Blog - VEGarden

Recent VEGarden Posts

Boiling Seitan Cuts

Seitan

If you’re a fan of mock duck, you’ll enjoy this recipe. It’s simlar to seitan, which is incredibly easy to make. The canned stuff is imported from Taiwan – Companion brand. You can purchase it at a Food Co-op or other grocery store for $250-ish per 10 oz. can. You can also make a couple of pounds of seitan for about $5. Preparation time is less than 2 minutes – though you will want a food processor for this to work correctly. Seitan Combine in a food processor: 2 cups wheat gluten 2 Tbsp. nutritional yeast (optional) 2 tsp. salt (optional) spices and flavorings to taste. Cumin, coriander, garlic powder, onion powder, sage, rosemary, thyme, and chili powder are some ideas. Blend quickly until everything is...

Pita

Pita Bread

My standby potluck (and house party) recipes: pita bread and artichoke dip. I’ve had a hard time perfecting artisan bread, but pitas always seem to work for me! So, here’s what I know now about “what makes a pita a pita.” The first thing to understand about pita is why a flat pice of bread gets a pocket in the middle of it when you bake it. The answer: when you place moist dough in a very hot oven, the moisture in the dough turns to gas, pushes the dough out, and forms a pocket. Homemade Pita: 1 1/2 cup water 3 Tbsp. sunflower oil 3 3/4 cup flour 1 tsp. salt 1 1/2 Tbsp. yeast 1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar I should...

Vegan Artichoke Dip

Vegan Artichoke Dip

No soy! I promise! Original source: my old blog over at jessigurr.com. This is also printed in the Pomme de Terre Food Co-op’s 2005 cook book. This artichoke dip has always been a favorite of mine – though it is kind of expensive (raw almonds, pine nuts, artichokes)…. I usually make *a lot* of this when I do, and we always go through it quickly. Perfect with pita triangles or crackers. You can also bake this and serve it hot! Artichoke Dip Ingredients: 1 cup raw almonds or cashews, soaked 1/3 cup pine nuts 1/3 cup. water 4 Tbsp. lemon juice 2 cloves garlic 1/2 tsp. salt 2 cans artichoke hearts 1 cup spinach Directions: In a food processor, combine...

Homemade Soft Pretzels

Homemade Soft Pretzels

Originally posted on my blog over at jessigurr.com I love to make pretzels and haven’t made them for a while. Here’s the recipe: Homemade Pretzels 1 1/3 cups warm water 1 1/2 Tbsp. sugar 2 1/2 tsp. yeast 2 Tbsp. olive oil 4 cups flour (half and half white/whole wheat) 1 tsp. salt 2 cups water 1 Tbsp. baking soda Combine water, sugar, and yeast. Let rest ten minutes. Add oil, flour, salt, and knead for 10 minutes (or put in a bread machine). Divide and roll into long ropes; shape into a pretzels. Place on a baking sheet (preferably covered in parchment paper) until doubled in size. This will take 20 – 45 minutes depending on your temperature...

seitan

Recipes coming soon!

We’re getting seed catalogs in the mail every day now, so I expect we’ll start posting about our 2012 gardening plans soon. Chris mapped out his entire garden last weekend. I’m planning on taking a simpler approach this year – less variety, more of it. I’m also planning to plant about a quarter of my garden with sweet corn. It takes up a lot of space, but homegrown sweet corn is just so delightful. In the mean time, I have a lot of recipes on my old blog that I think I’ll import here. That’s the plan for early 2012, anyway… though that could have all just been my stomach writing. A nice uncooked seitan picture for your viewing pleasure:

Two (of three) piles. Lots of work ahead of us...

Compost Delivery in a Big Truck

This post would be great to show your six-year-old son. We received a few inches of snow today. It should all melt in a few days. Chris spent most of the day today outside shoveling dirt… I helped for a couple of hours, but I have a slight foot injury right now which prevented me from doing too much work. Following is a fun little gallery of pictures of our compost delivery. We received three truck loads (30 cubic yards total; 10 fit in one truck). Click on a picture to enlarge. I’ll try to snap some pictures of the snow tomorrow… when the sun turns back on.

compost

Puck and the Giant Mound of Dirt

In April, 2010 we ordered two truck loads of compost from a company in Elk River, Minnesota. They helped the garden quite a bit. This fall, Chris decided to order three more truck loads (30 yards) before it snows, to give our garden an extra jump start next spring. Puck checked it out. He approves. (This is him sitting in front of one truck load, 10 cubic yards). Chris is putting in a new garden section, so this should help with that. We also cut out quite a bit of sod and top soil to prepare our current garden – and I put in a bunch of concrete block raised beds, so this black dirt will be nice to fill...

Fall 2011 - Garden

Fall

Actually, winter is fast approaching with the first snowflakes falling in our area today. We ended up neglecting this blog (and the garden a bit too!) this year, as life quickly got in the way of leisure time. Chris and I were married in September – we had a pretty fun wedding with some of our homegrown sunflowers, great vegetarian food from Holy Land, good friends, a beautiful day for an outside wedding, and a mime to entertain our guests! I’ll put up some pictures of the day eventually. I figured the blog deserved a small garden update first, though. There are still Brussels sprouts out there, and Puck munches away on them whenever he gets the chance. We’re hoping...

Cherry Tomatoes

Tomato Season

In Minnesota, the tomatoes don’t really start to ripen until late July. This year, we had a lot of rain in July and I think that made the fruits take even longer to ripen. But once there are fresh tomatoes… nothing else in the world matters. Our tomatoes are overrun with early tomato blight once again this year. It is at the point now where there are very few green leaves left on the vines; they are nearly all brown. Fortunately the fruit hasn’t been affected, but I’ve done as much as I can to try and manage it this year. I have some ideas for next summer – and I’m hoping to spend some time learning more about blight...

