Radishes come to those who wait

I planted radishes in the spring.  They are supposed to be a 30-day crop.  So plant them, and harvest a month later.  I spent late spring and early summer pulling up a radish each week to see if they were ready.  No dice.  No radishes, just skinny roots.  Probably I planted too late in the season.  Better luck next year.

Today I thought I would see if the radish bushes had any radishes.  They were very large plants, with little white flowers.  I pulled them all up.  Mostly they were still skinny-rooted.  But I did find these (with, of course, Buzz’s head for scale):

Note the one towards the bottom of the photo – very *ahem* suggestive.  You want to see it close up, don’t you.  OK then.

Interestingly, the largest radish was hollow and contained water.  Now you know how to find water in a radish if you are desperately thirsty.  Radish-flavored water, to be sure, but probably potable.  Here’s the inside of the radish:

I’m not sure any of these will get eaten, as we also have radishes in the fridge from the CSA.  But who knows?

Queensland Blue

This is a Queensland Blue squash, which we got (of course) in our CSA share.  This particular one seems more green than blue, but I was able to get the blue tinge in the photo by using bright overcast daylight lighting.  This photo does not show the size well, so here is the squash with the universal squash size indicator, Buzz:

He’s clearly thinking, “another squash? Gimme a break!  I’m trying to nap here.”

I decided to make soup with this squash, and I found a recipe on Messy and Picky’s blog. Picky (the author of this particular post) neglected to mention that the seeds are very tenacious in these things, and I think he grossly underestimated the time needed in a 400-degree oven to become soft.  If that was 40 minutes, I’m a shoe.  Here are the chunks before cooking:

In turn, I neglected some of the steps in the recipe (stopping to take photos of chopped veggies) and I used an immersion blender instead of a food processor for pureeing.  I have done the food-processor method, and I have done the blender method, and I can tell you that getting hot pureed soup all over the kitchen and oneself is doubly bad: both painfully hot and tedious to clean up!  The immersion blender is AWESOME (thanks mom and dad!)!!!!

Finally, I topped my soup with some toasted seeds from the squash and from the pumpkin I carved earlier (see previous post).  My husband is not a big soup fan, but I LOVE soup, and this stuff is indeed delicious!

Stuff I’ve Learned – Electric car wise.

A week and a half ago I attended my first EEVC meeting, finally.  I joined over the summer.  It was a very interesting meeting and I look forward to more of them!

As a result of that meeting, I have also joined the Electric Auto Association (EAA).

So what did I learn?  I learned about some of the differences between alternating current and direct current electric vehicles, including differences in cost and in operation.  One of the members had brought in an alternating current controller for show and tell.  He is installing it in his Saturn station wagon conversion.  I learned about transmissions, like YES, I really need to pull out the automatic transmission on my Civic and replace it with a manual transmission…but I won’t need a clutch.  Really.  Also, I learned that lithium-ion batteries (Li-ion) need to be clamped together to avoid having them change their shape by bulging out on the sides.  That is not a problem with lead-acid batteries.

Then after the meeting, member Ken offered rides in his Mini-E, which he was lucky enough to acquire one of the 450 1-year leases available in this country (NYC area and LA area only!).  These cars can go over 100 miles on a full charge, are silent, zippy, and you can change the color of the LED-interior lighting scheme according to your whim.  I got to drive it around the parking lot of the school where the meeting was.  The Mini-E has much stronger regenerative braking than my Prius — take your foot off the accelerator pedal and you immediately slow down dramatically!  It seats only two, due to the fact that the entire back-seat area is taken up by 5,088 Li-ion batteries!

Here are my photos of Ken’s car:

Ken is in the passenger seat

Ken has number 466 out of 500

Dashboard - the big circle in the center is the speedometer, and the display above and to the left of the steering wheel shows how much charge remains

The front grille of the Mini-E

Soooo Fulllllll

For our fourth wedding anniversary, we went to Horizons, THE haute vegetarian cuisine restaurant in Philadelphia.  Adding to the excitement, we tried the chef’s tasting menu with the accompanying wine pairings:

The wines are: Allan Scott Sauvignon Blanc (from New Zealand) to go with the soup, Argiolas Vermentino (that’s a white wine from Italy) to go with the ravioli, Auroch Tempranillo (a smooth, mild red from Spain) to go with the tofu, Terranoble Carmenere (another red, from Chile) to go with the seitan, and Pfeiffer Muscat (from Australia) to go with dessert.

The soup:

Fresh tasting, bright green, and absolutely lovely.  I tried the wine before tasting the soup, and I liked the wine much better after a few spoonfuls of soup.  Very nicely paired!  I confess I did not really taste the golden beet relish, but it added nice texture to the smooth soup.

The ravioli:

Well, cream and leeks will get you everywhere with me, but I also enjoyed the salty seaweed caviar and the oyster mushroom ravioli itself was yummy as well.  But the best was yet to come.

