

1 tsp minced garlic

A couple sprinkles of salt

Generous sprinkles of pepper

4 oz of green chile peppers, or a couple of chopped chipotles, 2 tbl red chile powder, or 1 roasted red pepper chopped

Chopped cilantro (optional)

Melt butter with olive oil on medium heat.  Add onion and sautee for about 5 minutes until transluscent.  Add garlic and cook until fragrant.   Add corn and cook until hot and some of the kernals are carmelized. Add cream and bring to a simmer.  Add salt, pepper and chiles and cook until hot.  If desired you can mash with a masher, put half in a blender, or use an immersion blender if you want to make a smoother texture. You get added calcium and protein in this dish. 

Greatness

I have had some great successes.  I am the mother of a middle schooler.  I received permission to start a small school garden outside the school greenhouse.  I have made it two years with two kids.  I know to some, that is not a lot of kids, but it is to me so save it.  To celebrate, I had a modest birthday party for my baby.  We had some excellent batter fried shrimp and flat iron steak, salad, potatoes and cookie monster confetti cake.  On the downside, my oldest had to go to urgent care due to some major back up in the gut.  He eats very healthy, but kids and water intake sometimes don’t mix because after school is out, they want to play in the sun and heat. You know, swimming, running, riding bikes.  They are so busy that water is the last thing on their mind.  As much as we tell my oldest to drink water, he still forgets to tell himself.

 I admit, I get a little lazy and I don’t have fresh cold water to gulp down on a hot summer day.  I don’t know why.  I really enjoy it, especially if I have a lot of cucumbers on hand to slice up and put inside that icy pitcher.  Typically, I like to hold on to my cukes for salads and snacking, but water is just as important.  I am waiting patiently until I have a surplus of cucumbers growing in the yard so I can plop some slices into an ice cold pitcher of water.  Cucumbers are not cheap.   This is really sad that I have to save my cucumbers and I know many forgo even buying cucumbers or other fruits and vegetables because of the price.  Honestly, growing veggies is the cheapest way.  I can get a packet of seeds and end up with a hundred cucumbers or other vegetables. 

I think that so many people lose hope and just try to survive and at least try to accomplish some things in life.  It is easy to just settle for good enough rather than strive for greatness.  I have learned to not try so hard to figure out what greatness is, but to do things that make me feel great, not just good.  Starting a school garden makes me feel great not only because the students and staff can really use this garden for school projects and curriculum development, but also because gardening is very therapeutic.   I don’t know if gardening is the answer for everyone, but I know that everyone I know who takes care of something, even if it is a plant or a poem have nothing but pride to show for it because whatever it is, it is your language of love.

Here is some love language to share that is good for children and good for you.  Put your feet up and drink something pure.

Fruit and Veggie Water Ideas

First fill a pitcher with ice cubes and water then add the following or a mixture of any combination

Cucumber slices

Watermelon chunks

Melon chunks

Halved grapes

Halved cherries

Sliced strawberries

Whole blueberries

Whole black berries

Bell peppers??

Any citrus zests or slices

Mint leaves

Rosemary sprigs

Basil leaves