A few weeks back I mentioned I will try to show examples of backyard to table dishes that I make.  Since college I’ve found it prudent to grow some of my own food. I enjoy gardening but it’s also a matter of trying to ensure my own health.

I meet a lot of people who tell me they don’t have time to garden and generally I don’t buy it. If you watch television for more than an hour a day, you can find time to throw a few plants in some pots and water them. In college I grew tomatoes and basil in buckets at my apartment. I got the buckets for free  from a friend who worked at Cub Foods and bought cheap plants at Wal-mart. The set up wasn’t pretty but those four or five plants provided me with countless meals.

I mean it. Tomatoes and herbs can be used on sandwiches, pizza; in pasta sauce, soups, salads, bruschetta, pesto, salsa and more. Two simple ingredients can lend themselves to a wide array of delicious healthful dishes. While many of those dishes need a few more ingredients, it cost a lot less when you already have the base. For those apartment years, I and my roommates ate quite well.

Tomatoes aren’t the only plants that grow well in containers. Leafy greens, herbs, beans, brussel sprouts and more can all be grown in containers. And while something pretty is always nice, a cat litter bucket will do the job.

Being a 30 something woman with ears, it’s sometimes frustrating for me to hear people talk about how expensive it is to eat healthfully.

Eating well isn’t nearly as hard as people make it. A little effort can take you along way and it’s fun. It’s not nearly as time consuming as people think and it is really gratifying to watch something grow from a tiny seed to an ingredient to feed your family.  I really hope to show that this summer through this blog.

I had goals going into the month of May and I have not met them. My goals were to get my husband to till up my garden and to get cool weather crops planted..

The weather and my belly have stood in the way. Up until last Saturday, we still had snow on the ground, making it hard to get anything accomplished in the garden. The weather seems to have taken a turn for the better this week. On Sunday the sun came out, so I thought for sure I could do some stuff after work Monday.

Reality hit on Monday. I went to plant some seeds and found it really difficult to bend over. I am nine months pregnant.  I tried several other postitions but I was really uncomfortable. After getting a couple rows of lettuce in the ground, I gave up. I had hoped to get some peas and kale planted too but it’s just going to have to wait.

I know I sound whiny but I am disappointed. Usually my attitude is just do it but I’m uncomfortable most of the day anyway, adding to it just seems stupid. There’s still time to get things done and the baby will be here soon. My sister is coming to stay with us for a while so hopefully I’ll be able to enlist her help to get everything put in. One way or another I will get a garden planted this summer it just may be on a later time table than usual. Thank God I have a farmer’s market close by.

On a side not, I’m hoping to put a fence around my garden this summer to keep the rabbits out. I don’t want anything too fancy. Some posts and chicken wire I think would work. Does anyone out there have good advice to offer on putting up a fence? Please share your experiences.

Despite the continuous crappy weather, parts of my yard are starting to signify that spring is indeed here. Some of my bulb plants have risen from the Earth and the grass is starting to take on a greener hue, at least when it’s not covered with snow.

I am anticipating the sprouting of my asparagus plants.  I planted a dozen one-year old crowns from a local nursery several years ago and they should be ready for harvest. I was careful to follow the directions and dug trenches about six-inches deep. I covered the crowns with a couple inches of soil and then let the plants emerge and then repeated the process until the plants reached ground level.  The plants seemed to have flourished in their bed.

Asparagus needs time to establish deep roots and so it’s best to wait several growing seasons to harvest it. Amazingly those seasons for our household have passed and we’re ready for some garden fresh asparagus. I think with the  winter weather seemingly lasting so long into the spring months I’m a little more excited than I should be for it.

To celebrate the occasion I’ve decided to share some asparagus recipes. Most of the time I drizzle stalks with olive oil, give ‘em a good shot of salt and pepper and roast it. However last spring when asparagus was cheap, I tried a frittata recipe that I thought was good enough to make again. The recipe comes from the Good Housekeeping Vegetarian Meals cookbook.

Ingredients

8 large eggs

1/2 cup whole milk

1/8 teaspoon salt

12 ounces asparagus, trimmed

1 tbsp. butter

1 bunch of green onions

2 ounces of cream cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Using a whisk, beat eggs with milk, pepper and salt until blended. Cut asparagus into one-inch pieces.

In oven-safe skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add the asparagus and the remaining 1/4 tsp salt and cook, stirring often. Cook until stalks are tender. Stir in green onions.

Reduce heat to medium-low. Pour egg-mixture over vegetables, drop teaspoonful of cream cheese over egg mixture. Cook, without stirring, until egg mixture begins to set around edge, 3 to 4 minutes.

