I can’t remember if I mentioned undertaking this activity back in late November. Our neighbor, Robert, came over one day and asked if he could pick some of our olives (FYI, we have a lone tree from McEvoy Ranch in our side yard). Robert said it was very easy to cure them using a brine (water+salt+vinegar). Backyard farmers that we are, we were eager to join him in the endeavor.

The hardest parts were picking the olives (we got covered in dust) and then inspecting them for olive moth larvae (yuck!). It bummed me out we had to reject so many, but we didn’t want our guests to bite into an olive and find a worm! In the end, we only had enough to fill about three of the jars above. We’re thinking they’ll make a perfect amuse bouche at dinner parties. Right?

Brine curing olives takes a lot of time and but little attention. Olives contain a bitter element called oleuropein that needs to be leached out in order to make them edible. Robert had some great notes we followed. Basically, you crack or slice each olive in order to allow the oleuropein to be drawn out by the brine. The directions called for 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups of water plus 1/2 cup vinegar (white, white wine or cider – we used plain white). We filled up the jar and made sure the olives stayed submerged – a ziploc bag of rice worked great. We covered it lightly as directed and put it in a cool dark place. We checked it every week for the first month or so. We also changed the brine every month but did not rinse the residue off the olives. Hint: it acts as a starter, much like yeast.

Then, we waited…

After several months, the olives were ready for flavoring. The directions called for 1/4 cup kosher salt to 4 cups of water. Then we added 1/2 cup white wine vinegar and herbs for flavoring. We choose black peppercorns, fresh rosemary and strips of our homemade preserved lemons. The resultant olives are salty and lemony, with a slight rosemary bouquet. They are fairly small since the tree isn’t that old but Robert assured us they will get bigger over time.

I’m really excited to do it again this fall. If you want to join the harvest and make some of your own, send me an email!

Voila! Basil plants are back at Trader Joe’s! We did a major family grocery run on Sunday and found this beautiful plant at TJ’s Los Altos. The first thing Tate said upon seeing it was, “Can we have Dad’s garden pasta now?”

You may recall the last minute pasta my husband threw together in September following our neighborhood’s Harvest Walkabout. It was late, we were hungry and we only had some sausage in the refrigerator. Paul went out to the garden, grabbed a few tomatoes and some basil, then cooked up the sausage with some Maui onion. He tossed uncooked, cut tomatoes and a handful of fresh chopped basil. It was heavenly and is now one of our all-time favorites. It’s best with fresh, ripe tomatoes but you can also use chopped canned ones (or hothouse, which we found at Foothill Produce). The true key element is fresh basil – it pulls this dish together in the most magical way. In case you want to try it yourself, here’s the link to the directions:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/garden-inspired-pasta-pb

We found some terrific early avocados at Foothill Produce, too, which prompted Dane’s request for his favorite summer salad:

http://dirtandsunshine.posterous.com/tomato-avocado-onion-salad

Dinners like this get us excited about our trip to Italy this summer… Italian-grown Genovese basil here we come!

Sometimes my job makes me wish I had more disposable income…

Don’t get me wrong; I love having a work-at-home graphic design business that allows me flexibility as a mom and plenty of time to do pro bono work. But when I see gorgeous planters like these, I just want to OWN THEM TODAY (they’re probably out of my price range but I’m dreaming anyway).

I was working on adding some new content to Emily Joubert Home & Garden this afternoon – http://emilyjoubert.com/garden_whats-new.html – and this photo in particular caught my eye. The company is called Out Standing and they are Belgian no less! Go check them out and let me know what you think below… anyone else as smitten as I am?

And, please, Powers-That-Be, can’t I just win a small lottery prize so we can add these planters to our backyard? Pretty please?

On Sunday, we headed over to our local garden supply, Yamagami’s, to scout out a possible living Christmas tree (we’ve got room in the yard now that we’ve taken out a few struggling/ugly trees). Has anyone in the Bay Area found a pretty pine, spruce or fir variety that does well in our climate? All the ones we really like (Noble Fir, for example) need colder growing conditions than sunny Sunnyvale. So we’re still on the lookout for this year’s tree… and any recommendations you may have on where to buy living trees locally.

