Category: Food

Never turn your back on a cucumber vine


Three days’ worth, two cucumber vines

Three days ago I picked all the cucumbers. I left no cucumbers over two inches long. I was in no hurry to go back, thinking that the weather was so dry that not much could be happening. But this morning there were oodles of cucumbers, and some of them were even too big to be ideal.

The ability of certain plants to grow and produce in hot, dry weather continues to blow my mind. It’s almost as though the cucurbits — cucumbers, squash, pumpkin, melons — tap into the high humidity, though I know that they don’t actually do that. The key — as was clear in my organic gardening books and as I am now seeing with my own eyes — is to have fertile soil, to plant things well apart, and to keep the weeds down. This is simply old-fashioned gardening the way our grandparents did it. I have had only .3 inch of rain in the last three weeks, which I’ve supplemented with a quick watering with the hose on particularly hot days when the temperature went to 95. These were not deep waterings, but just enough to cool things down, reduce stress, and buy time for rain.

Though the tomatoes seem to crave more moisture than the cucurbits, they are holding their own. Based on what I’ve learned this year, I’ll amend my planting next spring. The brussels sprouts took up a lot of space but never produced, so no more brussels sprouts. The cauliflower was finicky. No more cauliflower. The cabbage and broccoli, at least, earned its space. Next spring I’ll reduce the amount of space allocated to the cabbage family and save the garden space for more cucurbits.

Abbey rations


Chioggia beets, kale, abbey bread

When you try to live close to the earth, you’ve got to eat what you’ve got. I had hoped to stretch out the spring crops rather than harvesting them all at once, but the hot, dry weather has forced me to do otherwise. Still, I count my blessings. I haven’t eaten grocery store produce, other than a couple of squash from Whole Foods, in several weeks. I’ve been living off the garden.

When I bought beet seeds, I didn’t know that I was buying chioggia beets. When I realized what I had, I was a bit disappointed. After all, what’s the point of a beet that isn’t blood red? But I’ve found that the chioggia beets are delicious, and I’m not getting tired of them. It seems they’re a new “in” food. Sunset magazine put chioggia beets on a top 10 list of healthy foods.

Yes, I do eat protein foods. I’ve been having the vegetables with vegan pimento cheese. I made a batch that has lasted me for days. When Ken was here, dishes didn’t last as long, and leftovers were rare. Now, with no one to cook for but myself, leftovers are a daily thing.

We people of the grocery store era don’t realize how unnatural it is — or at least how environmentally costly it is — to have such a variety of foods available at any given time. Our ancestors had to eat what was available. When cabbage was plentiful, you ate cabbage, no matter how strong a craving you might have for tomatoes, which you might get later in the season if you were lucky.

Archeologists have shown that, though the Celtic people of the British Isles (my ancestors) ate meat, it was not something they had year round. They mostly ate meat in the late fall, when they thinned the herds that they couldn’t afford to keep over winter.

Yet, we’re not completely without some economic discipline in these matters. Whatever is in season and plentiful will usually be the cheapest. You can have blueberries from Chile, but they won’t be cheap.

As for me, if the beets have to be pulled and the kale has to be cut, that’s what I’ll eat. I’m still trying to figure how how to use all the celery. And today I cut a beautiful cauliflower that I’ll roast tomorrow.

Vegan pimento cheese

There are lots of vegan cheese substitutes on the market. I’ve never found one that I thought was good. If you Google, you’ll also find recipes for vegan pimento cheese with ingredients similar to my favorite recipe. However, the recipe in Frank and Rosalie Hurd’s Ten Talents cookbook is so good that I don’t feel a need to try other recipes.

A key ingredient in this recipe is agar agar, a kind of vegan gelatin made from seaweed. The agar agar doesn’t really add any flavor. It just gives the pimento cheese a cheese-like body, while also adding all those nice trace minerals that are found in sea vegetables. Whole Foods carries agar agar. For the pimentos, I get big jars of roasted peppers at Whole Foods. It’s cheaper in the big jar, and it’s of higher quality that the little jars of pimentos found in most grocery stores.

The Hurds’ recipe uses a blender. I find that it’s difficult to make in a blender, so I use a food processor instead. Don’t be afraid of the yeast. It actually adds a nice, cheesy flavor to the pimento cheese. The recipe uses quite a lot of oil, so that the vegan cheese has about the same fat content as real cheese. I’m sure you could reduce the amount of olive oil without spoiling the recipe.

First cabbage

It wasn’t all that long ago that the cabbage plants were seedlings under the grow light, less than an inch high. Today we harvested the first cabbage. It’ll be served tonight at supper, when we’ll be joined by one of Ken’s former professors who is coming over from Durham.

