Birdhouse Mania and Into the Garden

I must have a secret love of birdhouses that even I didn't know about, because while rummaging through the gardening tools recently, I came across three birdhouses..."Where did these come from?" was what crossed my mind.

Most likely, they came from impulse purchases at the garden center, which I put away upon getting home and promptly forgot about. Anyway,  a stash like that shouldn't go to waste, so I hung them out.

The northwest corner of my garden seemed like a good place; the houses are facing south/southeast, so they'll get the first rays of light in the morning, and when the leaves come on the trees, that corner of the garden is shady throughout the afternoon.

You can just barely make them out; it'll be fun to see whether there'll be any takers:

I think I'm probably a little late for this nesting season though. Some chickadees already have their nest well underway in the neighbor's nest box.

As for the rest of the garden, I had a nice surprise when I removed the row cover from the main bed. The greens I planted last autumn overwintered pretty well and have started growing again over the last few weeks:

There are some turnip greens, some parsley, a few kale plants, a few collards and a little bit of chard and mustard, as well as a few rows of beets...











and some raddichio.

They've been under 2 layers of row cover and a poly tunnel all winter, and along with the fact that we didn't get a lot of really cold weather, they faired pretty well. I got a pretty good harvest, and should get a couple more before I start spring planting in another 10 days or so. 

The garlic is doing its thing. This is a hard neck variety, and I'm looking forward to garlic scapes, come June:

If you're wondering what all the drinking straws are about, most of them have fallen over, but I stuck them in the soil upright when I planted the garlic to deter the cats from digging there. They seem to love smooth, freshly worked soil, but once there's an obstacle course of straws or sticks, they lose interest. As the plants grow, they become their own obstacle course...if that makes any sense. 

As I mentioned, I'm waiting another 10 - 14 days to plant the bulk of my spring crops, but I've put in peas, favas, and potatoes already. 

I haven't had much success with potatoes in the past.

Two years ago, I built a potato cage, which was fun and rather spectacular, I had high, high hopes, but I got a small harvest.

Last year I switched to these "grow bags", which are containers made out of a thick black cloth that allows some air and moisture circulation. I got a very small harvest.


But, I'm trying again...who knows maybe third time's a charm. Anyone have any potato-growing tips?

The good thing about the grow bags it that they save on real estate in the garden beds.

Hanging bird houses and planting spuds is hungry work. This was a a yummy lunch of curried tofu salad (tofu, curry powder, lemon juice, celery, red onion, green olives, Bragg's aminos, nutritional yeast, 1/2 an avocado and some hot sauce):

Treats! Treats!

...Cheezy Baco Treats!

Here's Scamp (aka Daffodil). She's a little on the rotund side...ahem... see how she fills up her play tube so nicely?  But as you can also see, she's dutifully eating her carrot sticks--she's on a little weight loss plan at the moment. Notice her good-natured, sweet demeanor in spite of it all.

Diet or no, everyone deserves a treat sometimes, especially when they are healthy, delicious treats like these from Molly at It's a Vegan Dog's Life. The recipe was for muffins, but she also gives conversion instructions, so you can make them into cookies, bagels, etc. (Very handy)

I'm sure a lot of you already know about Molly's recipes and her recipe book of vegan dog treats, but if not, definitely check it out! The treats are rat approved too! :D

Cheezy Baco Biscuits

Look at those cute little toes and fingers...or is it just me?

Here's Scamp as she finds the cheezy baco treats and tries to get two big pieces in her mouth at once:

Treats in mouth, she runs up to her nest to hoard them...that's what she does with prize booty:

I tried to get a sweet picture of her happily munching away on one of the biscuits, but her sweet demeanor seemed to vanish...

"Back off, These are my treats!" 

Karentika, Garentita

**Post Factum:** 

This is one of a series of posts for Vegan MoFo 2010; my theme was a 'Virtual Random Road Trip', where I used random.org's random geographic location generator to select locations around the globe, I then attempted to cook a few dishes from the traditional cuisine of that place. I didn't have a lot of time between generating the locations and coming up with recipes (~ 1 day). So, lacking time to do proper research, I can't vouch for the authenticity of anything I came up with. However, they are what they are, and it was a fun theme. 

Although Algeria boasts many wonderful sweet pastries and desserts, I just wasn't in the mood for more sweet stuff. So, the last taste of Algeria is a savory one. This is  called either Garentita or Karentika, depending on how it's pronounced.  According to what I read, this recipe is prevalent throughout Algeria.

It's sort of a soft cake/pastry made with chickpea flour and lightly flavored with cumin. According to the recipe I used, the basic formula does not vary too much, but everyone adds their own personal touch. Mine was a sprinkling of nigella seeds over the top before baking. It's common for this to be baked as one large cake, but the recipe I found baked it in individual-sized portions. I thought that was a good idea, so I followed suit.

Here's the basic recipe (you can find the original recipe here):

200g chickpea flour (I don't know how many cups because I'm crap at all the conversion stuff...it was probably about 1 generous cup worth)
600ml water/ 3 cups (that was easy because the conversions are right on my liquid measuring cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt (you could probably bring it up to 3/4 teaspoon if you wanted it a little saltier)
1 teaspoon ground cumin
3 tablespoons olive oil
harissa to garnish

Ad Hoc Note: Looking over a few more recipes online, I see that many call for milk ...so if you do make this you might want to try subbing in all or part of the water with a non-dairy milk, it would probably turn out a little tastier.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Put the chickpea flour in a large bowl and add half of the water (1.5 cups). Whisk very well, or blend with mixer until smooth. Add the salt, cumin, and add the rest of the water until you get the consistency of crepe batter. (I ended up using only 2.5 cups instead of 3.) Continue to mix until smooth. Finally, incorporate the oil and pour the batter into ramekins. Bake for ~ 30 minutes. A nice crust forms around the outside.