Place skillet in oven and bake until frittata is set and knife comes out of center clean. It usually takes 10 t0 12 minutes.

Talking with people lately I feel like a broken record. The weather sucks…

The snow has mostly melted in our yard but the ground is still very frozen. In fact we have several Christmas decorations that are still stuck in the ground. Hopefully we’ll be able to pry them up this weekend. It’s getting a bit embarrassing

Last year at this time, I had peas, lettuce and spinach planted. It looks as though it will be weeks before that’s a reality this year. I’ve gotten so desperate to put  something in dirt that I bought some potting soil and plan to plant some kale and lettuce in planters this weekend.

While I would be in a hurry no matter what, this year I am feeling a bit more anxious because I was hoping to get things in the ground before baby #3 comes. He’s due June 6 and I had it in my head that I could have a majority of my garden planted by then.  We’ll see how it goes.

Either way I am planning to do something new and hopefully helpful with this blog. Through the growing season I plan to provide backyard to table examples. While I have offered up recipes in the past, it’s always more appealing to see the finished project and I’d like to show how easy it is to cook that way. Oh what a garden variety makes and I hope to show the vast opportunities even a small garden can provide.

Best wishes as the days warm up!

It’s been cold here in Minnesota, which is pretty much par for the course in February. However, March is just a week away and with it warmer temperatures are coming.

I am a reporter by trade and so I receive a lot of press releases. In the last couple weeks press releases indicating warm weather is on its way have started rolling in. Spring home and garden shows are going on. Garden and horticulture specialist are offering classes and community gardens are taking applications for membership. It’s so exciting!

Community gardening has definitely gained momentum from when I started seven years ago. In the last several years I have written at least a half dozen stories on community gardens opening. It’s wonderful and I hope it’s a trend that continues. If you are interested in joining a community garden I would start looking for a plot now. Most are taking applications and they will fill up fast. There are so many in the Twin Cities I wouldn’t know where to begin but if you need help finding something comment on this board and I am more than willing to help you find something.

If your community doesn’t have one, start one! While it takes time and energy, it’s effort well spent that will benefit not only yourself but your community at large. There’s lots of good information about starting a community garden at http://www.communitygarden.org. It’s unlikely you would be able to establish something in time for this spring but it’s a good time to get people on board who like the idea and are willing to help.

To get ready for the upcoming growing season and to get out of the house consider taking a class. Here in the southern Twin Cities area a number of groups will be offering opportunities in the coming months. In particular the Dakota County Master Gardeners will host their Let’s Get Growing Spring Expo starting at 8 a.m.  March 9. Registration is going on now and it’s well worth the effort to attend. For more information about the speakers and vendors and to download registration forms, please visit their blog at http://blog.lib.umn.edu/mgweb/dakota/ .  Information can also be found atwww.dakotamastergardeners.org/home-2/ . School District 196 Community Education also has a variety of classes on home gardening coming up. Check out their catalog at http://district196.org/ce/.

While the weather still has some cards to deal, warmer days are near and so why not take advantage and learn something new. Let me know what you learn!

It’s about this time every year I start really longing for warmer days. I have to admit I hate winter with a passion and it still boggles my mind that I chose to move north when considering colleges. However my husband and children are here and I like them. So Minnesota is where I will roost, at least for the immediate future.

I’m pretty stoked for spring to get here for several reasons. We are expecting our third child in June. While his arrival will mean we won’t have time to grow as big a garden this summer, we will still have something. For sure we want to grow pumpkins, peas, tomatoes, carrots and lettuce. Additionally my asparagus will finally be ready for picking and I have high hopes for the raspberry bushes I planted last spring.

My husband has agreed to help more this year especially at the beginning of the season when I’ll be nine months pregnant. I’m hoping my daughter also will want to help. This may not be our best gardening year but we’re still going to give the old college try. I’ve tried to pick vegetables and fruits that can survive a little neglect.

For now it’s all day dreaming and anticipation though. The one bright side to winter is the abundance of citrus fruits. We’ve had some really delicious pineapples and oranges this year. Over Christmas we also ate several pomegranates that didn’t disappoint. I’m not all that creative when it comes to fruits. I like to eat them as they are. I do occasionally like to grill pineapple and serve it with ice cream.

Here’s a quick grilled pineapple recipe:

Mix one tablespoon of lime juice, one tablespoon of olive oil, two tablespoons honey honey and one teaspoon of cinnamon together to make a marinade. Remove the pineapple peal and core it. If you have the proper tools, you can  slice the pineapple into rounds or you can cut into long strips. Coat the pineapple with the marinade. Place pineapple on a hot grill for a couple minutes until you get nice grill marks and then turn and grill the other side. You can baste with the remaining marinade if you like. Enjoy with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream.