On Monday we froze four gallons of strawberries, fresh-picked (though we didn’t pick them this time) at Mabe’s Berry Farm near Walnut Cove.

Ken with his favorite chicken, Patience.

Go, garden go

It’s awfully nice to go to the garden to shop for supper rather than to the grocery store. As the garden’s production starts to ramp up, this will happen (I hope) more and more often. This broccoli and spinach went, all raw, into a salad dowsed with homemade Russian dressing. I picked the spinach and broccoli about 5 p.m. when it was still warm out, so I went straight to the kitchen, washed everything in cold water, and dunked it in a sink filled with icewater to chill. You can’t be too careful with that kind of freshness.

A Champion juicer

Today in a country junk shop in Yadkin County, I came across a Champion juicer for $50. That’s a much better price than one can get on eBay. New, Champion juicers sell for over $200. This one is the current model (G5-NG-853-S) and is in excellent condition.

I’ve thought about buying a Champion juicer for a long time, but the price put me off. Not only are they useful, but they’re also a classic piece of engineering. Replacement parts and accessories are available on the Champion web site for a surprisingly reasonable price. They have a grain mill attachment for less than $75. I’ve wanted a grain mill anyway, and that would get double duty out of that beautiful motor.

Fake chicken and dumplings

For a while, I’ve wanted to experiment with imitation chicken and dumplings. Today was the perfect day — cold and rainy with a high of 44F.

I made fake chicken with seasoned wheat gluten, cut into strips. It was far from perfect, but I think it proved the concept. Wheat gluten alone is just a bit too chewy. About 10 to 20 percent ground nuts or soybeans would give a better texture. It’s also difficult to get enough flavor into the fake chicken. I used garlic powder and Vegit seasoning. Next time I’m at Whole Foods I’ll look for other seasonings that might help.

The dumplings were very good, though. I made them from unbleached King Arthur flour, an egg, and enough water to make a dough. The stock was made from onion, celery, and carrot sautéed in butter, thickened with a bit of flour.

I’d give today’s dish a B minus, but I think I can improve it next time I make it.


The fake chicken — made from wheat gluten and seasonings. This is the gluten dough before it was cooked.

Tuna-nut burgers


Burgers made with tuna, ground brazil nuts, ground pumpkin seeds, and an egg

I use quite a lot of canned salmon, tuna, and sardines in the abbey kitchen, but other than that I have never cooked meat here. The protein foods are fish, soy milk, soybeans and other legumes, grains, lots of nuts, some rice, and the eggs that Patience, Ruth and Chastity lay. I’m always looking for ways to work more nuts into my cooking. One new method is to combine nuts ground in the blender with something like tuna for burgers. Brazil nuts are particularly interesting when used in burgers and meat analogs. When ground, they have a kind of crab-like texture.

For the burgers in the photo, I used about three parts nuts and seeds to two parts tuna. The burgers tend to be a bit dry, though, and they crave some kind of savory sauce.

I always buy the nuts from the bulk section at Whole Foods. That’s much cheaper, and fresher, than buying packaged nuts. Walnuts and pine nuts are very expensive. The best bargains in nuts right now are brazil nuts, cashews, and raw macadamia nuts. Hazelnuts also are reasonably priced, but, in my opinion, the flavor of hazelnuts doesn’t combine well with other foods.

10-day-old plants

The baby plants for the winter garden are now 10 days old. So far, things are going pretty well for a first effort, but there are some problems. I’m afraid that some of the plants may already be too leggy. Some of the seeds weren’t deep enough, and some plants fell over, though they were able to send down a root. I had very poor germination with the Wakefield cabbage, for reasons I don’t understand. [See correction: It wasn’t the Wakefield cabbage.]

Lessons learned so far: The grow-light should have been lower to provide more intense light and reduce legginess. I need better forceps to place the seeds at the right depth in the growing media. I’m hoping that the legginess can be corrected when I transfer the plants to potting soil in peat moss cups.

These plants are all for the early garden: cabbage, broccoli, brussels spouts, cauliflower, and celery. I also have lettuce and snow pea seeds, which I will plant directly into the ground. I’m shooting for March 15 for planting things outdoors, depending on the weather. When these plants have been moved outdoors, I’ll start seeds for the summer garden — tomatoes, squash, etc.

I flunk the Creole test


This platter gets an F.

In my ongoing efforts to break out of the same-old-breakfast routine, this morning I attempted baked grits with cheese, blackened beans, and fried apples. The beans were terrible. I had never attempted that sort of seasoning before, and I don’t think I was quite clear on the concept. And though the grits were good, I went too far in my effort to make them a comfort food. Less cheese and less butter would have been better. I’d give myself a B+ for the concept and an F for the execution.