An Ode to Disappearing Days

School hasn't started yet, but I'm working every day between now and then, excepting Sunday.  So as today was a day off and my last real day of summer, I took advantage of it.

At work the other evening, somehow picnics came up and one of my co-workers mentioned an excellent picnicking place called Well's Point, south of Lawrence. As it was on my way home from work, I decided to go looking for it on the drive home as another co-worker said it had a neat view of the town at night. Turns out, it's marked by a non-reflective sign set back from the road and I totally missed it in the dark. Had a nice country road drive though.

A couple hours later at approximately midnight, the idea of having a picnic there popped into my head. I didn't actively pursue the idea until slightly later while in the Thinking Stall within the Reading Room. I figured I'd just as well make good use of a free day and inexplicably decided that a breakfast picnic would really be just the thing. Never mind that by now it was at least 12:45 or 1:00am.  I gathered up all the cute things (mason jars, clementine crate, avocado-green-flowered teacup) and plotted a tasty breakfast I could make with what I had on hand.  Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to dress completely inappropriately for a situation, I also ironed a teal-to-mint ombre dress I'd finished a couple weeks ago. Somehow, all of this took until 2:15.  I checked weather.com and the sunrise was set to be at 6:39. So I set my alarm for 5:45. And, ehm, a second and third for a few minutes later.

I dredged myself out of bed at 6:00 and considered giving up the idea.  I knew I'd regret it though, so I brewed some tea, made myself presentable, packed breakfast, and tootled off.

I hit every light at red on my way out of town. Sigh. I found the park easily and was delighted to find that I could indulge my lazy early morning self and drive to the overlook (as opposed to walking as I thought I may have to) since the park opened at 6:00.

I got to the top of the tower by 6:35 and enjoyed a cup of tea while continual-shooting every second of the sunrise a la my mother.

Loose-leaf Mango tea from Clay Gourmet in Clay Center. Perfect for just
slightly chilly mornings on an overlook tower.  (Still pretty good even
without the tower.)

Lion King Sun. Looked far better in real life.

There was some serious Lion King sun going on. Bright red and moments when it was behind thin bits of cloud.... It was gorgeous. Despite a bit of foggy haziness, the overlook had a real dece ("really decent" for the uninitiated) view all around and it was worth the trip.

After the sun was full up, I settled down for a breakfast of whole wheat pita I'd made a couple days ago with butter, some DIY almond butter, and homemade strawberry jam I swiped from my parents' house, mixed fruit salad, and tea.

The spread. Mix of super-amazing deal on blueberries + homegrown
blackberries in the half-pint canning jar.  DIYed almond butter and
strawberry jam are in the other two jars.

Pita! I can't cut thirds, ok? Odd given that I grew up as one of three kids.

Color wheel fruit

Bonus Recipe!

Berry - Stone Fruit Salad

1 peach

1 plum

1/4 c. blueberries

1/4 c. blackberries

Halve peach and plum. Reserve half of each for another meal. Slice each half into 6-8 slices and dice.  Gently mix with berries. Consume.  Serves 1.

*The beauty of this recipe is its flexibility.  If you don't have cheap or foraged berries, then leave them out and have a Stone Fruit Salad. If you don't have those either, leave them out and make something else because clearly this recipe isn't going to work out for you today.

Well anyway, whoever constructed the overlook tower didn't take into account the views of anyone under 3 feet. The wall is solid wood below that height, so you may imagine my view of the area was slightly impeded.

My feet are here. Proof that I was. To the left is that ill-considered solid
wall of wood. 

 Fortunately I had brought a book along to compensate.

This book is the work of Knight Wagner, a friend of my Grandpa's who grew up not far from him in Iowa.  He lives in California now but happened to be in the area the same weekend as the family gathering in July so he showed up one day.  He and Grandpa settled in to jaw awhile and try to outdo or add to each other's stories.  You'd better believe I made a beeline for their table. Knight told my grandpa later that he was surprised I stuck around as long as I did.  Well, I've learned that if you have a couple old farmers together who are at least half with-it (and these men are all there) and willing to talk (my grandpa could and will talk to anyone and his friend appeared to be cut from the same cloth) you'd just as well settle in to be entertained. Chances are, their childhood was far more interesting than yours. They'll even give you some life lessons ou' the deal. Well, the book is a compilation of the many entertaining stories of Knight Wagner's youth and reads almost exactly like a these men talk in real life. Timelines are ignored and the book bounces through the years at random, but gracious if it isn't entertaining.

