Sunset

Kale Lentil Patties

Young red russian kale, champion collards, and wild lamb quarters greens.

Since kale is coming in strong in the garden right now, I went over to my friend Diana's blog to find some new recipes. This one got my attention. I thought I was making enough to freeze like she suggested, but they are so good, that I am afraid I am going to eat them all in the next two days and have none left over for the freezer. Good thing there is lots of kale in the garden! I will be making them again soon.


Here is the original recipe with my changes in parentheses.

Spicy Kale Lentil Patties

• 2 cups (1# bag) dry lentils
• 2 bay leaves (I didn't have these)
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. chili powder
• 1-2 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. coriander (I don't seem to have corriander)
• 1/2 tsp. black pepper
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper and mixed Italian herbs (I used fresh basil, rosemary, and oregano from my herb garden)
• 1 large sweet potato, baked, peeled and mashed (I substituted about 2/3 cup mashed cooked carrots)
• 1-2 cups frozen kale, thawed, drained well, chopped small ( I used a mix of young collards, kale, and lambs quarters fresh from the garden and lightly steamed.)
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs (I made bread crumbs from homemade cheese bread with caraway seeds)
• 2 tsp. olive oil or parchment paper (I used the olive oil)
• Fresh Salsa or unflavored yogurt
I also added one egg and about 1/2 cup cooked bulgar (you can't go wrong with eggs--especially with an endless supply from our backyard hens, and I needed to use the bulgar up anyway)

Method:
1) Combine lentils and bay leaf in large soup pot. Add water to cover by 3 inches. Boil until lentils are very tender, about 1 hour. Drain water from lentils and discard bay leaf. Transfer lentils to a large bowl and cool.
2) Then add seasonings. Stir with lentils until well blended. Cover lentils and refrigerate overnight. (I didn't do this, but I imagine it would really bring out the flavor of the spices.)
3) Bake sweet potato(s) in oven or microwave. Cool, peel, and coarsely mash. Add mashed potato to lentil mixture the next day and mix well.
4) Add chopped kale (squeeze to make as dry as possible)
5) Using a spoon or both hands, form mixture into balls. Flatten each ball into a 1/2" pattie. These can be any size. Press breadcrumbs lightly onto patties. Cover and refrigerate 30 minutes to 6 hours.
6) Heat in non-stick pan with small amount of olive oil or baked in oven on parchment paper until hot and crispy at 350 for 20-30 minutes (I baked mine). Flip over at the half-way point. Freeze any extras for a fast meal in the future.
7) Serve warm or room temperature with salsa or plain, unflavored yogurt.


I pulled the first garlic bulb from the garden for this recipe today. It still hasn't formed cloves yet, and I peeled back the tough outer leaves and sliced it up like a green onion. Until you've tasted garlic pulled fresh from the garden, you have never tasted garlic. It is a class all its own.

Just a touch of blue

I think my new favorite flower is irises.

Iris

SOLD!

I think we broke some kind of record. Our house sold 2 days after the first showing. We got our asking price, too. Our real estate agent said the lady who is buying it fell in love with the kitchen and had to have the house. It is a beautiful kitchen, if I may say so myself. I suspect she realized that she would never find a kitchen that came even close to this one at the price we were asking. Closing is July 31st and we have to be out of the house at that time.

Chickens heading out to dig for worms.

I spent the evening working in the garden. I've changed my mind a least ten times this spring as far as what to do about the garden. I have also sorely neglected it...one of the reasons I have not posted any photos of it this spring is that I am completely embarrassed by how many weeds are in it. Please ignore them. Thank you.

The rhubarb looks good anyway.

So now that I know when we are leaving, I am getting down to the business of getting things planted. Today I planted green beans, carrots, lettuce, and kale. I got the beds ready for tomatoes and broccoli. I'm sure we will get to eat some it. I've been picking lettuce and spinach everyday and kale and collards that were planted earlier are coming in strong.
The chickens were surprisingly good and stayed out of the newly planted beds.

I got beds ready for broccoli, tomatoes, and cucumbers. My winter sown tomatoes are still pretty small and I only got them potted up into individual pots today. I am so behind. Hopefully I will get them in the ground by the end of the week. I'm only planting 7 tomato plants as opposed to the usual 50. I don't want the new owner to be totally over whelmed. Though she will probably be totally overwhelmed by 7. She is single. But she loves the kitchen, so that must mean she likes to cook. If you like to cook you need tomatoes. You also need a garden. I hope she likes heirloom tomatoes. I also hope she has friends to give them to.

Wild poppies that I have spent the last three years trying to get rid off. They are very pretty for the 48 hours they are in bloom, then the foliage looks really ugly for the next two months as they die back.

Intruder

One of the dangers of leaving the back door open.