Allow to cool and remove from ramkins. Garnish with harissa.

In an effort to get pictures taken before the daylight faded too much, I took them out of the ramekins while they were still warm, and they crumbled a bit. I don't think that would happen if you allowed them to cool completely first. Although, on second thought...the recipe says to eat them warm out of the oven, so the crumbling was mostly likely just me. 

What are they like on the inside? Well, let me try to find the words...they're sort of dense and soft. The flavor is mild and is very nicely complimented by the harissa. I thought they were ok, but to my surprise, my husband really liked them; he ate 3 all in one go.

I think if I made these again, I would mix them longer and with an electric mixer instead of a whisk,  in hopes of a slightly fluffier texture. And I would only fill the ramekins 1/2 full instead of 2/3 full. 

The cakes came out a bit darker than the pictures I saw, perhaps it was due to the fact that I used a combination of chickpea and fava flour...but I couldn't say for sure.

Do check out some these photos to get a much better idea of what you'd be aiming for, as opposed to what you see in this post.

Now for the next destination. 

It seems like I've been seeing so many wonderful MoFo'ers whipping up delicious Ethiopian meals lately...my mouth just waters when I see a selection of savory legumes and veggies spread out across a big piece of injera...so I was hoping to land in Ethiopia for this stop...

But no.

At first glance, it looks like Slovakia, but when I zoomed in, I saw that the pointer was in Hungary.

Next stop Hungary.

Road Trip Day 2: Tempeh Salteñas (& some salad)

**Post Factum:** 

This is one of a series of posts for Vegan MoFo 2010; my theme was a 'Virtual Random Road Trip', where I used random.org's random geographic location generator to select locations around the globe, I then attempted to cook a few dishes from the traditional cuisine of that place. I didn't have a lot of time between generating the locations and coming up with recipes (~ 1 day). So, lacking time to do proper research, I can't vouch for the authenticity of anything I came up with. However, they are what they are, and it was a fun theme. 
Before I do anything else, I must apologize to the nation of Bolivia and salteña purists everywhere, as I'm afraid mine really don't cut the mustard. They're supposed to be juicy for a start, but I'll talk more about that later. All I can say is, be gentle; this was my first go at them and they do taste good, just a bit dry.

Salteñas are the Bolivian take on empanadas, versions of which are prevalent throughout Central and South America.  I know when I think of South American foods, empanadas are one of the first things that spring to mind. Empanadas as a recipe were brought to the Americas by way of the Spanish conquistadores, hence their ubiquitous nature throughout Central and South America.  In Spain, they are generally known as empanadillas.

Even within Bolivia these pastries vary from region to region. Some of the most acclaimed varieties being from Cochabama,  Potosi, La Paz, and Sucre. From what I can gather, the versions from La Paz and Sucre are very similar...if anyone knows for sure, please correct me if I'm wrong. The ones I've made here are the La Paz/Sucre version. They are spicy and subtly sweet at the same time, usually baked instead of fried.

The filling (typically meat) is meant to be very juicy, with raisins, olives, and boiled egg layered over the top. I used tempeh to replace the unmentionable, and that's where the lack of juiciness comes in. Typical recipes call for adding quite a lot of broth and gelatin to the mixture, allowing it to chill overnight before filling the pastry. When the pastry is filled, the filling has set up from the gelatin, and as they bake, the filling returns to it's juicy state. This is why they are meant to be eaten hot, right out of the oven before the gelatin as a chance to set up again.

For those of you following along at home, here is a list of the ingredients from the original recipe. (Please find the full recipe here.)

Salteñas Pacenas filling from Alura Gonzales: 

1 1/2 lbs. top round steak cut in 1/2 inch cubes (Sub with tempeh or similar)
1 lb. potatoes cut in 1/2 inch cubes
1 cup peas
2 cups finely chopped onions
1 tablespoon aji (hot ground red pepper)
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin (I used much more...like a tablespoon)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon oregano
1 teaspoon prepared mustard
1 tablespoon vegan Worcestershire Sauce (optional)
4 cups veggie consomme (hot) 

1 cup cooking liquid from chickpeas; it gells up when it cools.

See what I mean about all that broth and the gelatin? Now, I suppose I should have gone all out and used some vegan substitute for gelatin, but I'll leave that as a challenge for another day. In this instance, I followed the recipe as-is, substituted all the unmentionable stuff with some poached tempeh and called it a day. Which, to make a long story short,  is why they came out dry. But in my defense, they were still  tasty.

The dough also has a story. Part of the reason I chose this particular recipe was because the dough did not call for eggs, while many other versions did. I have to say, it was a bit of an odd pastry dough--more like a roll out cookie dough than anything else. And as such, came out quite crispy...and dry. But again, subtly sweet, rich, and tasty.

 filling, raisins, and olives all ready for their salteña home 

(you're supposed to use black olives, but I wanted green ones instead)

pastry rounds ready for folding

(3 raisins and 1 olive per pastry)

folded pastry (they remind me of those cute dinosaurs)

After all the heavy food lately, I felt it was time for a salad. I found this nice salad idea on a Bolivian recipe website. It's meant to be dressed with mayonaise and oil, but I thought a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and some black pepper sufficed.

raw shredded beet and carrot, diced red pepper, red onions, and tomato

Here is some further info if anyone is interested:

I read that vegetarian versions of salteñas are not too difficult to find in cities, but I  could not find any further descriptions of what was typically in them. Here is a link to veggie friendly places in Bolivia and some other Central and South American countries: http://esperanzadelibertad.org/veggiefood.htm

Food Customs of Bolivia: http://www.boliviabella.com/bolivian-food-customs.html

Tomorrow, last day in Bolivia.

Ciao!