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Archive for December, 2009
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
One lucky reader each week in January will receive a free pair of Womanswork High Performance Gloves!
Send us your gardening resolutions for 2010 by adding a comment below, and we will pick one lucky winner each Thursday in January to receive a free pair of Womanswork garden gloves to help you with your resolution. We’ll get the ball rolling by telling you ours:
Dorian Winslow’s 2010 Gardening Resolutions–
- Get my clivia miniata to bloom. I bought it in full bloom in Jan 2008, and since then it has been all strap leaves and no blossoms. All my sources say “easy to grow.” I recently found a page from the White Flower Farm website with complete instructions, giving me confidence that this is the year. We are now in the “winter rest” period. I hope to see a nice big bloom in about 2 months.
- Begin hosting once-a-month Womanswork evening meals at the local soup kitchen in Poughkeepsie. (Our first one is on Jan. 13th. See facebook for details.) Try to increase the output of our vegetable garden this summer so we can contribute to the meals from our own harvest.
- Build the greenhouse I’ve been planning for two years. We have the foundation completed. Read about it in this blog at: http://womanswork.com/garden-gloves-blog/?cat=8
 Clivia Miniata in bloom  Womanswork High Performance Glove
Ruth Clausen’s 2010 Gardening Resolutions–
- To sow all the seeds and plant all the plants that I buy. Often I find that many plants stay in their pots most of the season because I can’t decide quite where to plant them. I will give extra veggie seeds to a local community garden as there are always too many seeds in a packet for one family.
- To thin veggie and annual seedlings ruthlessly, so that they are not crowded. I use seedling greens for early salads, but there are still too many. I resolve to lift a small clump of seedlings every 3″-4″(an old table fork works well) and transplant them elsewhere or give them away.
- To plant up the containers on the deck BEFORE the plants become potbound and are young enough to really bulk up to their full potential. To my advantage, the plants will be healthier, dry out less often, and look gorgeous!
Eve Winslow’s 2010 Gardening Resolutions–
- Make mint and basil herb boxes to enjoy fresh pesto and mojitos year round.
- Make a molded concrete planter for growing succulents.
- Can and preserve more from my garden for next winter.
Tags: contest giveaway, free garden gloves, Gardening resolutions
Posted in Winter Topics | 39 Comments »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
Last week I had the greatest pleasure of seeing Judith Jones speak about her philosophy of food and eating, and her new book “The Pleasures of Cooking for One.”
 The Pleasures of Cooking for One Judith Jones is the senior editor and vice president at Knopf. She was responsible for publishing “The Diary of Anne Frank” and Julia Child’s “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”. In her talk she spoke of her early years in France and the marvelous meals she would have at little corner bistros. She now lives in Vermont where she raises her own cattle, eats local and enjoys the pleasures of cooking for herself.
Reading her books and hearing her speak I feel like she is someone I could be friends with. I felt the same way when I read Julia Child’s “My Life in France”. She has this lovely humor, but also her ideas on food and the way we eat are the same as mine. I believe, as she does, that the best food is always fresh, local and organic. We also share the belief that there is always time to make a good supper instead of a prepared frozen meal. When talking of instant meals she asked the audience something like “So your instant meal saves you time you say? Well what do you need all that extra time for anyway, another tv show?” It’s so true! Her book is not so much a cookbook but more of a way of looking at the way you shop and prepare meals.
Most of her meal ideas are pretty quick. Except for some Sunday afternoon stews and such they all look to take 20 minutes or so. The book works with using leftovers– enjoying pork tenderloin one night and then the next using the leftovers to create a ginger pork stir fry for example. She, like Jacques Pepin, also suggests putting things like the tops of leeks or scraps of veggies in the freezer for the next time you make stock, so as not to waste anything.
We all know the importance of eating local, eating organic, and we know the politics of food, but Judith Jones is there to remind us of the pleasures of food. The act of being in the kitchen, enjoying the scent of garlic sizzling in olive oil, your glass of wine and music, and enjoying the process as well as the meal.
Tags: Judith Jones, Julia Child, organic cooking, The Pleasures of Cooking for One
Posted in Books We Like, Cooking With Eve | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
 This Norway spruce is in danger of losing a few branches Having taken a walk around our neighborhood today after the first snowfall of the season, it is pitiful to see how some evergreens take such a beating with wet heavy snow. One’s instinct is to bash the snow off as soon as you can, but beating on an already stressed branch from above is trouble. Always brush snow off gently from below with a broom so that it falls away from the bush. This Norway spruce is in danger of losing a few branches.