Dandelion

My kitchen

Everyone keeps asking me if I will miss my gardens. "You've put so much work into them, it must be hard to leave." Honestly, I can't wait to get out into the country and be able to breathe. Having grown up on 90 acres in practically the middle of nowhere, I feel claustrophobic with houses on every side. I always knew this place was temporary and even though I put a lot of work into the gardens, I knew at some point I would be walking away from them.

It looks like that time might be very soon. Our offer on the 13 acres was accepted yesterday. I signed the paperwork today and got my preapproval letter for the loan. Of course nothing is set in stone at this point, our offer was contingent on our house selling. We have to see if that will happen. But there has been a lot of interest. Yesterday was the first day we had showings and 3 couples came. Today two couples came--but one of them came back three times. How's that for interest! Tomorrow there are more people coming to see the house.

I won't miss my gardens because I will have plenty of opportunities for planting lots more. And the way the house and land is situated at the new place, it will lend itself beautifully to landscaping. I am hoping I will be able to take starts of some of my favorite plants with me. I'm not sure if that will be able to happen, and I am okay with it if it doesn't. I know how to use craig's list and get more for trade or free!

What I will miss is my beautiful kitchen. The kitchen in the house we put the offer on is decent, but is nothing like the one Terry remodeled for me. With my work as a visiting nurse I get to see the insides of lots of homes-from the poorest of the poor to million dollar houses. I don't see many kitchens I love. I've come to realize that this is a spectacular kitchen, especially given that the house is only 1,200 square feet.

Antique washboard sink. I want to take it with me! And the window looks out into the back yard so you can watch the chickens and rabbits and enjoy the flowers and garden while you work.

Oak cabinets, a double convection oven, a big island, and a stainless steel cooktop. Once you've baked in a convection oven, you never want to go back to a regular oven. The difference is amazing.

Tile floor. Terry and I put that in together. It was one of our first projects together. And yes, that is a second sink in the island. How do people live with only one sink? I guess I will have to find out...

I'm so in love with this tile backsplash. This was put in 2 days ago as we are franticly getting all the odds and ends done to get the house ready for showing. I accidently bought the wrong tile, but it turned out to be a blessed mistake. It goes so perfectly with my phlatzgraff stoneware. And the tile is actually real cut stone, it is not ceramic. I want the exact same thing in my new kitchen! And that is granite counter top. I want that in my new kitchen, too.

This is a view of the kitchen from the living room. That is a soapstone wood stoves, one of the very best woodstoves money can buy. (We are planning on taking that with us, so that will be in our new house.)

I will miss my kitchen very, very much.

Blue in Bloom

Blue-eyed tulip

Queen of the Night

Queen of the Night tulip.

Our newest lawn decoration

If anyone one wants to buy a house with half an acre in a quiet part of town here's the phone number:"CHARMING HOME ON A QUIET LITTLE STREET W/IN WALKING DISTANCE TO ABBOTT SCHOOL & PARK. CLOSE TO DOWNTOWN, SHOPPING & RESTAURANTS-THIS 2 BDRM 1.5 BATH HOME HAS HAD MANY NICE UPDATES INCL WOOD LAMINATE FLOORING, NEW OAK KITCHEN CABINETS, GRANITE COUNTERTOPS, NEW APPLIANCES & WOOD TRIM. SOME NEWER WINDOWS, CERAMIC TILE & HOT WTR HTR. ENJOY YOUR 1/2 ACRE LOT W/BEAUTIFUL PERENNIAL GARDENS & A HUGE VEGETABLE GARDEN. WITH OVER 1200 SQ FT, THERE IS PLENTY OF SPACE FOR A FIRST TIME HOME BUYER OR A EMPTY NESTER. ** NO SHOWINGS UNTIL 5/22**"

Added bonus: you will get to pick organic tomatoes and green beans from the garden in the back yard all summer long. And no, you don't get the chicken coop (there is a photo of it in the listing), I'm taking that with me.

We put our house on the market on Tuesday and put an offer on the land and house we looked at last week. Now it is a mad rush to get our house ready for showing while we are waiting to hear whether or not our offer has been accepted.

Flowers on the kitchen window sill

These daffodils are a little weird. The cups are so frilly and full of ruffles that the daffodils are very top heavy, they always end up laying flat on the ground in the garden. This is the third year they've bloomed for me, and I still can't decide if I like them or not. I think they are first daffodils I've met that I didn't love at first sight. Though I got to admit, they look a heck of a lot better in a vase on the window sill then they do in the garden.

Forget-me-nots would take over my garden if I let them. They are sure are pretty though and match the blue vases my sister-in-law made for favors at her wedding.

Miniature Irises

Bunches of Sage

I spent a couple of hours this evening weeding the herb garden and ruthlessly thinning out applemint, spearmint, and the artemisias. I love working with herbs. There are so many different scents, flavors, and textures in the little herb garden that is outside my kitchen door. I love all the combined scents of the herbs are they get slightly damaged with the weeding and pruning...the sweet lemony scent of lemon balm, the soothing fragrance of lavender and chamomile, the spicy smell of thyme and oregano, the pungent odor of catnip, and all the wonderful minty-ness of spearmint, peppermint and applemint.

