I decided to take the pictures outside to really give you an idea of the beautiful irridenscent glow of the finished product. It looks deeply golden indoors, but with some light turns the most pale, fragile yellow. It really is a liquor made just for spring.
Drink it chilled, whether just refrigerated or nearly frozen, and you have a treat for after dinner that you'll truly enjoy. Particularly if you're a lover of all things lemon like me.
My self-declared "Crazy Pea Stalker" Irma, has decided to give it a try as well. Pending, that is, the results of my trials here first. She asked for an update, and here it is. So far, so good. Definitive... huh? There's not to much to say tell you the truth. The peas are growing great, with no signs of stress or crowding so far.
The weather is still off again on again hot and cold, as is the norm here this time of year, and they've been covered more than once with snow and endured some cold nights (29-34ish. deg F) Because of that, and as in years past, they are still growing a bit slowly, but I've seen nothing that makes me think that they aren't going to do just fine. In fact, they'll probably take off here as soon as the temperatures stay consistently warmer.
This bed has a mix of different cold weather stuff. The big greens in the middle are Bok choi that I'll be using in one of my "new" Stone Crocks to make some kimchi. (Still looking for a good recipe by the way...Anyone?...Anyone?) The big greens on the back right are the earlier, first plantings of broccoli and in front of it are a bunch of second and third plantings of it. To the left of the Bok Choi are some regular cabbage starts that I hope to make some of the awesome, super easy sauerkraut that I grew to love last year.
This bed is another mix of cold weather stuff. From furthest away to closest I have a few more broccoli starts, then a few rows of kale and a couple of more rows of cabbage.
Here's another of the raised beds, this one full of kohlrabi. It's an interesting vegetable that we first grew last year and all really enjoyed eating. I also have these planted in another area of the garden that isn't shown here. Also not shown are 6 rows of carrots (two plantings), Swiss chard, lettuce, Brussels sprouts, 8 rows of potatoes, 70 some onions and a couple of hundred sugar snap peas.
Remember these? I'm telling you they are the best damn lemons I've ever had! Every time I've cut them, or used them for anything I am over whelmed with the sheer lemoneyness (is that a word? It is now!) of them.
I used a regular potato peeler to peel the rind off the lemons into thin but wide strips of the zest from 10 lemons.
I added all the lemon zest peels into a large bowl and poured a full new 750 ml bottle into the bowl on top of them. Next I used a potato masher to give the peels a light pressing, not enough to crush them just enough to make me feel like I did a little work you know?
That's it, just mix it in a large bowl and let it sit at least overnight. Ours sat nearly 30 hrs; no problem with that.
After letting it sit, we turned it out into a bowl that was filled with 20 cups of warm water. I personally can't see why it had to be 20 cups, but I think it has to do with the potential uses for the water later.
At this point what we needed to do was to knead the dough like it was a regular bread dough, but do it under water. The reason we're doing this is to "wash" the starches from it. You can see the milky color of the water. Those are the starches separating from the gluten in the dough mixture.
After rinsing the mixture for about 3-5 minutes, we put it into a colander to further rinse under warm water until the water ran clear. What we were left with was a strangely elastic and web like mass that was made up of the pure wheat gluten.
After letting it sit for a few minutes, we pressed it out (not rolled, but pressed) onto a cutting board where it strangely did not stick at all. To do this we had to press it out slowly and give it a minute or two to settle and then press it out further.
Next we cut the wheat gluten into strips. And here is where we differed from the recipe that we had.
We decided to follow the process of seitan rather than the purely wheat gluten recipe. What we did was to boil the seitan in a mixture of water, broth, soy sauce and seasonings. Note: start with cold liquid and bring to a low heat and cook partially covered for at least 1 hr.
This is the finished seitan. Cooked, seasoned and ready to use in any kind of dish where you might use something like beef chunks or chicken strips.
I was dying to give it a try so I decided to give it a shot sauteed with some onions and egg for a nice omelet. The texture was really nice. Not chewy at all, and not too soft either. I would like to have had the seitan have a bit more flavor to begin with as it was still just a bit "wheaty" but I think if it is marinaded in some Worcestershire or soy before a slow saute, it would be even better.
This was one of those projects that's been in the works for a long time. As I said before, we actually planned for this from the time we build our home. I had the plumbing put in at build time and have "back-burnered" it for a long time. (Over five years!!) 
This is the back porch...or in this case the hardening shelves. On the top shelf to the left is a variety of lettuces and some Swiss chard. Top Right has Broccoli and Kale and the bottom shelf is all kohlrabi, cabbage and kale as well. These are ones that I started in the basement a few weeks ago and are all cold weather crops. I've already gotten a second batch started right in the beds too, but these will mature earlier and will be the first to harvest. Oh how I look forward to it!!
It's plenty deep, about four feet in fact, and nearly 8 feet long.
I started with a basic support frame for the counter. I have a tendency to OVER build things. I did manage to hold myself back on this one though and I'm happy with it over all.
Once I got that framed out, I could set the counter top and cut a whole for the sink. I was actually able to get a shelf in the middle of the base, but I didn't get a pic of it.
Last year I laid seed out on trays and covered with paper towels that were soaked and rung out, and then sprayed them regularly to get them to germinate. This year I tried this method and loved it. I just folded a soaked p-towel in half and laid the seed out on it, then folded into a narrow quarter size and put it in a zip-lock.
These Kohlrabi seeds popped in two days. So, as I said, this was a good weekend for good weather because these couldn't wait. I do still have my first planting of Kohlrabi in the basement in cell packs. These will go out soon too and will be the first harvested. here's a good look at the seeds after two days. Very nearly 100% germination rate and these are seeds that were packed for 2008. Local heirloom seed from Mountain Valley seed company.
SO then... out to the garden why don't we. I got those seeds planted, and also had second germination of broccoli and cabbages to plant. Those will be going under the hoop house with the couple of cell pack bok choy and broccoli that I picked up a couple of weeks ago. (Spring fever...I can't resist it!!) I added another twelve plantings of germinated broccoli seed and 12 of head cabbage. By the time the head cabbage gets up to size that bok choy will already be Kim chee in the pantry so it won't be in the way. (looking for good kim chee recipes btw in case anyone has one.)
I thought I'd give you guys a look at my peas too. There was some interest in the dense planting that I'm going for this year so I guessed an update was in order before they got so big that you couldn't make out the planting spacing. Above is an over view of the whole bed. As you can see, it's pretty dense. I planted them approximately 2.5 to 3 inches apart in the row and rows spaced about the same distance apart. There are, believe it or not, approximately 300 (Corrected post. 300 hundred per bed x 2 beds.) seeds planted in this bed. And I have two of them.
And here they are...my little soldiers all in a row. So far so good. This is sort of a double down, all or nothing sort of gardening. Last year we really loved the peas that we got, but from the 30 some odd plants that we had, there weren't nearly enough for us. I need to find a way to maximize yield to space and this is my best bet. worst case scenario I'll have good rich soil after they're out with all that nitrogen fixing that they do. I'll keep you posted.
If you've been reading this blog for long you've probably heard me talk about the Freedom Gardeners web site. It is, to me, the best social network out there for the urban farming, food producing, organic homesteading type of people. Generally, that's all of us!
. You can find me on there as CornerGardener.