This last week marked the end of the summer garden. So long, tomatoes, eggplant, squash and cucumber:

The empty garden (for now)

The only plants left are the melon vines and after I picked the (first)/last one today…

Honeydew

….those vines will be gone as well.  However, in nature nothing really ends.  For central Texas this means that as soon as the first batch of summer crops comes up the next batch begins to go in.

Jonathan planting pumpkins and corn.

Here, in Texas, we also have the option of putting in another round of tomatoes, eggplants and squash but because of the imminent arrival of a baby and the energy that setting in a new garden takes…well. We’ll opt out of that this year. However, the pumpkins should be ripe around Halloween and definitely ready for making into pies around Thanksgiving. I might also venture out to get some winter squash seeds.

However, the business of the spring and summer has drawn quietly to a close. It’s for the best, really.  I am hugely pregnant–38 weeks and 5 days. It’s Old Wive’s Tale time, so last night I made eggplant parmesan:

Scalini's recipe

They say it’s the basil and oregano that helps labor along, but I think it’s the standing in the kichen for 4 hours making it that really gets things moving.

It’s the perfect weekend to try OWT’s though: a full moon, some eggplant parm, maybe some labor cookies…Plus I hear some thunder outside.

Possibly?

We’ll see.

By the time Claire is born and our little family has had a month to greet each other, it’ll be time to start planting the garden for cool weather crops like carrots, spinach, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and radishes.

Therefore, the title applies. The beginning in the end.

Borage

As in content and serene,  not down in the dumps

It’s been another spell of busyness, but most of it the rote, everyday kind that just isn’t that interesting to blog about. Laundry and folding clothes, mopping and sweeping, watering and pruning, cooking and washing dishes, etc.

As I meandered about the house collecting laundry I was thinking about my life in general and how it’s pretty routine. I do all of the chores listed above, cook dinner, spend time with my husband and hang out with friends. I’m not a high powered career woman. Sometimes I feel a little lost. But mostly I’m content. I’m trying to savor that feeling because I know the serenity will broken in about 10 weeks.

However, as I was mopping and thinking about all of the LIFE-TIME GOALS I AM NOT ACCOMPLISHING AT THIS VERY MOMENT I realized that I was actually pretty happy mopping. I liked the smell of the almond polish. I liked pausing for a moment to watch Felix sleep on a warm windowsill. I liked to see the dust motes suspended in the sunshine.  And I realized that, actually, despite what my Type-A Bitch in the back of my head says (also the area where guilt, ego, narcissism, judgment and shame yell from)…I was…I am…happy. Content. Serene.

I think that feeling made it’s way into our baby’s nursery theme. In addition to rote chores Jonathan and I painted the nursery this weekend!

My favorite wall (Behr's Tropical Tide)

Tropical Tide adjacent to Fountain Spout

Let's just say it like it is...shutter doors are a pain in the ass to paint!

Getting good pictures in that little room is difficult…however…I love the colors. They remind me of the brilliant blues of the Caribbean and the Pacific. And when I remember those vacations I also feel peaceful, content and serene. Essential for the first weeks of newborn care, I’m told…

The rest of the “colors” are: espresso finish wood (crib, dresser, glider), off white/cream drapes/linens and then jewel tones for accent pieces (emerald, eggplant, crimson, etc).  I have a lot of decorative stuff from a trip I took to Turkey several years ago–mainly pillows and wall art–that we’ll be using. I might commission my dad (he’s a watercolorist) for a few pieces as well.

In other news, the garden is producing! We ate our first squash a few nights ago and in another few days should have a heee-uge batch of squash coming in. Tomatoes are a bit more difficult—I’m having some trouble with my San Marzanos. I’m also kind of word that I won’t get enough cucumbers to pickle, which will be sad.

Okay. I have more happiness chores to accomplish today (including Lemon Pound Cake!). Hope this Monday finds you all feelin’ blue as well!

Melon Row: Sugar Babies, Cantaloupe, Honeydew, Sakata Sweet

Tomatoes:

San Marzano (4)

Viva Italia (1)

Roma (1)

Cherokee Purple (2)

Moneymaker (1)

Green Zebra (1)

Black Cherry (1)

Yellow Pear (1)

Squash:

Cash flow (1)

Zucchini (2)

Yellow Crookneck (1)

Peppers:

Purple Beauty (1)

California Wonder (1)

Jalapeno (1)

Melon:

Sarah’s Choice Cantaloupe (1)

Sugar Baby Watermelon (4)

Sakata Sweet (1)

Earlidew (1)

Eggplant:

Black Beauty (2)

Lettuce:

Mixes of looseleaf: red sails, freckled romaine, french crisp, etc.

