"The Farm"

Today I picked our first vegetables from the garden.  Tender spinach, kale and chard lettuces and one tiny radish.  It is a tough season this year with rain, clouds and cooler temps.  The garden is way behind schedule. Regardless, it truly was fun to reap a small reward...and enjoy a very small salad for dinner!

Rhubarb!

It's that time of the year again when the rhubarb reappears in our gardens and markets.  I always look forward to the first taste every spring....and I always try a new recipe.  This time I baked a rhubarb tart with a very easy crust and rhubarb from our local farmer's market.

RHUBARB TART

Tart dough:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/8 tsp. salt

3 eggs, at room temp.

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup flour

Cream butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy, add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth.  Add vanilla , then stir in flour and salt.  Smooth the batter into a buttered 11-inch tart pan, pushing up against the edges.  Fill and bake.

Filling:

1 1/2 pounds rhubarb

3/4 cups sugar

1/8 tsp ground clove

1 egg

1/2 cup cream

1 Tablespoon Grand Marnier

Preheat oven to 375.  Dice rhubarb into aprox. 1/3 inch pieces.  Toss with the sugar and clove and set aside.  

Beat the egg in a 2-cup measure, then add the juices that have collected from the rhubarb with enough cream to make 1 cup.  Scatter the rhubarb over the tart dough in prepared pan.  Pour the egg mixture over the fruit and bake until set and lightly browned, about 45 minutes.  Remove from oven and immediately spoon Grand Marnier over the top.  Serve with sweetened whip cream.

 

Dad

The irises are starting to bloom and bring memories of my Dad.  One fall he arrived with a huge box of iris tubers that he divided from his garden.  It was a wonderful gift!  I planted them around our property and had extras to share with my neighbors.  I have to smile when I see them blooming brightly down the street.  He was a great gardener.  After snapping this photo I returned to weeding and found this rock:

  Doesn't it look like a heart??  I choose to think so....and I choose to believe it was no accident that I found it after thinking of my father!  Thanks Dad!  I miss him.  The hardest part of loosing a loved one is the empty silent space that is left.   Yet, his life lives on in my memories and these tiny little wonders that make me smile!

Gardening at "The Farm"

I adore these two people!  They are close friends and neighbors who are moving out of the neighborhood (boo-hoo) to a new development which once was farmland.  The development features a community garden.  The Kuckers are graciously allowing me to help garden.  Which is something I love to do!  We have two plots which are 5x10 ft.  Neil Kucker constructed the garden boxes (with sides which allow for kneeling and sitting) and we amended the soil with organic compost and fertilizer.  This is what they look like:

We planted a variety of vegetables.  So far everything is growing wonderfully, except for basil.  Our weather has been a bit too cool, wet and cloudy.  One of the strangest springs on record.  I'll keep you posted as plants grow and we reap the rewards of our small garden.  We will miss our friends the Kuckers, Neil and Rachel, but they won't be going far...and their new neighborhood is fabulous!