Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: March, Week 14

This week's meal consists of some traditional Southern comfort foods.  I'm a transplanted (damn) Yankee but tasty comfort is universal on a cold damp day.

Take two plump sweet potatoes, white or orange, scrub well and set aside.

Cooking Floyd: Outside the Jar

Nearly Instant Cherry Pie

Gardening Floyd: "...The Season's Spinning 'Round Again,...

...The Years Keep Rollin' By."

Michael planted 70 leek seeds back on February 12th.  I planted my first seeds today for transplanting next month into the early spring garden.
I planted:
40 "Packman" broccoli
24 "Stonehead" cabbage
24 "Wawa Tsai" Chinese cabbage
24 "Amazing" cauliflower

The salad tubs are gone from the winter salad shelf and it's been transformed back into seed starting mode.  Learn how to set up your own shelf here.

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Feb. Week 13

Last week Michael planted a tubful of leek seeds and it's time to get the seeds started for our early cole crops.  We try to get those crops, along with peas, onions, spinach, and other early spring greens and veg, into the ground between March 15th and 30th.  Planting the seeds indoors now signals to me that we're sliding down the backside of winter.  We've got a few cellared vegetables left but not much.  We're pretty good for frozen and canned stuff.  But for fresh green stuff I'm now making more frequent trips to Green's Garage where I can find organic if not strictly local stuff and local greenhouse grown things although that's beginning to look pretty rough as well.  So between my stash and theirs, this week's entry (entree) in the DDC is based on the Fall Vegetable Tart from The Roasted Vegetable by Andrea Chesman.

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Feb. Week 12

Valentine's Day Dinner Continued

We got to eat Valentine's Day Dinner dessert first with last week's DDC Sweets theme challenge.  While this week is an unthemed challenge, it's main DDC meal fell on Valentine's Day for us.  We've had several meals featuring venison this winter but I've been saving the backstraps for special occasions and V-Day is special.

Gardening Floyd: 4th Annual Floyd County Seed Swap Scheduled

The fourth annual Floyd County Seed Swap sponsored by Miracle Farm will be held at the Floyd Country Store on Saturday, February 18 from 10 am to 11:30 am.  This is a great way to meet local gardeners of all ages and experience levels and swap gardening stories and advice as well as seeds!  There will also be handouts on composting, vermiculture, germinating tips, seed age viability, and more.

Acceptable seeds for swapping are both left over commercial packets and home-saved seeds of heirloom or open pollinated varieties.  Please label your home-saved seeds with as much info as possible including the name of the variety and the year the seed was saved.  Seed saved from hybrid plants is not encouraged since it has a tendency to revert back to the undesirable traits of the hybrid's parent plants.

See ya there!

Check back in April for scheduling details for the follow-up seedling swap event!

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Feb. Week 11

There are many ways to my guy's heart; garden paths, little twisted alleys, smooth stretches of highway, but one of the most reliable and enduring paths is the one through his stomach.  It doesn't take a special feast on a special day although he loves that.  A simple meal cooked well on any given day can make him feel cared for.

This year because of the Dark Days Challenge, Michael will get his Valentine's Feast in two parts.  And since the challenge within the challenge is Sweets he's getting dessert first!

Cooking Floyd: The Accidental Feast

Every once in awhile when pulling together supper from bits and pieces in the fridge you turn around and there before you lies a meal that appears to have been put together with lots of thought and labor.  From sprats and scraps arises the Accidental Feast.

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Feb. Week 10

This Dark Days Challenge was truly a challenge.  The whole week was challenging.  The day after last week's party I came down with the mother of all sore throats that invaded my ears and nose, and came with chills and fever.  The doctor prescribed some sort of antibiotic that indiscriminately killed everything in it's path.  I was grateful for leftover chicken soup and that, accompanied by some good yogurt in an attempt to balance out the antibiotic's ravages, was pretty much all I could face this past week.  Monday the pain lessened and yesterday it was gone.  Last night was catch as catch can to get a DDC meal in this week.