Radishes:

Cherry Bell

Easter Egg

Beets:

Baby Ball

Cucumbers

Home Pickle (1)

Fanfare (2)

Endeavor (2)

Straight Eight (1)

Herbs

Borage

Basil, Sweet (3)

Basil, Holy (1)

Basil, African Blue (2)

Lavender, Provence (3)

Lavender, Spanish (2)

Hyssop

Lemon Verbena

Lemon Balm

Pineapple Sage

Thyme, English

Thyme, Green Lime

Chamomile, Roman

Rosemary, Arp

Oregano, Greek

Echinacea (Coneflower)

Bee Balm

Mexican Mint Marigold (Texas Tarragon)

Corn (planting this week)

Early Sweet, Casino

MoneyMaker tomato: large, drought and heat tolerant

Cherokee Purple: heat tolerant, purple-red in color, beefsteak in variety, amazing flavor

Homemade pickle cucumber: great for pickles (obviously)!

Purple Beauty Pepper: meaty, thick walls and unusual because it starts out purple instead of turning from green to purple

Blech.

Too much salt. A rotten ingredient. Bad technique.

Or perhaps you picked a challenging recipe in hopes of upping your culinary skills and the results weren’t quiet what you were hoping. Julia Child, you are not. Yet.

Yesterday I wanted to make Italian Buttercream a.k.a. The Real Deal Frosting. Of course, there are equally delicious buttercreams—French, Swiss and American, however I’ve never even tried them. Each uses eggs, and in the case of the Italian, meringue, which is then drizzled with a sugar syrup and beaten with butter.

Sigh.

Eggs? Sugar? Butter? Heaven? Possibly.

Alas, it was not to be.

My first try turned into sugar-egg soup. My second try flopped as well. For my third? I reverted to Easy Decorator Buttercream. Sigh. My dreams of perfecting the light, buttery goodness were dashed.

So, I came up with some tips for dealing either with a Culinary Unicorn (for me—anything that involves cooking sugar) or a challenging recipe.

Tips for Preventing and Overcoming Kitchen Failure:

1. I know it sounds simple but read the recipe thoroughly. Look up any techniques you might be unsure of in other cookbooks or on YouTube. YouTube has a wealth of culinary videos.  Make sure you have all the equipment and ingredients.

2. Have a back up plan. Seriously. I knew that the prognosis for the buttercream wasn’t high, so I picked up the ingredients for an easy frosting. Giving yourself an out reduces stress.

3. If you’re cooking for a dinner party try only one difficult recipe. If it’s an hors d’oeuvres make the others simple: olives, cheese, bread, tapenades. If it’s the main course make the sides easy. A showstopper dessert (like Opera Cake…oh my…) is best displayed at the end of an easy, elegant meal. I like the Barefoot Contessa’s philosophy of entertaining the best: when you’re giving a party you should have fun, too.

4. Take a break. Get out of the kitchen. Believe me—some of my most…uhm, volatile…emotional breakdowns have happened in the kitchen. Poor husband—he is often the subject of my wrath for no other reason than being there to witness the debacle.

5. Along with #4, try to find the humor in the situation. Or if that’s impossible, 3rd Rock From the Sun or XKCD usually work for me.

I’m not saying it’s easy, especially for those of us that love to cook and experiment in the kitchen, and more so, love to share our creations with others.  Take it philosophically. Cooking takes practice, and the willingness to practice and fail are what distinguishes adequate cooks from good ones.  Technique takes time to learn.

So keep trying, keep cooking or baking or confection making.

And have pizza delivery on dial.

Fail-Safe Frosting: Beat 1.5 c. of shortening and .5 c. of butter until fluffy. Add, to taste, up to 8 cups powdered sugar. Add up to 6 oz of whipping cream, 1 tsp. salt, and 1 tsp vanilla and beat until desired consistency and taste.

Kitten approved!

I am convinced that accomplishment + a dollop of laziness = perfect weekends.  It’s also a seasonally adjusted formula, whereby October through February those weekends must include either roaring fires, hot chocolate or stew, and then March through September they must include sno-cones, frozen custard or a swimming pool.

Our formula:

Jonathan (Laziness = Prison Break, Sopranos) + Meagan (Laziness = I is for Innocent) + Jonathan (Accomplishment = frisbee, mowing our huge ass lawn, building compost pile) + Meagan (Accomplishment = making an awesome Sunday breakfast,  painting, staking tomatoes, housework) + FROZEN CUSTARD = Perfect Weekend.

Biscuits? Who said biscuits? I want biscuits...

This weekend I promised Jonathan I would make biscuits and gravy.

I have never made biscuits and gravy.