While at Yamagami’s, we couldn’t help but notice a nice sale on winter vegetable flats. We were excited to stock up on romaine lettuce, ‘bright lights’ swiss chard, sugar snap peas, Walla Walla onions, spearmint, fava bean seeds and the celery pictured above. I’ll post a few more pictures soon, just need to wait for a few semi-buried plants to surface.

I was not happy to dig my hands into the cold soil this week, but then I remembered Paul was crunching around in snow in Belgium and I figured it was the least I could do. I prefer plant maintenance and harvesting to actual planting you see – and it’s not because of the dirt!! I love dirt and don’t mind getting my hands dirty. The thing is, I usually worry I’m not planting them right. You know when you sow from seeds what the planting instructions are; they are helpfully printed on the back of the packet. Not so with generic black flats of seedlings!

I never know which ones to plant deep and which to plant shallow for optimal development of a healthy root system. So I experiment and, luckily, have more successes than failures. And I can already hear what you’re going to say… read a book about planting seedlings! I know that would help but I don’t usually like “how to” books. I read cookbooks like stories, not usually for the recipes contained in them, that should tell you something.

Maybe I’ll get really adventurous and ask a local gardening expert and videotape them doing it!! What do you think about that?

Although I don’t particularly like cold weather, there is a silver lining here in California – it’s citrus time! Our Bearss Lime has been producing (prolifically) for several weeks now and just this week our Owari Satsuma trees acquired enough orange color for the boys to begin harvesting.

Tate wasted no time in working towards his yearly quota from our home garden; he’s probably eaten ten already and I had to stop him from venturing out a THIRD time last night to get his preferred dessert (fruit). As a parent, I felt off-kilter saying “enough fruit, go have something sweet and fattening!” but that’s because I have been gifted with a darling, 11-year old semi-fruitarian. I love his passion for vegetables and fruits, don’t get me wrong. It just can be difficult to keep up when he comes home from school craving a mixed green salad with champagne vinaigrette and said ingredients were all used up in Sunday night’s dinner.

Do any of you get into this seemingly endless cycle of promoting fresh, organic food that needs to be purchased frequently and eaten quickly before it spoils and then life intervenes and you haven’t gotten to the amazing fruit stand or Farmer’s Market and you have hungry children who want what you normally have on hand but don’t and what you DO have just won’t do?? Whew! I’m tired just thinking about whether or not that sentence is gramatically correct.

Paul tells me I am my own worst enemy when it comes to primarily cooking from scratch and he’s right. Every day there are piles of dishes, pots and pans and those darn Henckels knives I love but that need to be hand-washed AND dried every time. No wonder I just give up sometimes and go out three nights in a row (not a good financial investment, to be sure, but sometimes my sanity depends on it).

Does anyone else ever feel stressed by how hard it is to live an old-fashioned, backyard garden growing, mindful-of-the-environment-and-our-consumptive-impact type of lifestyle? I’m still 100 percent for it; I’ve just found myself up against a wall time-wise so many times. I love how we try to live but am very cognizant of HOW MUCH TIME it really takes every day. If anyone has any great tips for better time management, I would greatly appreciate it!

For some reason, parsley gives the best results: bright color (see below!) and fabulous taste. Basil almost always turns dark but the flavor is great nonetheless; sage leaves curl up a lot but they work well, too.

I use a clean cookie sheet for each batch as there may be a bit of residual stickiness from the oil in the leaves. The goal is to get them just barely dry and let time take care of the rest. I typically leave them out for a few days to fully dry, then seal in glass jars or plastic bags.

My sons love to crumble the full leaves when we cook. It’s very satisfying to crunch them in your bare hands over a pot of soup or pasta sauce. It’s also a terrific ‘helper’ job for little ones!
 

Slice tomatoes, avocado and sweet onion (Maui, Vidalia, etc.) then drizzle with a simple dressing of half olive oil, half fresh lemon juice, salt, pepper, and a generous pinch of dried oregano. The oregano is a nice contrast to the avocado and onion (versus other herbs). Enjoy!
 