Eggplant Lasagna Ingredients

Eggplant Lasagna

I added a tofu ricotta, cream sauce, and mushrooms. Topped with nutmeg and cinnamon. Chris wasn’t a huge fan, but I thought it was pretty good. Next time though… I think I’ll leave out the eggplant. Hah.

Niko and one of our volunteer sunflowers

Niko and the Double-headed Sunflower

This fairly large sunflower (it was actually a triple-headed sunflower) came up as a volunteer in my herb bed. I thought it was going to be a dwarf sunflower at first; I would guess that it reached at least 9 feet tall. The birds have been snacking on the seeds, and I wanted to save a couple to see if they produce similar plants next summer. Niko decided to investigate it after I brought it in. Our sunflowers all ended up blooming 30 days *ahead* of schedule this summer, most likely due to the incredible amount of rain we received in July, and also really hot temperatures in June and July. It looks like we’re going to have to buy...

July 28th - Eggplant, Peppers, Zucchini, and a few small tomatoes

Eggplant loves heat

Today’s pick: Our eggplants are loaded with beautiful white and purple fruits. The white eggplant is a variety from Monticello – apparently one that Jefferson grew, and has been passed down through the generations. They are good sized, long fruits – nearly 12″ long, and each plant has at least 8 fruits on it. What a great find! Temperatures have been consistently reaching the 90s this month, with a few streaks in the 100s. Pair that with 2″+ of rain each week, and you have the perfect weather for eggplants and peppers. For some reason, though, our tomatoes are not ripening. We’ve picked a few small cherry tomatoes, and today I picked a couple of nearly-ripe orange tomatoes (Amana Orange)....

Sunflowers

We only have a few opening up right now, because we planted most of our sunflowers to bloom in September. Sometimes I wish I lived in a warmer place, just so I could have these be in bloom all year long.

Black plastic laid in garden paths to keep crab grass from spreading

Crab Grass Everywhere!

Our yard and garden (and the entire neighborhood!) is being taken over by crab grass this summer. The stuff is awful – it spreads through the roots, goes to seed quickly, and takes over everything. Today I got sick of pulling it out of the rows in the garden, so I decided to smother it with black plastic instead. Take that, noxious weed! I hope this works, and then I’ll plant clover in the paths. Or maybe I’ll just put down patio blocks and be done with weeding between the beds. (That’s a tempting thought!)

Volunteer Sunflower

Coming soon…

My favorite flower 🙂 We didn’t start planting sunflowers until mid-June, so the ones that are opening now are all volunteers. This looks like a Sunny Smile (F1) dwarf sunflower, about 3 feet tall. It’s a hybrid variety so I think it’s kind of neat that it’s producing a large head similar to the flowers last year. Perhaps I will save seeds from it and see what we get in 2012!

Puck's Zucchini

It’s zucchini season…

Last night, we had 70 mile per hour winds (according to some storm reports from our county), which delivered half of a tree onto a section of my sunflowers and zucchini. The sunflowers, sadly, did not survive. Zucchini, on the other hand, is impossible to destroy. Puck managed to pick a bag full of it. Of course, I didn’t take a picture of the mess in the garden before I started cleaning it up. Maybe I’ll get a shot of the branches piled up later. Puck loves zucchini season, because we never get around to eating it all… and that means that he gets zucchini with his breakfast nearly every day!

Bumble bee on a flowering onion

More flowering onion pictures

I spend too much time every summer trying to get clear pictures of bumble bees. They love the onion flowers, so it’s a good way to attract them to the garden!

Grilling Ratatouille and Garlic Bread

Grilled Rattitoulie

My niece and nephew spent the night at our house last Thursday, and while they were here, we watched the Disney/Pixar movie “Ratatouille.” There was a two-year-old and a three-year-old, and Puck and two cats… And so I missed about half of the movie, but the dish has been in my mind. Coincidentally, I picked one ripe eggplant and a half dozen little courgettes from the garden the other day. Since it was fairly warm out, I didn’t want to start up the oven… So I decided to hang out on the deck and try making a “grilled rattatoulie.” Step 1: cut and grill zucchini, eggplants, onions, and peppers. Step 2: layer vegetables in a disposable pie tin. Add garlic,...

Herbs, small zucchinis, chard, broccoli, a white eggplant, green pepper, and daisies

4th of July

We spent much of the day out in the sun, and went for a nice bike ride. Beautiful weather this weekend, and rain possible tonight. I always hope for rain over night. The daisies are in full bloom! I also picked our first small zucchini, one eggplant and a pepper, a head of broccoli, a bunch of chard, rosemary, sage, thyme, and basil this afternoon. Tonight for dinner, I think we’re going to try making ratatouille in mini bread loaves… on the grill, with garlic bread. Curios to see how that works! Kallie says, “Happy 4th of July!”

Kohlrabi

Cole Crops

These pictures are from last week, but we still have a few heads out there that need to be picked today. I also planted romanesco italia broccoli, which is a neat looking variety – but so far no heads. AND no cauliflower yet – what’s up with that? Last year I think our cauliflower was ready before the broccoli. I put in a few kohlrabi too; that’s one of the least exciting vegetables (Puck likes it though!), but I have a box of seeds from 2007 that need to be used up, and found these this spring so figured I’d give it a try. Temperatures have been in the upper 90s the last three days, and we got 1/2 and...

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