This year, Orlando gets to move the pigs up to the Schwinn’s pastures where they will luxuriate in all the tall grasses, open meadows and shaded tree groves. They love it. Sometimes, as Cat was explaining, they get so nestled in that they don’t want to make the daily migration to fresh terrain.
(Photo by Cat Kirby)
It can be exhausting, I know. JUST when you get comfortable, turn to your place in your 50 Shades of… War and Peace, somebody needs something.
Oh, were we talking about the the pigs?
And here is Orlando with his charges. One word from him and they all come running.
(Photo by Cat Kirby)
Over in the world of vegetables we have spring mix, spinach, turnips, Russian kale, and baby beets. I am also told that we are this close (fingers held mere centimeters apart) to broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, cabbage and golden beets.
But we do have garlic scapes; the tops of young garlic that beg to be tossed with olive oil and sea salt and grilled next to your steak (or sauteed and thrown into a veggie taco, or chopped into a salad or…).
Still need more ideas? Check out these recipes on how to cook with garlic scapes. They’ll only be here ’til June, so snap some up this weekend or next for peak freshness!
Also in this week for the first time this year? Carrots! The first ones of the season are always the sweetest.
Chris has been filling up the herb display with all sorts of mint, basil, edible flowers, fennel, sage and oregano, to name a few. Ever wonder what you can do with lavender buds? Try drawing a piping hot bath and dropping a handful of bud-laden lavender springs into it. You could also use it as an actual tea or in a marinade for duck, chicken or pork.
Last but not least, the juice bar has been cranking. Every week, our selection of additions to the ‘menu’ is growing as more veggies and herbs come in from the fields. This morning, I had a very pungent apple-carrot-beet-cilantro-kale-spinach-ginger-carrot green-beet tops concoction.
Wow. I was highly energized (perhaps not in a good way, according to my kids), but had to immediately cut the drink with one of our latest house specialties: the Rhubarb Lemonade Fizz. Just imagine this: fresh rhubarb from the fields, lemon, water and sugar boiling for hours to reduce to a syrup. Then a bit of the syrup is poured over crushed ice and chilled, filtered sparkling water is added.
If I may use an acronym here: OMG
If the Rhubarb Lemonade Fizz is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Not for nothing, but some summer drink mixers have gone on to greater heights with a lesser pedigree than this (The Screwdriver comes to mind). I’m thinking Sunday afternoon on the porch with a Rhubarb-Lemonade Gin Fizz.
Have a great weekend.