Christmas in Zoar 2011
Mr Chiots and I always kick off our holiday season by going to Christmas in Zoar. We usually plan ahead and go with friends, but this year time got away from us and we didn’t realize it was happening until Sunday around noon. We put the coffee we were drinking into to-go mugs, jumped in the car and headed down for an afternoon of holiday fun. It’s a great way to get into the spirit because all the houses are decorated beautifully for Christmas outside and in. Each year there are a few houses on tour, we’ve been going for so long we’ve toured almost every home. It’s truly a fantastic way to get into the Christmas spirit. Here’s a slideshow of all the Christmas we saw on Sunday afternoon. Here’s a slideshow to help get you into the Christmas spirit. You’ll notice there are garden photos in there as well, I can’t help myself! (use icon in the top left corn to view in full screen). Be patient, there are 60 photos to get you in the Christmas spirit!
[flashgallery folder=”Christmas in Zoar”]
The gardens of Zoar are also lovely and I’m always hoping to go to their summer garden tour, sadly we’re always working on the Saturday they have it and they don’t announce it far enough ahead of time for me to book events around it. Hopefully later today we’ll head out to get our Christmas tree, then it will officially be the Christmas season at Chiot’s Run.
Do you have any holiday traditions that officially kick off the season for you?
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A Friendly Arm in Winter
“The sun lay like a friendly arm across her shoulder.”
~Margorie Kinnan Rawlings in South Moon Under
It’s amazing how a few months can change so many things. This time of year the sun doesn’t reach as high in the sky and thus it bathes the front of our house in a golden glow in the afternoon.
In summer, the hot afternoon sun is shaded out by the porch roof, which we certainly welcome it as it keeps the house much cooler. In winter we appreciate that the sun is lower in the sky and it comes streaming in all afternoon to brighten up the short days.
The rising and falling of the sun in the sky at different angles throughout the year is certainly one of the wonderful things about living in the North. The days are shorter for sure in winter, but the sun is much more welcome than it is during the hot humid days mid-summer. I’m not much of one to spend time in the sun during the heat of the day, I much prefer the morning or late afternoon sun.
Are you a spend time in the hot sun kind of person, or do you prefer it after it’s waning and softer/cooler?
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Dark Days Challenge has Begun
The Dark Days Challenge has begun (it’s not too late to sign up if you still want to). The idea behind the challenge is to:
Cook one meal each week featuring SOLE (sustainable, organic, local, ethical) ingredients, write about it on your blog and email your happy recapper a link to your post.
For those of us who have been eating locally for a while, this isn’t as hard as it is for someone just starting out. For us it’s about encouraging others to eat locally during that dark season when it’s more difficult. We have a group discussion forum to help people source items in their regions and to discuss meal options and alternatives for items you can’t find locally.
As a seasoned local eater, I thought I’d try to come up with more interesting recipes for the challenge this year. I’m going to try to find a few new things at the farmer’s market each month for my Dark Days meals. This past week leftovers from Thanksgiving was the theme for my meal. We had a wonderful smoked turkey from Martha’s Farm and the stock made with the bones was more like ham stock than regular turkey stock. When I woke up in the morning and smelled the smokey stock I decided that potato soup was the way to go. I have an abundance of potatoes in the garage from my summer garden and I’d like to make sure to eat them up before they start to sprout.
I don’t very often cook with recipes but I’ll do my best to put this one down in case you want to make it.
SMOKY POTATO SOUP
3 quarts of smoked turkey or ham stock*
1/4 cup of butter
2 large yellow onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, diced
3 pounds of potatoes peeled and cubed
1 pint to 1 quart of whole milk
salt and pepper to taste
your choice of tasty toppings
Melt butter in pan and add onions, cook for 5 minutes over medium to low heat until almost translucent, add garlic, salt and freshly ground pepper; cover and cook on low for additional 4-5 minutes. Add stock to pan and heat until simmering, add potatoes and cook until soft. Pour milk into pan and smash potatoes with a potato masher until soup is thick and there are only small bits of potato left. If soup is too thick add more milk, if it’s too watery cook down a bit. Top with your choice of delicious toppings: scallions, chives, bacon, cheese, etc.
*if you don’t have smoked turkey or ham stock use regular chicken stock or purchase a ham hock and simmer in water for a few hours.