I know. It’s shocking. I grew up in a good Southern family, I promise. I have eaten biscuits and gravy. I have watched my mom make biscuits and gravy. I, however, have never made biscuits and gravy.

To say I felt intimidated is an understatement. Think of that act I had to follow: generations of Southern cooks, Paula Deen, my mom and my grandmother.

However, it was time to claim my heritage.  I busted out the cast iron, the buttermilk, the bacon, the eggs, the dark coffee and the butter.  I stood in the kitchen and said a prayer to the Southern women watching over me and began.

It actually wasn’t that hard, though, to get it all hot at once I had no time to take pictures. I rolled out the biscuits, arranged them in the cast iron and set it in the oven. Jonathan manned the coffee as I tried to time the eggs and bacon so that neither became cold while I made the gravy.

And yes, I did use the bacon grease for the cream gravy. The result?

Eggs, biscuits, bacon cream gravy, bacon and dark roast coffee with cream

Heaven. Pure Texas/Southern bliss. Jonathan and I agreed that the most surprising thing was that it actually didn’t feel heavy in the stomach. The ingredients were fresh and mostly organic. I light-handed the bacon grease with the gravy. The result was satisfying and hearty, to be sure, but both of us were ready to work afterwords instead of laying comatose.

—

How I made the cream gravy:

I cooked the amount of bacon that we wanted, which was a total of five strips. After I removed them from the pan I poured all of the grease into a glass jar and let the pan cool for a minute. I probably used a tablespoon of the grease and then added two tablespoons of flour. Stirring constantly I made a quick roux—paste with fat and flour—and then began adding milk in a constant stream. This is a two handed project—one hand streaming the milk, the other hand constantly whisking.

For the two of us, with some to spare, I probably used 1.5 cups of milk. The amount will depend on preference (of saltiness, of meat flavor, of viscosity, etc.)

After I had the amount of milk I wanted I added salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste. I continued cooking over low until the gravy thickened.

—

We ate until full and then worked in the garden for hours. Later in the afternoon I made green smoothies to balance our our animal-product intake. A little bit of the old South and a little bit of health-nut Austin.

Like sun + water + soil + seed =

Cherokee Purple

Cash Flow Squash

Flour + water + sugar + yeast =

Pizza Dough + baby bump. We don't need to go into the equation for baby bump.

Veggie Pizza!

Or, even, flour + butter + sugar + egg + chocolate =

It could equal drool. Or happiness. Or both.

Here are two equations that don’t work:

Feline + tree =

God? No. Just cat up a tree, chased down with a power hose.

Feline + birds out of reach =

Stuck cat.

Who knew that math works?

You see, I love being home on Friday nights. Thursday night is for dinner with friends (and perhaps The Office and 30 Rock). Saturday night is for dates with my dashing young man. Friday nights though? I love to be home. I love to be home and to be reading and baking. Somewhere in time I forgot those three things, but last night, as Jonathan chilled out to a movie I decided to bake cinnamon rolls. Plus, I had a murder mystery to read while the dough rose: One for the Money by Janet Evanovich.

Flour, sugar, eggs, yeast, milk.

It rose for an hour while I read about Stephanie Plum solving murders in New Jersey

Gooey. Cinnamony. Warm. Delicious.

Enjoyed this morning with our new french press coffee maker...Perfect!

I actually baked them yesterday and we had one each…okay, I had two…for a snack before bed. This morning I reheated them in the oven to enjoy with our coffee.

This process reminded me that I love ritual and traditions. I love to bake on Friday nights, and read and hang out. I also love something homemade and delicious to enjoy on Saturday morning, whether that be cinnamon rolls or pancakes. Saturday morning is a time to enjoy and let the weekend unfurl before you.

Because before you know it you have to be cleaning out the nursery, a.k.a. the storage closet. Alas. Too bad Saturday mornings can’t last all day.

I leave you with the Holy Basil that is blooming in the garden:

Ocimum tenuiflorum

Snow garden

Into this:

April garden, during a soaking rain

I took that picture yesterday during the first of what is supposed to be three days of gentle, soaking rains. The skies have been lavender-grey and my floors are moist with perspiration. The house is cool. The garden is at least thirty shades of green, from the yellow-green of new lettuce to the emerald green of too-tall grass. Every leaf sags under the weight of rain drops.

I can’t say that I mind. The house is cool, even if the floors are sticky, and though the sun feels nice last weekend I received my first scorching in years. For some reason I thought I, like a tomato, would bloom under hours of constant Texas spring sun. Instead I turned into one. So the rain, the cool and the cloudy skies are a welcome relief.

Expect more posts about the garden soon. It’s exploding with blooms and growing faster than I thought possible. It seems everyday another plant has put on buds or leans under the weight of it’s new foliage.

