Cooking Floyd: Two Cookbooks to Get Us Through the Winter and a Website

Being involved in the Dark Days Challenge has me scrambling to come up with inventive ways to use local winter produce, some of which I've never seen or heard of before.  Thanks to the greater interest in our area of eating local in season foods, our farmers are learning to extend their growing seasons and exploring more types of cold-hardy produce.  I've been doing a lot of "what is that and how is it used?".  A few weeks ago while surfing around Amazon.com I came across the Winter Harvest Cookbook by Lane Morgan.

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Jan. Week 7

I noticed that while everybody was on Week 7 of the DDC, I was on Week 6.  That's because I started the challenge the first week of December.  So for the sake of continuity and less confusion I've updated to Week 7.  I didn't miss a week, just a number.

Asparagus Soup
Yesterday I was off all day at a Master Food Volunteer meeting so I came home to a cold stove and little time to kick up a hot meal.  The answer was sitting on my pantry shelf.

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Jan. Week 5

Cabbage Rolls and No-Knead Rolls

Most people do their deep housecleaning in the spring when they can open the windows and air out the house or in the fall before they have to close the house up.  In the spring we're busy with tilling, seeds, transplants, and chicks and everything that goes along with that.  In the fall I'm still in the midst of preservation frenzy, and then the holidays happen.  Now that the xmas decorations have been packed away I'm getting a start on that deep house cleaning.  Today's project is scrubbing down the kitchen cabinets and appliances inside and out and degreasing the range hood.  Who doesn't love doing that?  So there will be no cooking going on today.  At least not by me.  I've got the crock pot loaded!

Cooking Floyd: ...mmmMustard!

Now that the preserving season has slowed down (although it never really stops) there's time for projects on the "I want to try this" list.  Mustard is one of these.  Armed with lots of flavored vinegars, fruits, herbs and spices, I figure I can turn out all kinds of specialty mustards once I get the technique down.  While mustard can be canned for long term preservation, it keeps a mighty long time under refrigeration.  Quite frankly, I'm glad to have a break from the water bath!

Husbanding Floyd: Franklin Gives a Shout-out!

Franklin wants me to give a heartfelt Thank You! to Gladys for the wonderful catnip mouse she sent home for his Christmas present!

 He said the mouse was very well made and the catnip stuffing of the highest quality...

...and he greatly enjoyed getting his jungle cat on!

After racing up and down the stairs with it, satisfying a HUGE munchie binge, and passing out,

 he can't remember where he left it!

And he is very P.O.'d with himself!

Thanks Gladys!

Gardening Floyd: Growing Winter Salad Update

On December 1st I posted about how we set up our seed starting shelf to grow tender greens for winter salads.  Twenty-eight days later I harvested our first batch of salad greens.  The little plants are still very baby-like and I had to gently pinch off the larger outer leaves but with each harvest they'll grow sturdier and by the third or fourth harvest I'll be cutting the whole plant off about 2" above the base.

The spinach prior to pinching back...

...and the first spinach harvest.

Mixed lettuces...

...and the first lettuce harvest.

All together I got about 4 cups of tender baby greens out of the first harvest, enough for the two of us to enjoy for our evening salad!

Cooking Floyd: Dark Days Challenge: Dec. Week 4

Kale Pasta

Recently I've been exploring making our pasta.  It took me several tries to be able to produce a consistent nicely textured basic all-purpose flour and egg pasta but once I did I wanted to try making different kinds and flavors of pasta dough.  My first variation was a buckwheat dough for Butternut Squash Raviolis.  (You'll also find a tutorial for making basic pasta on that post.)  This time I wanted to add kale since I had a bagful of kale flakes from kale chips that had turned out too bland for snacking.