Ott's!

One of the most fabulous benefits of living in this area is Ott's Exotic Plant and Nursery. What is Ott's, you say? Well, it's a plant place.

That has a rain forest.

And two ponds with fish, turtles and frogs.

And a mountain that blooms pansies in the spring and mums in the fall.

It houses fruit trees, exotic plant species, and when went today, we saw a hummingbird and a swallowtail butterfly inside one of the greenhouses.

I'll stop talking now, just look :D Clicking a photograph will open a larger version in a different window. Check out the purple passion flower. To. Die. For.

Oh, and when you're done looking, go see everything - and much more! - for yourself (853 Gravel Pike, Schwenksville, PA 19473).

Veg*n Dinner Party, Installment One

Well, lookie here. It's a collection of lovely, veggie loving, local babes!

[Kelly, I SWEAR that this was the best photo of the group, and I totally think that you look super cute and mischievous, but if you really don't like it (aka, you have no idea) then I will take it down. ]

Specifically, that's Jessica, Mikaela (that's me), Kelly Ann, Laura, Brookie (that's my seester), and Alli. Notice the front-back positioning so that we could all squeeze onto the couch. What's that? You never heard of this alleged "front back, front back" seating? Yeah, us either. Jess made it up.

So, after much chit chat, a whole lot of, "we should"s, and a bunch of "wouldn't it be cool"s, Kelly took the initiative and scheduled the first of what will be a rotating vegetarian/vegan dinner party. Fun! :D

This is what we had:

Not pretty as pictured, I know. The photo was a bit of an afterthought I'm afraid, and does not do the yummy vegan meal any justice whatsoever. That in mind, clockwise from left is: chilled cucumber dill soup, portabello-seitan hash (from Vegetarian Times, Feb. 06, p. 61), tomato basil dip with french baguettes (leftovers from Saturday), roasted apple and rutabaga, brown rice.

So. Good.

This was a landmark event for me, personally. I do not like mushrooms. Not because of the texture or the taste. I wouldn't know, as their repulsive origin repels me from letting them pass my lips.

But you see, Kelly has this power over me. She's a new-ish (less than one year) vegetarian and brand new vegan, who never - like, NEVER used to cook. Seriously. How could I not eat her freaking awesome hash? And besides that, I was uncertain about whether I would be able to make it to the dinner (football practice blows), and as the date approached she needed to make some decisions. She's really quite a lovely gal, and had she known that I was going to be able to pull off being there (thanks to a super supportive boyfriend), I know she would not have made 'shrooms the main dish.

So, I ate them. And I liked it. With wine. A lot of wine. It's amazing what one can get through with dulled senses.

Yes, the food was to-die-for, but the company? The company rocked the shit out of that hash. Note to readers: Invite actors to house parties. Jess and Alli were freaking hilarious as always. Of course, if Brooke comes to your party, your never short on conversation, and Laura is always at the ready with an opinion - and a sweet smile :)

We had such a good time:

We're hoping that this event will be a sort-of-monthly occurrence, so stay tuned for Installment Two! :)

PS: Thank you Justin, for taking a break from healing the world to take these photos. You're a good person.

Brocolli Rock

Since Avery Cain announced his new vegetarian status (so excited!), we've been celebrating by preparing his favorite veggie, broccoli. Yumm!

On Monday, we had some baked barbecue-style tofu, quinoa, and a barbecue stirfry:


(I cooked the quinoa in butternut squash soup and added caribbean seasonings. For the stirfry, I fried some onions, then added broccoli and what I had in the fridge: mini yellow squash and zucchini, diced eggplant, and spinach. I put a bit of water and caribbean seasoning in the pan, covered it and steamed everything for about seven or eight minutes. To finish it all off, I added chickpeas, stirred in a bit of barbecue sauce and cooked for a couple more minutes.)