The tofu course:

Oops, I started eating this before I remembered to take a picture!  It started out much more elegant-looking.  The heart-of-palm cake was the star, for me, of the evening.  It was like a crab cake, but better!  Sweet, with a little bright acidity, soft with a perfectly crispy exterior, moist and creamy on my tongue.  Wow.  The tofu was good too, and the fresh corn and zucchini.  I think the garnish might have been pea tendrils, or at least it reminded me of that.  My husband claims I ate more of this than he did, since I totally cleaned my plate and he left a few bites, “saving himself” for the additional two courses yet to come.  It’s possible.

Grilled seitan:

My husband loves seitan, a lot.  This seitan was amazing.  The texture and flavor were beyond perfect.  I am not a fan of olives or capers, and I feared this dish would be spicy, but I ate every bit of it.  There was a mild spicyness, and a lot of deliciousness.  Probably it would have been just fine without the added “taco” with avocado and smoked tofu underneath, and certainly would have been a little less filling, but I liked how the smooth cool avocado complemented the meaty seitan.  I could imagine having all the ingredients of this dish inside a burrito…mmmmmmmm!

OK, so now we were stuffed, and I was a little sloshed from having to keep up with the wines.  I usually do not drink so fast, but since the wines were geared to the courses, I was making sure to maintain the pace.  But there was still dessert, and muscat.

The muscat arrived first, and just a sniff made me dizzy…but then I thought maybe I was just dizzy anyway.  Sweet but not syrupy like port, the flavor reminded me of the fruit candies we get with our bill from the local Thai restaurant, but also reminded me of a childhood flavor that I could not recall enough to name.  Then we were presented with an array of three desserts, saffron crème brûlée, blueberry cheesecake, and peanut butter cake:

The crème brûlée was perfect, with the paper-thin caramel crust giving way to smooth and delicate custard.  The blueberry cheesecake with drips of lemon-herb sauce was fantastic.  I think I have not yet had enough blueberries this summer.  Unfortunately, the peanut butter cake could not stand up to the magnificence of the other two desserts, and came off as a poor third, though it might have been better on its own.  Comparatively dry and without the subtlety of flavors of the other two, it lost out.  If it had been a rich, moist, smooth dark chocolate something, the story might have been a little different.

I would be hungry after writing this, but I am still feeling pretty full.  As my husband remarked, “I remember this feeling.  It’s the feeling of being completely stuffed after eating at Horizons.”

Yeah.  It is.

There is a first time for everything

Inspired by the plastic-shopping-bag-full of cucumbers my husband brought in from the garden yesterday and Marisa’s facebook-status-via-twitter about making bread and butter pickles, I made my first pickles today.

I used the recipe from Slashfood that Marisa pointed me to.  First, I needed jars, which I got at the supermarket. The cashier was very surprised that the store even sold canning jars, and then it turned out that the UPC code wasn’t in the scanner and so I was the cause of the Express Lane being held up because the cashier had to send a bagger for a price check.  I felt guilty, though it wasn’t my fault.

Then, there was the cutting and slicing.  Thank goodness for the mandoline, but man, those onions made tears and mucus run down my face like a waterfall!  Here’s my sliced veggies, before and after being mixed with salt and soaked in an ice bath for three hours:

The next step was sterilizing the washed jars and heating the veggies in the brine.  The brine tasted just right for bread and butter pickles, so I think I did it right.

Finally, here are my jars of pickles!

I actually made eight jars, and I plan to do four more tomorrow, because I have enough cucumbers for at least another half recipe.  Guess what you are getting for Christmas?

Transformation

I apologize for falling behind so much in blog posting, but I plan catch up now that I am on vacation.  There is an old saw that says the best things about being a teacher are June, July, and August, but I think of it as just a different phase in the yearly cycle. Now is when I get all those weekends back that I spent at Physics Olympics or Science Bowl or writing tests and getting mad at Microsoft Word, or fretting about all the stuff I had to get done.  Now is when I can stay up late enough to go out and see friends, and watch movies from my Netflix queue, and do jigsaw puzzles!  I can do more sewing projects and MAYBE, just MAYBE, organize my school files for next year.

But that is not what I want to talk about.  I want to show off our garden, with some “before and after” photos and praise for my husband, who is tickled to be growing things he can eat.  Never mind that he is growing a lot of cucumbers, which he does not eat all that much of.  He told me this morning I could make pickles.  Shyeah.

Anyway, remember that “cosmetic surgery” photo of the roses?  Here is the “before and after:”

You’ll note the giant squash plant in the foreground.  We’re doing a modified “three sisters” form of agriculture, apparently – call it two sisters and a cousin.  Squash, beans, and roses.  Though rather than try to pick beans out of the rosebushes, my husband has stuck some bamboo poles in the ground for them to climb.

Also, remember the peas that looked like mini-marshmallows?  Here’s another before and after:

In between the rows of peas are my radishes and a surprise hosta.  The peas are quite tasty, though we only get a few at a time.  Here is a pea closeup:

This photo makes me hungry.  Or maybe it’s just that I’ve spent the morning getting things accomplished, and it’s getting towards elevenses!

Things I can check off my list:

• Take winter wool clothing to the dry cleaner
• Take mail to the mailbox
• Remove growth of weeds from the curb in front of house
• Remove dead blossoms from roses
• Lop branches that overhang the stoop so it’s easier to avoid being soaked when coming in the front door (we’ve been getting a lot of rain lately, non-local readers)
• Clean out refrigerator of old leftovers
• Vacuum unfinished portion of the basement (where the cat’s box is – it had gotten so I didn’t want to walk past in bare feet)
• Write a blog post!

