Garden of Eatin' :: Monthly Archive

Archive | July, 2009

Cape Meares

by Amy on July 29, 2009 in Life in Oregon

In all our trips to the coast, we always went straight over from Salem to Lincoln City, then south. With 4 very loud hyper kids in tow, you go with what you know, know what I mean? Just as we got about 6 miles outside Lincoln City today, traffic slowed to a stop, maxing out at 5mph – it took us 30 minutes to go a little over a mile. We saw the turn off to go North and went for it.

Much whining from the kids “are we there yet?” and we found ourselves at Cape Meares, surrounded by gorgeous trees and thick fog.

View Larger Map

We went and saw the lighthouse (already closed, so just the outside)….

and the “Octopus Tree”…

Then came back and ate a quick dinner (already packed in the cooler) while watching the fog roll over the trees

Then drove down to Lincoln City, but it had gotten cloudy, windy and very cool (completely opposite what the weather report said of course) so we headed back and visited the park in Van Duzen area that the kids love and came home.

This was our welcome home, just outside Monmouth

I do love Oregon.

And I have more cherry tomatoes and cucumbers ripe!

Excuse me while I move to Antarctica

by Amy on July 27, 2009 in Life in Oregon

This is what I get for picking on Double Danger and their weather in Texas.

I’m sorry, I’ll be good from now on! Just give us back our PNW weather please, pretty please??

It’s 75 outside, 84 inside. 4 fans running. I cannot sleep. Yes, I think we’ll dust off that a/c window unit tomorrow.

I hope everyone else is faring better then I am LOL!

The one where I complain about the weather again

by Amy on July 26, 2009 in Life in Oregon, The Growing Garden

Makes me wonder if the weather dudes don’t read my blog and decide to crank it up a notch cause the previous highs weren’t high enough!

Right now, I’d much prefer freezing cold.

Yes, I’m fighting a migraine from it! Fun, fun.

I’m watering at night so the plants get a chance to use the water, watering in this kind of heat will evaporate faster. All we have left are some russets, green beans, onions, cucumbers and tomatoes, but they’re doing pretty well considering the abusive mistreatment this weather (*cough*me*cough*) is putting them through.

Deviating from normal

by Amy on July 24, 2009 in Life in Oregon

I don’t get out nearly as much as I should, but we bought a 1 year state parks pass a couple months ago and haven’t used it once. Considering I only need to use it once a month to get my money out of it, I’m trying to do that (trying for every 2 weeks or better actually). One of our closest ones is Silver Falls State Park, we’ve been there many times and the kids love it (3 year old has been asking for a week to go). We went and saw the falls and started on a hike. Not very far into it, my 5 year old got his first ever blister (he insisted on wearing his Iron Man shoes instead of his good walking ones, hopefully lesson learned) and we managed to forget the first aid kit (first time ever and we needed it) so we had to head home instead of going to the swimming hole and playground, but it wasn’t a bad couple hours away from work. I got good enough photos that I could mess around with them in Photoshop anyway!

It’s cloudy…

by Amy on July 23, 2009 in The Growing Garden

…and cool. Now if only I could wake up and get motivated.

Nah.

My poor garden.

In case you live under a rock

by Amy on July 21, 2009 in Off Topic

…or are just too busy, the International Space Station will be visible for the next few nights to the naked eye.

Visit this site and find out where and when to look!

If only I could keep flowers alive

by Amy on July 20, 2009 in Tools, Products & How To

I found this cute planter while searching for organizing supplies for a post on my organizing blog, that would look nice on my deck and allow portability in a move. And kind of matches the two hanging planters that I used last year, but I killed the flowers I had in it (I haven’t bothered hanging them in the new house). I can’t keep anything alive that doesn’t provide us with food. And ok, that’s becoming questionable too. I still don’t know why all the red taters died while all the russets flourished. Sigh.

The garden, Squidoo, random

by Amy on July 17, 2009 in Off Topic, The Growing Garden

I’m the queen of craptastic titles, I know.

It’s been hot, not as hot as say, Double Danger (they have a whole “hot as hell” category, you could not pay me enough to live in Texas), but it’s getting 90-95F with high humidity and no a/c, and if you’ve missed my whining on Twitter, you should know that means it’s been 86-87F inside my house. So there’s the whole heat induced migraine going on and I have an a/c in my garage and I’m really temped to say screw being able to pay the power bill and install the damn thing. To add insult to injury, it was 60 for most of last week and just awesome. The garden isn’t so fond of this heat either, but I have managed to water enough to keep it all from dying, what I haven’t already killed anyway. Lots of green tomatoes, I hope to see some red soon. We’re munching on cucumbers, there’s not enough pickling kind to pickle, so they’re snack fodder, and good.