Tuesday was steamed string beans and broccoli with broccoli fillo pie, and yellow watermelon:

This meal got rave reviews from the new vegetarian. The broccoli and beans were picked right before dinner from our garden and were positively heavenly. The watermelon (from the CSA last week) was super-flavorful and deee-lish, as well. This meal was also a shining example of how well Jason, Avery and I can work together:

After work and camp, Avery and I went home, he changed into his gear for football practice and I filled his water bottle, grabbed him a snack, got myself a blanket and a magazine, and we headed up to the field. When Jase got home a little while later, he picked the broccoli and beans, put them in the pot for steaming, cut up and refrigerated the melon, started the fillo pie in the oven, and headed out to play volleyball with a friend. Avery and I got home around 8:30pm, and he hopped in the shower while I started the veggies and set the table. After we ate, Avery got ready for bed and I went upstairs to tuck him in. Jase came home shortly after and we were all able to hang out in bed and talk for a bit before Avery went to sleep.

Whew. I can't imagine if I had another child to take to a different lesson or practice. How do you mommas with multiple children do it? Super powers?

So yeah, we've been busy the last couple weeks weeks, leaving me very little time to cook (hence the quick, "convenient" foods like fillo pie). Kind of a bummer, but hopefully things will settle down once school starts (and football practice goes from four nights a week to two).

CSA crop share 13

Jason took some super awesome photos of the share today. Lots of contrast in the colors this week - we like it! And, there's Miss Bluex agian. Meow, meow kittie face head >^,,^<

Blooming Glen share number 12:
1 bunch of scallions
3 pounds of tomatoes
2 pounds of heirloom tomatoes
1 bouquet wild flowers
15 stalks of edamame
1/2 pound of swiss chard
1 pint of cherry tomatoes - pick your own
1 cantaloupe
1 eggplant
1 cucumber
1 quart of string beans
1 head of lettuce
2 onions
1 pound of potatoes
thyme - pick your own
basil - pick your own
dill
cilantro

Local Yokel Basil + Tomato Dip

So, we had a ton of local basil and a ton of local tomatoes. Luckily, we also had an upcoming potluck :)

Tomato Basil Dip from the book, From Asparagus to Zucchini, with freshly baked French Baguette from Bakers on Broad is what we ended up with. We were going to double the recipe, but Jason decided tripling it would be a better idea. "That way we can share with the neighbors." How's that for supporting the eat local challenge? :)

Step One: Gather one Whole Freaking Lot of tomatoes, one Whole Freaking Lot of basil, a couple garlic heads, olive oil, salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar. Also, grab the serving bowl, compost/garbage bowl (and an extra bowl if your countertop compost bucket is on the small side), a large cutting board, a mixing spoon and a very sharp knife. Bring the food processor, too.











That's Brooke's thumbs up on the left and mine on the right :)

Step Two: Rinse and chop 15 tablespoons of basil. Do you believe that I actually considered doing this by hand? Right.










Step Three: Core, seed and dice nine cups of tomatoes, depositing the gunk into the compost bowl. Um... this was Jason's job. "Hey, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelet." Step Four: Press three tablespoons of garlic










Step Five: Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, a few tablespoons of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Step Six: Stir it up and serve with or over lightly toasted and sliced French Baguette.

Step Seven: Share it with your friends, neighbors and other assorted local yokels - and remember to tell them that 97%* of the ingredients were found right here in your community :) I heart Bakers on Broad and Blooming Glen!

* Ok, fine. I don't really know if it's really 97%. Whatever.

Monthly potluck at Blooming Glen

That is Tricia, Blooming Glen founder and farmer, with her (and Tom's) sassy little daughter Dakota, at this Saturday's potluck. For as many times as we've been to the farm, this was the first opportunity we've had to meet Dakota. I must say, she is quite charming :)

There is a monthly potluck at Blooming Glen, though due to vacations, the one held this Saturday was the first to which we've gone. Busied by unexpected basil duties that afternoon, our potluck preparations were stalled and we (Brooke, Jason and I) arrived an hour late. As if going to an event/someone's house for the first time isn't awkward enough, right? There was no need to worry though; grown ups and adults were all over, filling their plates, sitting down to eat, hanging out, talking, running around (well, not so much the adults as the kids). We were able to slip right into the swing of things.

We had a really good time (although, I'm afraid I had one too many glasses of Pinot), ate pretty fantastic food and met some really fun and sweet people. Most importantly though, we learned that Tricia and Tom met in line for the bathroom in a bar in Philadelphia. You'll note that this is a slight deviation from the romantic storyline we had in our heads, which went something like:

While tilling the soil at a remote, midwestern farm, Tricia and Tom plant organic vegetables and, unknowingly, also the seeds from their hearts. When the plants blossom in the spring, so too does their love. Sigh.