The whole spread

After finishing breakfast I decided to tromp around the park. Sadly my camera batteries decided to take that time to die.  Turns out my camera has approximately a 5 minute "low battery" warning. So no pictures. Shucks.  There was a well wood-chipped path wandering along the hill and in some areas it almost felt like being back in the timber in Iowa. Except, of course, that there was a path and the branches were trimmed.  As I was on my way to the far side of the park, I just happened to look down and there it was - MY VERY FIRST FOUR-LEAF CLOVER!  Slightly battered, yes, but oh! the excitement. It's pressing in my avocado green cookbook now.

Taken after I got home and charged my batteries.

I relaxed and read more of Knight's book for most of the day and decided to make polenta (pretty much the same as cornmeal mush) and sautéed mushrooms for supper. I thought I'd try this recipe for "fresh polenta" made from sweet corn (fresh from the freezer!) and once I'd finished, I realized I'd essentially pureed sweet corn and dumped mushrooms on it. Tasted fine, but probably not worth the work again.

Gardening update:

All the rain has helped these really take off.

I have the oddest looking cucumbers.

Foraging and Mini Pies

(I was this close to titling the page "Phoraging on the Phamily Pharm = Phree Phood" in homage to my  pharmaceutical background where "Ph" is used as much as possible and pronunciations are made up, but then I knew I'd hate myself. Lucky you.)

Mini Pie filled with foraged berries! It all comes together! And my second-ever
lattice crust. I feel incredibly accomplished.

Free is good.  Foraging for your own free berries that cost ridiculous amounts in supermarkets or simply aren't available is way better.

Black raspberries make pretty stains.

There was a family reunion recently and my parents and I took some time to tromp around my grandparents' and late great-grandparents' farms.

The barn on my late great-grandparents' farm. It's huge.

Inside the barn. Isn't it wonderful?

The granary. It has slatted bins on each side for ear corn and a space above
for loose grain.

While in the largely defunct orchard at my great-grandparents' farm, we saw a bush loaded with gooseberries. Mom and I each picked a handful, joking that I could make a tart.

And then we saw more bushes. And some mulberry trees.  We stepped into full-on Foraging Mode. In the absence of aprons, we had to make do.  

Mulberries are very delicate and if your hands aren't purple by the time
you're done, you're not doing it right.

The barn at my grandparents'. Excellent for various pirate adventures when
we were children due to the  two separate piles of moldering hay bales with
a rope swing conveniently situated to swing between the "ship" and "land."

The granary. It has four solid-sided bins that are filled from above. An elevator
runs grain through the upper window into the upper level and the grain then
falls through 12x4" openings in the floor to the bins below.

Then we headed over to my grandparents' farm and availed ourselves of the black raspberry bushes taking over a ditch and foraged the edges of the timber surrounding the yard for more raspberries and mulberries.  When I got home, I weighed it, and we ended up with just over two pounds of fruit.

I promise they didn't come in the clamshell! That's just what we found that
we could dump our haul into.

The whole delightful haul. Post washing. Gooseberries in the foreground,
 mulberries in the left corner, white mulberries in the middle and black
raspberries in the back.

So I had to make some sort of pie. I didn't really want to make a pie that involved cooking the fruit into a mush before pouring it into the pie shell so I looked for a pie made with fresh berries. The only one I found was from an old "Farm Journal's Country Cookbook" from back when avocado green cookbooks sounded like a good idea.

I also didn't wan't to cramp my style by limiting myself to a single pie. So I made some mini pies in muffin tins! This allowed me to make various pies such as gooseberry, gooseberry-mulberry, and mulberry-black raspberry, and black raspberry. (Mulberries need something else with them, whether another berry or rhubarb is up to you. Mulberry-only pies are gross.)  I'll give the recipe verbatim, then note my changes afterward.

Empty shells, berries heaped pre-sugar-flour addition, post addition, and
butter patted, awaiting lattice or whole-crust tops.

Mulberry-Gooseberry. Gorgeous color.

I used Mom's Never-Fail Pie Crust. Except I did my best to make it fail by tweaking it just for fun.  The changes I made were to use a spice grinder to grind one cup of oatmeal into flour (to add some whole grains and maybe a different taste) and used half shortening and half butter (butter tastes better, but shortening is less expensive). And it still worked! Easy to roll out and a flaky result after baking. This is a solid recipe.