I’ve become obsessed with Squidoo (see my list over to the right?) and really, you should too. If you know anything about anything, make a lens (what they call a page) about it. These pages are supposed to be constant works in progress, often updated and added to, so you don’t have to spend a ton of time making your first few. Make ‘em, publish ‘em and come back to ‘em later to add on. You might just make a few bucks for yourself or charity (and you can pick the charity). Go, make one! I want to see it, so come back and leave a comment!

I’ve been very bad about keeping up in the garden blog world. I’m afraid I’m a bit over extended these days and just starting to get each thing I’m working on fit into it’s own niche so I’m not running around like a crazed maniac on crack. I’ve been busy with work, both doing web design and now professional organizing, plus schooling my monsters, err kids, and the garden of course, and a million other things. Being self employed is so awesome in many ways, but the hours for the income sucks butt to start. It’ll be worth it though. But I still need to get back to the garden blog rounds, I miss reading about what’s going on with everyone.

Wall Street Journal on the Salem Chicken issue

by Amy on July 15, 2009 in Off Topic

Here’s the link!

It’s written kind of cheesy, but I’m glad it’s published.

“It’s silliness,” says Terri Frohnmayer, a commercial real-estate broker who is co-chairwoman of one of Salem’s 19 neighborhood associations and lives outside town next to a farm that has chickens. “Eggs aren’t even that expensive anyway. What’s next? Goats? Llamas?” Her advice to hen-loving neighbors: “Get a farm.”

Ignorant much?

How should my fall garden grow?

by Amy on July 13, 2009 in Plans & Getting Going

What do you want to see my bust my fool neck trying to keep alive this fall? To make it extra challenging, nothing from the Cruciferous family (migraine city for me!) – I know they’re great for fall and winter crops too, sorry!

Cruciferous (krew-SIH-fer-uhs) is the scientific name for a group of plants whose four petal flowers resemble a cross. These vegetables are a part of the cabbage family and include arugula, bok choy, broccoli, broccoli sprouts, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, Swiss chard, collards, kale, kohlrabi, mustard greens, radishes, rutabaga, turnips, turnip greens and watercress. (source)

Enchiladas

by Amy on July 10, 2009 in Recipes

This was an instant hit. My recipe differs from almost all of the ones on the net because I can’t eat “Cream of” soups (all have MSG) or sour cream, but the family is able to add sour cream to their own servings. I use flour tortillas because one, I prefer the flavor and 2, we have a 3 year old with a corn allergy who LOVES to eat! Start this the morning of!

Amy’s Enchiladas

1 recipe Meat Filling, below
Flour (or corn) tortillas
Oil and fry pan big enough to fit 1 tortilla at a time
La Victoria Enchilada Sauce Green 28 oz
Shredded cheese
Olives

Once the meat is prepped, heat enough oil in the fry pan to make it 1/4-1/2″ deep. Pour half the sauce in a pie plate. Lightly fry each tortilla just until it’s limp, then dredge through the sauce. Place tortilla in the final pan, and add meat filling (around 1/2-3/4 cup, spread from one side to the other), then lightly roll up. Repeat. Pack as many as you can into the pan, then cover with the rest of the sauce, spreading it as evenly as possible. Cover with olives, then cheese. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

To get an idea of amounts, to serve 6, we used a little over half the meat filling recipe, around 10 tortillas, a 28oz can of sauce and 2 small cans of olives, plus a ton of cheese.

Meat filling

1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon crumbled dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 lbs pork roast or meat marked for “carnitas”
2 bay leaves
3 cups chicken broth

Place bay leaves in large pot, top with pork then sprinkle the spices evenly over the meat. Carefully so the spices stay in place, pour the broth into the pan (around the edges, in between chunks of meat). Cover, cook on lowest heat for 8 hours. After 4 hours, turn (ignore otherwise). Remove meat from juice and use 2 forks to pull/shred the meat. Juice can be added back in, a little at a time, if the meat seems dry (haven’t had to do that myself). Can be used for any dish calling for pulled pork, makes GREAT BBQ pork sandwiches.

No follow?

by Amy on July 6, 2009 in Blog

I managed to forget to disable nofollow on this blog. A note on the bottom of Tessa’s post pages reminded me! It’s disabled now, search engines like Google will follow the links you provide! Garden of Eatin’ has a decent page rank for a personal blog (3 right now) so search engines look favorably on links from this site, including yours! Just a little link love for my readers =)

What is nofollow and why does it suck?