Yeah. Turns out it didn't go quite like that, but instead they discovered farming together. Which is actually a pretty cool story, too :)

And, the second most important discovery of the evening was the naming of Brooke's eggplant dish (see PS on this post):

Aww yeah :) Brookie's Flavorful Eggplant Yummies! sums it up pretty well. Notice the added touch of basil leaf on the sign? Very clever, I know.

Not sure if regular potlucks are a standard CSA industry-wide practice, but they should be :)

Basil, anyone?

Brooke and I had a great time at the farm this afternoon. And by great, I mean I now know why Tricia is always wearing carhartts, a straw hat, gloves and boots. The weeds on the farm? Not so much like the weeds in our garden.

The learning curve was slight, though. I weeded gloveless for oh, about three minutes, before taking my bloodied hands to the car and getting the gloves my sister cleverly thought to bring me that morning. In case you missed that: she is the smart sister.

The work day goes from 8am to noon and we got there around 10:15. And no, not because we're bums, but because Brooke was at the Indian Valley Farmers Market and I was wandering around Perkasie with Jenn and Kellie looking for the alleged farmers market there. Alleged as in, we never found it.

By the time we got to the farm, the potato duties were complete, but there were other chores to be done :) We weeded the swiss chard aisles and cleared out a hoop house containing tomato and basil plants.

I could go on here about how great it is to work with a group of people to accomplish a task, how working on the farm provided us with a real sense of accomplishment as well as a tangible result, how beautiful the weather was and how wonderful the earth is. But, I won't. Instead, I'm going to show you this:



Holy. Freaking. Basil.

The tomato and basil plants we pulled were at the end of their growing cycle, but not useless. Tom did warn the group upon entering the hoop house, that we were about to see Tricia's maternal instincts kick in and hear her say that the plants were still good and that she'd struggle with tossing them. Tom did not however, warn the group that we would all feel like that. We put aside the firmest of the tomatoes and a few armfuls of basil plants for whoever wanted to bring them home.

Like I said, the plants were at the end of their growing cycle, which means they would have to immediately be used or preserved. Maybe we were feeling ambitious, or maybe we were high from a fun and satisfying first work day, or maybe our instinct to stock up for winter kicked in. I don't know what the reasoning was, but I do know that Brooke and I left with a ridiculous quantity of basil. Apparently motivated by my recent canning adventure, I also grabbed way too many tomatoes.

We each conjured up the gatherer/harvester from within and spent the afternoon on my porch, pulling basil leaves, chatting and enjoying a chilly glass of beer. It was lovely :)

Now, any creative basil and tomato recipes you'd like to share?

Blooming Glen sweat equity

The photo has nothing to do with the content of this post, I just like it :) Avery took it this week during the CSA pick up. I have no idea what that spikey thing is, but I bet it would be a good prop for Little Shop of Horrors.

Anyway...

What's sweat equity? As part of the homeownership program at Habitat for Humanity, families are required to complete up to 375 hours of "sweat equity" by building their home, building the homes of other partner families, being active in their community, and helping out in the Habitat office. Kids even participate in accomplishing the hours by doing well in school (each A is worth an hour) and by creating thank you cards for the volunteers. Sweat equity is one of the great things about Habitat's homeownership model.

Similarly, one of the great things (and there are many great things) about belonging to a Community Supported Agriculture farm, is the cooperation of the group. In addition to making a financial commitment to the farm, Blooming Glen also asks members for four work hours each season.

Not all CSA's require sweat equity of its members, but it's definitely something that we appreciate. It builds community, gives members and farmers a chance to get to know each other, allows for a deeper connection to the land, and lowers maintenance costs. And I swear, we really do want to do it... we just, you know... got distracted.

The season's first share was distributed at the end of May, during which time we were thinking, "Only four hours? Man, that's not gonna be a problem - we have until November!" And although we've had no problems picking up the share each week, marveling over the produce, taking tons of photographs of the farm and the veggies, sharing and swapping recipes, and telling Tricia and Tom (BG's founders and farmers) how happy we are that they're here, we've not yet put in an ounce of work at the farm.