And then there is sage. To me sage smells like comfort. When I was a child, my mother would make sage tea if we had a cold or a sore throat. I have one sage bush that I have to cut back dramatically every spring to prevent it from crowding out the tarragon that lives next to it. Today I cut it back by about half and bunched up the trimmings and hung them to dry in the dining room. They will be turned into sage tea and chicken soup all winter long.
Bunches of sage brighten up the kitchen/dining room. It's nice to have herbs drying again!

A close up of the wreath...it is last year's spearmint and strawflowers.

13 acres and a backhoe

Because if you have 13 acres, you need a backhoe.

I can't quite believe this happening. On Sunday we are meeting with a real estate agent, drawing up a contract for putting our house on the market, and making an offer on 13 acres and a house contingent on selling our house. On a sopping wet day this week, I walked every square foot (just about!) of the 13 acres and loved what I saw. Yes, I could wake up every morning and look out on to those 13 acres and be glad they are mine. It has gently rolling hills, with a little bit of wet land, a little bit of woods, plenty of flat space for garden and orchards--and oh, the potential for flower gardens and landscaping! It is well set back from the road.

A great big plus is the huge pole barn (the former owner built biplanes in it) and a large garage/workshop/horse barn that you could park 4 cars in with room to spare. Terry will be in heaven. I am sad that the woods were almost destroyed by loggers maybe 3 or 4 years ago. You can see that they were once beautiful woods, but were totally ravaged by someone who's only thought was how much money he could get for the lumber and cared nothing about preserving the beauty or health of the woods. None the less, woodland in Michigan is quite resilient and in 10 or 15 years they should be beautiful again.

Oh, and there is a house. You have to have some place to actually live while you are planting your gardens, caring for your orchards, tending your flock of hens and all. It is cute house, a bit different, and needs some updating (new kitchen for sure). But one could move it tomorrow if you had to.

Terry is happy that the property is close to his backhoe. He got the backhoe for free off of Craig's List last winter. When I heard about it, my only stipulation, was, "You CANNOT bring it home and put it in my yard!" Good grief, our neighbors put up with a lot from us, I don't want to know what their reaction to a backhoe as a lawn ornament would be! (The backhoe had some engine problems and he worked out an agreement with the owner that if he fixed the engine and let the guy use it, he didn't have to take it home until he has a place to take it home. I'm happy with that arrangement. Though I can see that it will come in very useful once we get a piece of land out in the country. I will need it for digging out my pond, for one thing!

Of course, actually buying this place depends on selling our home, and the owner might not even be willing to take our offer, so I'm not getting my hopes up. There will be another piece of land somewhere else if this one doesn't work out. We are putting our house on the market on Sunday regardless, and starting the process of getting the place ready to sell. That means finishing up a bunch of details in the house and putting in a decent driveway. Even if we don't sell the house, we will be better off with getting these things done, so it is nice to have the extra motivation.

I've had to rethink what to do with my garden this year. I decided to go ahead and plant it just as if I had no other plans. I did decide to make it a bit smaller, though, and make it square instead of a misshaped mess. I was going to make it square this summer anyway, except that I was going to make it a bigger square rather then a smaller square. Actually I won't really be loosing any growing space for vegetables. Because of the black walnut tree most vegetables won't grow past a certain point anyway, so that extra space was flowers, I will just be pushing the flower border back. I think having a neat flower border will be more attractive to potential buyers.

Morels for dinner

I was down staffed from the evening shift tonight, and as that is always cause for celebration, I went out and picked the morels growing in the back yard. I always leave a few mushrooms to go to "seed". I really don't know if that makes a difference or not, but to be on the safe side side, I leave a few. A clump of morels in the raspberry patch.

Morels are hollow on the inside. You have to split them open and wash them carefully to get all the tiny insects out that like to take up residence inside the hollow stems. I was reading today, that soaking them makes them lose their flavor and you should only do a very quick rinse under cold running water.
With cooking morels, it is all about the butter. There are all kinds of fancy recipes for cooking them, but I can't imagine anything gets much better then simply sauteing them with a little green onion in lots of butter.Morels sizzling in butter.

I served this tonight with plain rice and pecan fish fillets--another very quick recipe and one of my favorite ways to cook fish.

Pecan Fish Fillets

4 mild fish fillets ( I use pollack or tilapia)
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup fresh parsley or celery (finely chopped)
3 T lemon juice
1 T olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Combine cheese, pecans, parsley, olive oil, and 2 T lemon juice.
Place fish in a single layer in a baking dish and spread with pecan mixture. Drizzle with remaining lemon juice.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until fish flakes with a fork.

Spring in the Woods

Jack-in-the-pulpit


Cowslips

Violets

Opened hickory bud


Barberry blossoms


Pink Trillium


Wood Anemone