As a side, I added a some tiny butter head lettuce that I got at Local Roots in Wooster, OH and a homemade buttermilk herb dressing with fresh herbs from the garden! How’s that for a meal to brighten you mood on a dark and cold December evening?
How do you creatively use up turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving? Any favorite turkey leftover meals?
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On Biting Off More Than You Can Plant
I mentioned previously about all the spring flowering bulbs I purchased. I’d been faithfully planting a few hundred each day, whittling away at them little by little. Then I got sick and they sat in their boxes in the garage for two weeks, then it started to rain and they sat in the garage for a few more days.
Now that I’m back up and running, I’m a bit behind. I’ve been madly planting tulips for the last couple days using every spare moment of my too busy days. I’m planting almost all of the tulips on the back hillside which I can see from my kitchen window. This hillside has been languishing, half overtaken by some invasive honeysuckle planted by previous owners. I’ve been putting off doing something with it for far too long. After spending hours ripping all the honeysuckle out I started digging all the rocks out of the soil and loosening the soil so I could plant the tulips as deeply as possible (tulips will survive colder climates better if planted more deeply).
Since it’s such a large area and I’ve been working on it little by little, I’ve been using a straight stick to mark where I’ve planted to so I don’t accidentally dig up tulips I’ve already planted.
At first I was going to plant the tulips in a patten with the different varieties clumped together. I cut out the photos of the different kinds and taped them to a piece of paper so I could have a visual reference of what each one looked like. But then I decided to mix them all in one big box and plant them randomly where they fell. Most of them bloom during the same time period, so it should make for quite the show (you will of course be seeing photos of it next spring)!
Yesterday, afternoon I finished planting all the tulips in the big box and sat back to admire my work. Then when I returned to the garage I found 2 boxes of 100 tulips each that had been pushed out of the way. Guess that’s means I’m not as finished as I thought I was. Looks like I’ll be spending some time this afternoon digging a few more holes to get those last few tulips planted. I certainly cannot wait until spring to see the beautiful display from my kitchen window!
Have you ever had a gardening chores you never though you’d finish?
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I Spy With My Little Eye…
Yesterday afternoon was really beautiful; the sun was shining and it was in the high 30’s temperature wise. Perfect for digging up the back hillside and planting some of the tulips that have been waiting in the garage. About dusk, I wandered back into the maple grove to look around and much to my surprise I noticed some of the my mushrooms logs had started to produce mushrooms!
I guess all that warm rainy weather we’ve been having the last couple weeks made them decide it was time to start fruiting. One of the ‘Pearl Oyster’ logs was producing huge masses of beautiful blonde mushrooms. They were a bit frosty because the temps dipped down into the mid 20’s overnight, but I picked them anyways. The texture might not be quite right, but they’ll still be flavorful in a venison stew.
These logs were inoculated way back on April 21st of this year. I ordered these spawn plugs from Grow Organic this spring, they’re also available from Fungi Perfecti.
Inoculating logs with mushroom spawn couldn’t be easier. Basically you drill holes in the logs 3-4 inches apart in a diamond pattern, pound in the spawn plugs, cover with wax and let sit in a shaded area. After a few months you can start watering the logs to encourage fruiting, or you can let them fruit naturally during spring and fall rains. (since folks were asking in the comments I figured I’d add that the logs are supposed to continue to produce mushrooms for 3-5 years depending on the size of log used and the type of wood used).
I used three different kinds of spawn plugs to inoculate logs this spring, Pearl Oyster, Hen of the Woods (Maitake) and Shiitake. I also inoculated some wood chips in the garden area with Garden Giant and Elm Oyster mushrooms spawn.
After plugging your logs with spawn you’re supposed to put some wax over the holes to keep bad fungus and bacteria out. I will use beeswax next time, but I didn’t have any when I did these logs so I used some extra cheese wax I had in the pantry. I’m not keen on using a petroleum product but it was all I had. I have since purchased some organic beeswax to use this coming spring when I inoculate more logs.
I’ve declared my love of mushrooms before, so being able to grow my own makes me a very happy camper! If all continues to go well with this experiments I’ll be inoculating many more logs this coming spring to keep up enjoying mushrooms by the bushel! My harvest tally for this picking was 3 pounds – not bad indeed!
Have you ever grown mushrooms? Do you think you’d like to try? Yay or nay on mushrooms in your food?