*shame*

You see, we wanted all the glamour of belonging to a CSA, just none of the work :P

The guilt was starting to get to us, though. I mean, come on, it's August. Thankfully, Tricia's not so subtle hints in last week's newsletter about needing help with potatoes gave us the perfect opportunity to redeem ourselves :)

Brookie and I (Jason has an appointment and Avery is reveling his new Big Bro title at his dad's house) are heading over tomorrow afternoon. We can't wait to meet some people and dig up some potatoes - and bury our guilt and shame!

CSA share 12

Edamame, yay!


Brookie went with Avery and me to do the pick up. She clipped the thyme while we picked bouquets of brightly colored flowers. The heat finally broke and the sky was picture perfect blue with white fluffy clouds. Avery took some photos this week as well, you can credit him with this great sky pic :)


It's funny. I never would have thought to take this photograph. Brookie and I were walking around the farm, picking tomatoes and basil (thanks for the extra basil, Tricia and Tom!), chatting about boring grown up stuff, and I'm sure we must have mentioned the sky... commented on the breeze, on the coolness in the air. Avery was around us, snapping photos. Of the beehive, orange cherry tomatoes, weeds. Always in his own little world. Wondering, wandering, investigating.

It wasn't until I just now unloaded the camera that I realized he too noticed the air and the blue, blue sky.

His nine-year-old mind enjoyed it enough to pause. Notice. And take a photo.

Thanks, monster. You're going to be a great big brother.

Congratulations, Rodney and Leanne, and welcome little Aren Anthony. August 9th 2006, 11:25pm, 8 pounds 10 ounces. One love.

Pickin 'maters

During the Blooming Glen pick-up today, there was a little girl maybe about three-years-old, who just couldn't wait to go out side and "pick 'maters" with her parents. In fact, she was so excited about another week of pick-your-own cherry tomatoes, that her parents were able to leverage it as a privilege.

The little girl has tossed a plastic bottle inside the pick up area, which bounced and (very softly) tapped my sister's calf. Of course, her parents insisted that she apologize and of course, she said nothing. After giving her a couple opportunities to say sorry, dad took her out to the car for a short time out, then brought her in again for a second chance. This went on for a little while, until mom and dad decided to use the tomatoes.

"No picking 'maters until you apologize..."

She considered their words for a only a moment before deciding that not picking 'maters concerned her a great deal. Within two minutes, she said she was sorry, my sister thanked her for the apology, and she was out the door, pint basket in hand.

Ah, the power of produce. Take note parents :)

I don't have the photographs of the pick up bootie yet, but I do have these:
Left: The Blooming Glen farmers certainly understand the power of a tomato! (That's Tom.)
Right: Cherry tomatoes and hot peppers make our plates happy :) The red one is a Black Pearl, and the white (yellow) ones are A Doctor..."something" variety. I was told they were named after the doctor who discovered the seeds in a federal seed bank, but I regretfully forget her name. Maybe somebody reading knows...?

Sowing the Seeds of Love

After much anticipation and hope, Jason's seed update!

This is my first year collecting seeds, hoping to germinate them for the coming season. I've labeled them so I won't have to guess what they are next season. Clever, right?

First, I started to hear my favorite songs in elevators, now I'm collecting seeds. I think I'm officially old.

So far, it's been easy to gather seeds (from various peppers, string beans and tomatoes), but I'm having difficulty discovering how to collect broccoli seeds. Any broccoli heads out there with advice? Also, any drying out and/or storage tips would be greatly appreciated.

Montgomery Theater's new website!

Support your local theater!

The fantastic Montgomery Theater, located on Main Street in Souderton, just launched a brand new website. And it rocks :) There are a bunch of new features including photographs, audition announcements and a super-cool Director's Notes section. The best part though, is that you can now buy tickets and season subscriptions online. Woot!

If you haven't seen a show at the theater yet, you really must. In fact, we think that a season subscription is on your best interest :) The theater is housed in the beautifully remodeled old Souderton firehouse and, as they say, there is not a bad seat in the house.