Never Fail Pie Crust

3 c. flour (I used 1/3 oat flour)

1 T sugar

1 c. shortening (I used 1/2 butter and half shortening)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vinegar

1 egg

Cut shortening (and butter, if using) into flour and sugar with pastry cutter until crumbly. Mix together salt, vinegar, and egg in liquid measure and fill to ¾ cup mark with water. Add to flour mixture. Knead slightly and divide into 3 parts. Roll and fold into quarters for transfer to pie pan. Bake at 410°F for the first 10-15 minutes, then turn down to 375°F for the remainder of the cook time (as prescribed by filling recipe).

*I rolled 1 1/2 inch balls for each muffin tin.  Makes at least 12 double-crust muffin-tin pies.

**Makes enough for 3 full-size single-crust pies and enough for at least 2 double-crust pies. Remember to cut decorative vents in the upper crust with a knife or cookie cutters, as desired.

***Dough may be refrigerated for a week or so or frozen for... awhile... if you have excess.

Gooseberry Pie

Pastry for two-crust pie

1 1/2 cups sugar (I only used 1 cup and that was sufficient)

1/2 cup flour

4 cups fresh gooseberries

2 Tablespoons butter or regular margarine

Stir sugar and flour together.

Distribute half the gooseberries in pastry-lined 9-inch pie pan. Sprinkle with half the sugar-flour mixture.  Top with remaining gooseberries and then with remaining sugar-flour mixture.  Dot with small pats of butter.  

Add top crust with vents cut in it; seal and flute edge. Cover edge of pie with foil to prevent over-browning. 
For a sparkly, pretty crust, lightly brush the tops with a little milk and sprinkle with sugar. This will cook into a crispy topping.

Bake in 410°F oven for 10-15 minutes, then turn down to 375°F for 25-30 minutes, until juices start to bubble through vents; remove foil last 15 minutes of baking. Cool.

*I put a half filled each pastry-lined muffin tin with berries, put a tablespoon or two of the flour-sugar mixture on the berries, filled the tins to heaping with berries, put a couple more spoonfuls of the flour-sugar mixture on and then topped it all with a few thin pats of butter.  Use a couple extra scoops of the flour-sugar mixture if your pie only has gooseberries in it. Those are more tart and could used a little help. To bake, bake at 410°F for 8 minutes, then turn down to 375°F for 12-15 minutes or until juices are bubbling and tops are golden brown. I did not need foil protectors for the mini-pies.

**This recipe also works for finely chopped peaches.  I sprinkled a few pinches of cinnamon on top of the fruit before adding the sugar.

Baked goods only count if they're displayed on parchment paper or burlap.
Or barnwood.  Well, two out of three isn't bad, and anyway, my grandpa
might have objected if I started ripping siding off his barn.

I grew this. And I do other things.

Strawberry Feta Mixed Lettuce Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

Because if it doesn't list every ingredient in the title, it's not fancy enough to bother.

I'm not sure how to start a blog in which I'll relentlessly share as much of my life as I possibly can with you. 

So here's a salad that I grew and made. Strawberry Feta Mixed Lettuce Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette.  First lettuce harvest right there. I also grew a strawberry or two - but I ate those plain so as not to sully their magical not-grocery-store flavor with anything that might not taste like a strawberry. 

When I say "first lettuce harvest," it's really a misnomer, this is something like my 18th lettuce harvest (I probably didn't help the first couple years...), but the first at my apartment. I've been growing lettuce since before you were born! Assuming you're less than 18. 

My sisters and I grew up doing traditional "lady things" like cooking, sewing, gardening, crocheting and all the other things that have suddenly become trendy. So we'll take advantage of our current state of never-before-seen-stylishness by over-sharing!

Strawberry Feta Mixed Lettuce Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

(quantities vary based on taste, available ingredients, and number of people who want food)

-       Mixed Baby Lettuce or Baby Spinach or Adult Lettuce or a Radical mix of whatever you find in the store

-       Strawberries, quartered or sliced, or quartered and sliced

-       Feta Cheese

-       Balsamic Vinegar

-       Olive Oil

-       Salt and (Fresh-ground if possible) Black Pepper

Arrange lettuce on plate or deposit in a serving bowl. Prepare strawberries and add to plate or place in separate bowl. Crumble feta and add to strawberries and lettuce or another minuscule bowl. Really, the goal here is to get as many bowls dirty as possible. To achieve this, add vinegar, oil, and salt and pepper to another tiny bowl and stir with an available utensil until they oil droplets are pretty small. Douse the salad in this mixture. If you were using lots of tiny bowls for your ingredients, place them on a slab of barnwood covered in artfully arranged doilies and transport them to your eating area. I hope you can figure out where to go from here. 

Oddly, Tastes Kinda Good