I’ll leave with that thought now, as Jonathan just got home (early!) from work. I’ll be back soon to talk about some new directions with the blog.

The results?

It worked! I didn’t do everything at the exact time I had planned, but each day I accomplished all of the tasks that I had set forth. Also, it has helped me put exercise back on my daily/4x a week schedule, instead of just ‘when I feel like it’.

Success! Feels good.

However…after a weekend of not doing it…well…I need it again. I’d like to post an image of the calender—I use ICal—does anyone know how this can be imported onto the blog? Thanks.

In lieu of the image, I’ll just list what I need to get done from today until Thursday:

Today:

• Meal plan
• Grocery Shop
• Exercise
• De-clutter living room, kitchenette
• Pot some plants, plant some seeds
• Build compost pile

Wednesday:

• Exercise
• Finish unpacking, organizing the office (yay yoga space!)
• Finish our bedroom
• Work on garden beds

Thursday:

• Exercise
• Pack snacks
• Babysit Zoe
• Start making preliminary registry for baby (baby stuff is confusing!)
• Meal plan for weekend
• Grocery shop for weekend

There you have it! The tasks of the next three days. Wish me luck!

So…what to do? While I don’t have many solutions for leftovers except to eat them or not make as much (I am practicing the latter…I’m coming upon a ‘make only 3 servings’ rule), I do have two solutions to get rid of your vegetable waste.

1. Compost

Veggie scraps in a 5 gallon bucket

Ah…compost.  Seeing Home Depot or other plant nurseries stacked high with sacks of compost can lead to the impression that it’s “just dirt”, but compost, my friends, can be made. And it’s not just dirt—no sirree. It’s black gold for the gardener.

Compost is what happens in nature when plant matter falls to the ground, decays and leaves a black, crumbly layer behind called humus. Humus provides nutrients for the surrounding plants and the cycle continues through each season, year after year.

Gardeners, large and small, apartment and house, can replicate this cycle with their own yard trimmings, raked leaves, earthworms and kitchen scraps. You can buy small scale (and large scale) composters or you can make your own.  Making your own with chicken wire is cheap—we just purchased 24 ft of chicken wire for $15 dollars—especially considering that some of the prefabricated ones run upwards of $100. The most important considerations in making a compost pile are: that it has plenty of oxygen,  you’ll be able to access it easily and that it doesn’t get too dry or too wet (no standing puddles, for instance).

To make compost you just collect your kitchen scraps (raw plant matter, skins, eggshells, coffee grounds and tea leaves; not meat, fats or cooked food) and take them out to the compost pile. In the pile you want to have roughly 70% brown matter (leaves, yard trimmings, brown paper bags, ash, cotton, linen, cardboard) and 30% green matter (kitchen scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, grass, manure).

You can also check out worm composting, especially for you apartment dwellers, but as I don’t have experience with that I won’t write about it (yet!).

…Really, that’s all there is to composting. To speed up the process you can turn the pile every day or so, pour on wine/molasses/natural cola or cover it with a tarp to let it “cook”.  In 3-4 months you’ll begin to see your compost!

2. Vegetable Broth

Pretty much everything in the fridge went into this pot...

So. Yesterday I went to the store to buy ingredients for a soup I was making for our Monday night group. I returned home and unpacked my groceries to find out—crap!—that I forgot the vegetable broth. Only the most important ingredient in the soup.

Laziness prevented me from going back to the store, but necessity had me looking for alternatives. I peered into our fridge and voilà! I had tons of cut up crudités from the weekend before (moving snacks) that were on their way south. Not rotted, mind, but just…you know, flimsy. More, I had some waning fresh herbs (thyme and bay), peppercorns, lemons and plenty of garlic and onions.

Make broth. So I threw it in the pot—skins and all—added salt and let it simmer for a few hours while I did other stuff.  Every once in a while I stopped by to taste, add salt or take out a flavor I didn’t like (celery became overwhelming—I put in a ton).  After two hours of simmering I strained the broth and done!

It worked!

Here’s what I would use in broth:

Carrots, onions, garlic, parsnips, celery, tomatoes, thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, salt, mushrooms (for richness), fennel, leeks, cauliflower…

The best part is that it’s freezable. Even if you’re not in a bind, make the broth when you notice your vegetables going downhill and freeze it for later use.

It’s important to note that you shouldn’t use rotted or gummy vegetables, as boiling concentrates flavor and you can taste it. But when you have a full fridge of veggies you know you’re not going to get to—well, broth is a pretty logical choice!

Plus, you save money. Instead of $3 to $4 dollars for a quart I probably spent…$1/quart…and that’s with organic vegetables.

There you have it! Two ways to reduce waste and save money.