In addition to fantastic performances of plays, the theater also runs a Young Actors Workshop program for kids from second though twelfth grade. Experienced instructors and actors, Frannie Calter and Jess Conda, have taught, amazed and inspired many children through the workshops, including Avery. That is to say, they are quite patient as well :)

Go visit the new website and take a look around - if you aren't already involved with the theater, I'm sure the site will convince you to become so: http://www.montgomerytheater.org/index.html

Hope to see you at the upcoming show, The Last Five Years. And at The Desk Set. And at a Young Actors Workshop... :D

A/C + TV = Happy M

I'm off to a conference in North Carolina for a few days. I say "conference" lightly, as I can't be sure that I'll actually leave the space from in front of the television in the air conditioned hotel room to go to any workshops. We'll see.

Cross your fingers and hope that Jason will post some notes about his recent seed collecting :)

Blooming Glen Farm, by AC

At Blooming Glen this week, Avery took photographs. Tonight, we went through the pictures, and as we uploaded them to the blog, he dictated the captions. There's a lot of photos - Avery likes the camera, and took his first close-up shots :) As always, click the photos to make them larger.

This week, I was in charge of the Blooming Glen pictures for our blog. If you look down more [previous post], you will see vegetables and flowers. These vegetables and flowers are from Blooming Glen farm.

This diorama is of the house and the farm at Blooming Glen. I didn't see the name of the person who did it. Do you know who made it?










This is my mom picking tomatoes. These are tomatoes, we picked these ourselves. Tom the farmer told about the tomatoes, and showed us Black Pearl tomatoes.










This is Tom eating a cherry tomato.


The first tractor picture is a John Deere. You can tell because it's green and yellow. The yellow and red tractor was from 1952. Isn't that old? In the close up pictures, you see one that has six wired wheels that are yellow, they are for weeding the farm.



















This is my dog Cinder, she is the prettiest dog in the world. Her favorite sport is baseball, her favorite color is black, she is eight years old and her favorite person is me. The other picture is the pond near the CSA. I guess it has fish, frogs, ducks and other pond animals. Dragonflies probably live there because I think they put their eggs in water.











This is the sign for the Blooming Glen Farm. This is the aisle of tomatoes. I saved this picture for last because it's my favorite!











Love,
Avery

CSA crop share 11

Blooming Glen pick up bootie:

It's too freaking hot to post anything else.

Using up our veggies

The CSA pick up at Blooming Glen is tomorrow, so we wanted to use as much of our produce as possible today. Jason and I had salads for lunch and dinner was a yummy vegan stir fry.

I prepared some baked tofu (easy-peasy recipe here: http://www.fatfreevegan.com/soy/baked.shtml), sauteed a sliced onion for a couple minutes, added four sliced garden green peppers and a couple handfuls of string beans, then some water and covered to steam for a few minutes. Next, I added some frozen corn (for color), stirred everything up and re-covered. While the veggies were steaming, I mixed about four tablespoons of golden South River miso with a few splashes of soy sauce.

Once the tofu was done baking, I cut it up, threw it in, mixed in the miso, cooked for a few more minutes, then served over rice-consistency Textured Vegetable Protein (reconstituted in veggie broth). Yumm!

I also figured, that since the oven was already on, it would be a good time to use up the eggplant we had from the CSA last week. My awesome neighbor Peggy, recommended a simple roasting recipe and told me to salt the eggplant for 20 minutes before I baked it.

I cubed the eggplant (three different varieties, but about one medium-sized eggplant in total weight), and tossed them with a couple pinches of salt in a metal bowl. While that sat, I cut up a quarter of a purple onion, halved the remaining cherry tomatoes we had in the fridge, and chopped up the rest of the dill and thyme (also from last week's CSA pick up). I added the veggies and herbs to the bowl with just a bit of olive oil and pepper and let everything sit until the tofu was done. The mixture was spread onto parchment paper - given to me by Peggy :) - and baked at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.










(I like the second picture - it looks like a vegetable rescue boat.)

The stir fry and the roasted veggies were done at the same time, and we enjoyed them under the living room ceiling fan. Our dinner was vegan, but Peggy did say that a bit of fresh grated parmesan cheese is deee-lish when thrown on top of the eggplant right before it's done baking.

Oh, and did I mention the cooking and roasting was happening during the latest heat wave? Seriously? It was like, a gazillion degrees in the kitchen. Which actually made the rest of our un-air conditioned home feel cool.

And the ice cream we had at out local scoop and serve after dinner helped, too :)