Yep, I think I deserve lunch now!

Pricing FAIL

My husband said I should send this to the FAIL blog, but I am not really a fan of that blog.  However, I find this amusing enough for my own blog:

I took this photo with my phone, hence the poor quality.  But I love the $97.61 per QUART SAVE $2.00 !  On a 1.5-quart container of ice cream priced at $4.49!  The best part?  I first noticed this on Tuesday, when I went to buy ice cream to go with the strawberry-rhubarb crumble I was making to use the CSA rhubarb we got Monday.  I reported it to customer service, where an older gentleman tried to inform me that the store is required by law to post the unit price of the product, and I had to patiently explain that $97.61 was outrageous for a quart of ice cream.  Today, TWO days later, I saw that the bad labels (oh yeah, most of the ice cream in the case has similar labels!) were still there and reported it to customer service again.  We’ll see if they ever do something about it.

UPDATE: On Friday (3 days after the original complaint) the labels were still wrong.  I complained again, this time mentioning the FAIL blog and also mentioning how people around the world view it.  Today, Saturday, the labels had all been exchanged for corrected ones.

Cheer Up!

There are lots of good things in the world, so despite the fact that I have grades due this week (and I’m not done grading, duh) and it is cold and rainy and I keep feeling chills and my lesson plans were made all topsy-turvy for a day (it’s only Tuesday, it’s only Tuesday, deep breath), THERE ARE REASONS TO SMILE AND BE HAPPY!

1) My highly intelligent husband who blew the GMAT exam out of the water last year was accepted into the graduate program of his choice, to start this fall.  And his work will pay for it!  Yay!  Plus he will still be earning a salary!  Double Yay!

2) I discovered yummy ice-cream sandwiches at the H-mart that contain vanilla ice cream and red bean paste (yum, red bean paste!) and while I don’t have any left the photo still makes me smile because they are shaped like FISH!

3) A friend of mine from college has the most amazing Easter resurrection video on her blog today, that DEFINITELY makes me smile!

4) There is more than enough chocolate, tea, and cheese in my house to get me through this week of getting grades completed.

5) Rainbows!  Rainbows are happy!

I’m sure there is more but I can’t think of what else will make me smile right now…I think it is time for some tea!  And then grading!

Sakura

Every year, Subaru sponsors a cherry-blossom festival in Philadelphia.  Jenny invited me to join her and her brother, sister-in-law, and two nephews in enjoying Sakura Sunday, in Fairmount Park.  Since I am trying to learn Japanese, it seemed like an excellent idea, and fortuitously it was a beautiful day and the beginning of Spring Break, so I felt no pressure and had no agenda.  Whee!

Jenny and I stopped at the H-mart to pick up some sesame- and nut-free snacks (one of her nephews has allergies) and some green tea, and parked a pleasant walk away from the festivities.  We found a place to park our picnic supplies, and had time to enjoy some drumming by the Swarthmore College taiko drummers and some dancers doing traditional dances before taking the tour of the Japanese House, Shofuso.

It is especially nice to see these things with Jenny, who has lived in Japan and knows Japanese and about the culture.  She was able to explain that the artist who painted the sliding screen-walls of Shofuso, Hiroshi Senju,  lives part time in New York and part time in Tokyo and painted the screens with a sort of spraypainting technique.  Also, the pond in the garden is in the shape of the kanji for “heart” (you can’t tell that from my photos, though—see my flickr set) and the roof is thatched in an old technique that is dying out even in Japan.

After lunch, I wandered around the festival and caught a glimpse of the Cherry Blossom Queen (Erisa Kazui, in the US to visit Philadelphia’s and Washington DC’s cherry blossom festivals).  I entered a drawing to win a trip to Japan (I won a t-shirt, which I have not received yet), looked over the go games, the carp windsock making table (nobody over the age of 8 seemed to be participating, so I just watched), and the origami tables.  In addition, I found out that the “Dr. Robot” sumo robot wrestling people do children’s parties and school visits, and took some pictures of the calligraphy.  I also bought some kimono fabric: two swatches of silk and one of cotton.

Sakura Sunday was an ideal way to kick off my break, which started out fairly productively (I sewed, I accomplished some schoolwork and some housework, I bought a Japanese textbook (again with help from Jenny, THANK YOU!), but which has since tapered off into procrastination.  Ah well, I will remember the fun I had as I sit at my desk trying to finish up the grading I left for the last day of vacation.

I have no idea

How long has it been since I last colored eggs for Easter?  Probably at least 25 years, at a guess.  Last night I did the silk-tie thing since I’m on break, it was on the internet, and thanks to Marisa I had a use for 8 eggs.  I blew the insides of the eggs out before dyeing them, since I want these to be permanent (at least until they get accidentally sat on or whatever), and that was a challenge since I’ve never done that before.  But it worked: one hole in each end, swish the pin around a bunch, then blow until the insides are no longer inside.