Dwarf mounding evergreens, such as some Chamaecyparis and arborvitae tend to open up in the center under snow. Wearing garden gloves, protect them by winding soft twine round them from bottom to top, keeping the twine just tight enough for them to hold their shape. Snow then will fall off more easily. It is too late for this Tsuga occidentalis ‘Rheingold’.
 It is too late for this Tsuga occidentalis ‘Rheingold’
Posted in Ruth Rogers Clausen Tells All, Winter Topics | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
This year it was Thanksgiving weekend before I had a chance to start tidying up in my garden. I’m not exactly a “neatnik” but I do like it to look nice and garden hygiene is important too. Be careful to clean up any dropped leaves beneath roses for fear of spreading black spot spores when the spring rains come next year. The spores overwinter in organic mulch (I like to remove the mulch) and will be splashed up onto new growth and re-infect the bushes. Spent annuals go on the compost pile, but there are a couple of schools of thought about cutting back perennials. Some like to cut everything down, cover the beds with a good layer of compost or shredded leaves, and head out of town for the winter. Those of us who stay put through the winter need a pleasing view all year.
 Conservatory Garden, New York City I took a walk in the Conservatory Garden in Central Park, New York City, to see how they handled the problem. Some cut and some left there as well. Ornamental grasses of course are dramatic against autumn leaves (purple smoke bush here with Miscanthus grass), and even more so in front of evergreens as the winter progresses.
Others that I leave include rusty colored tall sedums such as ‘Autumn Joy’, ‘Garnet Brocade’ and ‘Frosty Morn’, purple coneflowers, black- and brown-eyed Susans, perennial sunflowers, Russian sage and all silvery-leaved shrubs (Caryopteris, butterfly bush, common sage etc.). Not only do these provide winter interest, they become popular feeding stations for resident birds that add so much to the winter garden.
Spore cases of ferns are also decorative, although some remove them for neatness. Here sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) adds height and texture to a bed of Helleborus hybrids that will bloom next spring.
 Sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) adds height and texture to a bed of Helleborus In my garden, I leave the dried spore cases of ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) too under a canopy of Euonymus branches.
Posted in Ruth Rogers Clausen Tells All, Winter Topics | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
 - The Alien Pod–Before it becomes soup
I finally used the Hubbard squash that Mary-Lynn (in charge of Womanswork shipping and receiving) gave me from her garden. I made Hubbard squash soup!
Soup should be a comforting thing to make, and there is always room for substitutions and experimentation. This recipe would still be delicious if you substituted carrots or pumpkin for squash. Onion is obviously an important base flavor, so if you are out, use a leek or even some shallots.
Ingredients:
- 3 cups of skinned and cubed Hubbard squash (or any yummy squash really..)
- 1 or 2 onions or white parts of 2 leeks
- 2 carrots (or more- they make the soup sweet!)
 Eve cutting the Hubbard Squash in her Vermont kitchen
- brown sugar
- mace
- nutmeg
- cayenne
- homemade or store bought chicken (or veg) stock
- butter
- half and half
- creme fraiche
- chopped fresh herbs- use your personal favorites: parsley, chives, or even basil or sage!
Hubbard Squash Soup:
- Skin and cube a few cups of Hubbard (or Butternut) squash. Toss with a good glug of olive oil to coat, and put onto a baking sheet. Spread the squash out so they are not too cramped. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of brown sugar, a pinch of salt and cracked pepper on top, and then roast in the oven at about 375 until golden brown and soft. If they get pretty dark in spots, that’s ok, it just adds more dimension to the soup, which is the point of roasting!
- In a large heavy bottomed pot saute a couple of onions or leeks, and a couple of carrots until the onions are translucent but not browned.
- Add a pinch of mace, a pinch of cayenne (or more if you are bold!), and a pinch of nutmeg. If you are particularly fond of one of these spices feel free to add more pinches. Other spices that would taste nice are: allspice, cardamom, and ginger (fresh or ground).
- Toss the squash from the oven into the pot and mush around to break up the pieces a little bit.
- Now you add your stock. I would just put in about 2-3 cups to start off. Let the soup simmer for 10 minutes or so.
- You can either take the soup off the heat, let it cool a little, and then puree it in batches in the food processor..OR use an immersion hand held blender, which is my FAVORITE kitchen tool besides my knife.
- Puree the soup to your liking. If it is too thick add more stock.
- Swirl in a couple of tablespoons of good butter and salt and pepper to taste. A swirl of cream or half and half never made anything taste too bad either!
- Serve in a warmed bowl with a dollop of creme fraiche and some chopped herbs.
 The finished soup with a dollop of creme fraiche
Tags: Cooking with Eve, cooking with eve winslow, hubbard squash, soup recipes
Posted in Cooking With Eve | 5 Comments »
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