Yesterday while I was picking tomatoes I found a rabbit carcass in my garden. The body was fully intact but the head appeared to have been eaten off. I’m grateful to whatever predator made short work of the rabbit. I’ve come to loath those stupid things. In fact I have new found respect for Elmer Fudd.

I wish whatever killed the rabbit would have gotten rid of the evidence though because I didn’t enjoy doing it.  My husband wasn’t too thrilled either. This morning when went to take the garbage out the headless carcass scared the crap out of him.

The find does have me wondering what killed the rabbit. I know rabbits have a number of predators but what would just eat his head off. Are there zombie rabbits out there?

I suppose the logical answer would be that the predator was scared off before he could devour the rest of the body. But logic doesn’t lead to a fun story.

Recently I have seen some sort of large brown mammal in the ravine behind our house. It’s not as big as a bear but it’s bigger than a weasel. I haven’t gotten a clear view of it but I know it’s back there. Maybe it eats rabbit heads?

Either way I have a mystery on my hands and an ally in the war against those wascally wabbits.

Every day my kids want to go outside and check on their pumpkins.This is the first time I have grown pumpkins and I will again simply because they bring my kids so much joy. My kids have delighted in watching little dark green balls turn into big huge orange pumpkins. My daughter frequently talks about carving them when it gets cold.

I planted pumpkins on a whim because the seed pack was 20 cents. It was money well spent. We have four big pumpkins that will be perfect for carving which is awesome because that’s all we need. It’s like it was meant to be.

The other orb that has been getting lots of attention in our house is the apple. We have already been through four bags of apples. We’ve had some Honeycrisps and Zestars. Locally this was a tough year for apple because we had several hail storms. But there are still some apples to be had. In my opinion, few things are better than an apple fresh off the tree.

After reading several pieces that suggested putting thin apple slices in a grilled cheese I decided to try it. I used sharp cheddar and whole wheat bread with Honeycrisp slices. It was awesome. I would highly recommend it. Now I want to try different apple/cheese combinations to experiment.

While I hate to wish summer away, the fall weather and fare have been a welcome change.

Last time I wrote in this space I was preparing to tackle an artichoke. A reader suggested I steam it and then dip the petals in butter, so that’s what I did. I think I steamed it too long or perhaps the artichoke had just gone bad. It was mushy and tasted a bit musty. The best part of eating the artichoke was the butter. I have a friend who cooks with them regularly, so she offered to teach me some tricks next time we get together.

Not all was lost though. In looking for ways to cook artichokes I found a number of recipes that included the canned hearts. I went on an artichoke spree much to my daughter’s chagrin. My son seemed to enjoy it though, which is funny because he’s the more finicky eater.

I am doing my best to raise open minded kids when it comes to food and all areas of life really.  My general philosophy in life is try it and see what happens. That philosophy has backfired on me a time or two; but I regret nothing and have some kick ass stories to tell for it. I hope my kids can say the same thing when they are old.

Excuse my mommy moment, I think too much about these things but I wanted to share a couple of artichoke recipes. I have made no secret for my love of soups and salads so I am sharing one soup recipe and one salad. I hope you enjoy them and if you have a good artichoke recipe, canned or otherwise, please share! Both recipes came from Allrecipes.com

<h2>Artichoke soup</h2>

<b>Ingredients</b>

<h2>Artichoke salad</h2>

<b>Ingredients</b>

I am reading a book on nutrition for fun, I guess, and in it they rave about the nutritional virtues of the artichoke. So while I was at the super market today I picked one up. The problem is I don’t have a bloody clue what to do with it. Quite frankly I’m frightened of the thing.

I like artichokes. I especially like it when restaurants include them in Greek salads. But now faced with figuring out how to prepare one I like them less.

I often wonder how people started eating different foods and artichokes are on the top of that list. All weird and pokey it doesn’t look all that edible to me. Also on my list is the pineapple. I give ancient people props for being willing to figure it out for us.

Anyhow I searched for ways to cook artichokes on the internet. The sites I looked at don’t leave me feeling all that confident. I’m not exactly sure what parts we should be eating. I think I’ve only had artichoke hearts but it appears as though you can eat the petals too.

I’m going to try to cook it tomorrow night so I’m hoping someone out there might give some tips on preparing an artichoke.

On another note this weekend I am going to plant some fall crops. I plan on planting lettuce, peas and spinach. What crops will you plant this fall? Please share!