Weeds into booze

There are worse ways to spend a sunny morning than picking dandelions out of the neighbors yard

Dandelion Cordial recipe

1 lemon

1 1/2 c water

3 cups of dandelion blossoms, white and yellow parts only (it is a long and tedious process)

1 c sugar

3 c vodka

1. Zest lemon and set aside.

2. Bring water and blossom bits to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 3 minutes.

3. Remove from heat and let stand 10 minutes

4. Strain blossoms from liquid, squeeze all the juice you can from the soggy pulpy mass of weeds you just cooked in your kitchen

5. Add sugar to broth and warm over low heat to dissolve sugar.

6. Remove from heat and add zest and vodka.

7. Let steep in the fridge for two weeks, shaking occasionally.

8. Serve cold.

Bubbling Away

My Guy has a home brewing hobby and i like to occasionally dabble in alcohol based recipes. My most recent experiment is dandelion cordial, which is basically a vodka infusion. Last year in blueberry season I made Officer's Jam from "Preserving Food without Canning or Freezing". Take in-season fruit, layer with sugar and covering with brandy as you go. Let it sit for at least 6 months (don't stir!!) then enjoy.

My Guy's brewing has become more elaborate as he learns more about the process. He has moved from kits to his own recipes to his own recipes made with whole grains that he crushes himself. Right now we have four fermenters percolating under our breakfast bar. Barley Wine, a balsam tip brown beer, dandelion wine and low-alcohol breakfast beer. The pine tip beer is a take on a historical recipe. Brewers would put all sorts of things in beer to give bitterness and body to beer, and pine tips were popular in colonial America. I have a sneaking suspicion it will taste the way pine sol smells, but I hope to be proven wrong. His beer is usually delicious!

Little signs of life

Detroit Red Beets, planted a little too close, so I will have an excuse to take thinnings for salads and roasted baby beets.

Picasso Shallots. Next year I will be smarter and divide the bulbs before planting them. I just put them in the ground as is, as though i was planting tulips. Learning, learning, learning...

A Mammoth Grey sunflower seedling and an Alderman shell pea. As the sunflowers grow to about 12' (TWELVE FEET!)tall, they will support the pea vines. They are planted all along our front deck to provide shade from the afternoon sun. Really I just wanted to plant giant flowers to amaze Miss Critterpants. The peas and the shade are happy coincidences.

Finally!

My Guy is adding a second level to the "Fortress"

Albino toad that blended very well into all the bluets in the yard

as of yet unnamed moth. If any of you know, I would love to hear. I've been calling them "Mint chocolate chip Moths" which is probably not it. (Update: it's a Comstock's Sallow moth. Thank you What's That Bug!)

bluets and an orchard bee

angry moth.

We finally have internet again after a long and horrible period that is culminating in finding a new provider.

Here are a few pictures taken in the last few weeks, plus two new backdated posts about spring and travel.

Black Flies

Black Flies are evil. That is all. Thank you.

In the dirt

I am currently unable to download pictures, so we must make do with words.

Spring has sprung and we have been outside as much as possible.

This past Friday was the Fedco Tree sale and I had ordered three things:

Chesnut Apple: apples the size of golfballs but sweet and delicious

Ashmead's Kernel: a multi-purpose apple for eating, keeping, and especially nice single varital hard cider. the apple are tart and complex in flavor but mellow in storage to be extra delicous in December. Disease resistant

Bluebell Grape: easy to grow and great for jelly and juice (i love love love grape juice)

We got to the sale and the Ashmead apple and the grape were both out of stock, so I had to go with my second choices for both. Esopus Spitzenburg apple, which is a delicious apple that Thomas Jefferson loved! it is also a good keeper and useful for hard cider, but is less hardy.

Valiant grape replaced the Bluebell. it is a purple grape good for juice and jelly, but can be suceptable to powdery mildew and black rot. However, the leaves can be used for dolmas, which is a big bonus in my mind.

Along with the fruit trees, I bought three pounds of Picasso shallots. They're pink tinged and mild. Fresh in salads or cooked into anything, or in our house, almost everything.

Fedco has a really interesting selection of books and it's always tempting to buy all of them, but I managed to show restraint and get only "The Backyard Orchardist" by Stella Otto.

Now off to the out-of-doors to plant the grape and feed the black flies!

Technical Difficulties

Our satellite internet is currently being irritated by the weather. Better posts soon!

Tastes like Spring

Fiddlehead ferns are delicious. This year I am eating as many as I can, freezing a couple pounds and trying my hand at pickling a few. The pickles are experimental and potentially terrible. I am treating them like their spring cousin, asparagus. Aren't they the most beautiful green things? Late night pickling can get a little surreal.

(Three weeks later, the pickles are delicious and very sour as opposed to salty. I have made a second batch for my friend's wedding)

The County (back to our regularly scheduled program)

Western Maine has a lot of agriculture, but Aroostook, Maine's Northernmost county, is full of farms and grows the best potatoes ever. I like traveling up there. The fields open up the horizon and you can see for miles. The snow capped mountain in the distance is Mt. Katahdin, the tallest mountain in Maine. It is also where the Appalachian Trail begins. Or where it ends, if you are coming up from Georgia.

travel, again

Just got back from a wonderful time at My Guy's Parent's house in The County. Tired.