I want to dedicate today’s post to the newly freed miners in Chile who overcame odds so adverse, they should be fairy tales. Like the rest of the world, I am incredibly grateful to have them safely returned to their families. It’s a testament to the power of the human spirit and our ability to overcome intense obstacles when we work together.

It inspires me to look deep into my own heart and examine the obstacles there… then work hard to overcome them. Peace, love and joy to all. kathy
 

In the interim, if you want to follow Emily Joubert’s ‘Pumpkin Stories’ (a mini series starting today) be sure to visit the Emily Joubert Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Emily-Joubert/101312312858 – have a wonderful evening!
 
kathy

p.s. A very big THANK YOU to the amazing Calvina of Calvina Photography http://calvinaphotography.com/ for giving me an incredibly useful lesson in lighting objects – Calvina, you’re a rock star!

I got this recipe from my mother, who I believe learnt it from her esthetician.

Take 2-3 organic strawberries (sliced) and float them in 1/4 cup white vinegar until the vinegar turns red (looks a bit like fake blood, doesn’t it?). You may steep the strawberries for as few as 3-4 hours or as long as a day or two (I tend to go longer since I like the heavier strawberry scent). Discard the strawberries and put your tonic in a nice-looking bottle. Voila!

I like to store mine in the refrigerator to keep it fresh and stimulating but I believe it will be shelf-stable in your bathroom cabinet. I use a dime-sized drop each evening after washing my face (patted on with bare hands), then follow with my favorite moisturizer – Epicuren Facial Emulsion Enzyme is my current choice though I am notoriously fickle when it comes to skincare lines.

As many of you know, I have been on a vinegar kick for a long time (cleaning the house, laundry, etc.). This is by far the best thing I’ve done for my skin EVER and it’s completely safe and natural. I’ve read that vinegar kills most bacteria (making it great for adult or teen acne-prone skin) and strawberries are loaded with Vitamin C, a common ingredient in age-defying cosmecuticals.

I wish I had a similarly posed “before” shot to show you how the surface wrinkles under my eyes have lessened since I’ve started using my ‘strawberry+vinegar’ tonic. Don’t imagine, however, that it works on deeper wrinkles – my smooth forehead is the result of twice-a-year Botox!

What do you think, readers, are any of you interested in trying it? If so, please share your results!

Not only was our neighborhood ‘harvest walkabout’ a success, my husband, Paul (on the fly, with almost nothing in the fridge) created the most amazing, garden-inspired pasta on Saturday night. It was so delicious, we bought more Italian sausage on Sunday and he made it again that night!

He sauteed a large Spanish onion (procured from my favorite vendor at the Sunnyvale Farmer’s Market that morning) and a few links of Italian sausage in some olive oil, letting the onions caramelize just a bit. He then poured this over ‘al dente’ spaghetti and added a roughly chopped tomato or two from our garden. We topped it with salt, freshly ground black pepper and a chiffonade of fresh basil (just a dusting since our snails have devoured most of our Genovese).

Speaking of devouring, it was gone within minutes and we talked about it all the next day, prompting a visit to Crate & Barrel (where we found the coolest 4-layer herb scissors that automatically give you a chiffonade) and Whole Foods (where we also found some amazing Bronx table grapes that taste even better than my favorite Muscat variety).

And then today, I broke a window throwing a frozen water bottle for the dog. Maybe that’s bad luck. I also crashed my computer pretty hard and had to run a 2-hour diagnostic to see if anything was damaged. But I walked down to the local Hallmark Store/post office and stopped at For Other Living Things, an organic pet supplies store. I got $17 back in change from buying Scout something to keep her busy and the owner and I decided my luck was changing (17 is one of my lucky numbers). She recommended I play the lottery and after many years of avoiding it, I bought two tickets.

Wish me luck… if I win you know I’m going to plan my ‘family&friends’ trip to Dalhousie Castle in Edinburgh!