All posts tagged: onion

Campfire Sweet Potato Hash

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In a collage style frame I keep snapshots from my first birthday spent with Josh, a birthday on the Illinois River, camping and floating and lazily enjoying the day. E frequently asks about those pictures, about “daddy’s river” as she calls it, one of his favorite places. And so, in spite of the river being up from all the rain, we decided to take E to her daddy’s river to camp. We scavenged a collection of rocks, driftwood, feathers, and shells, played in the late afternoon sunshine, and taught E to make daisy chains and how to improve her rock skipping game. And after dinner and a visit from a less than skittish raccoon, E had taken in all the excitement she could. Josh and I stayed up, watching one of the most beautiful moonrises I’ve ever seen, the sort of thing you can’t quite justly describe in words but it stays with you until the end, locked away forever in memory. The river whispered by, swift current and humble power, and we talked nonsense, relaxed, laughed. …

Spring Salad with Honey

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  The days are rainy and a little chilled lately, but tromping around the muddy orchard and garden in worn green rain boots, weeding and admiring, it becomes a welcome rain dance. And life has given me a mess of baby lettuce and greens and I’m making salad. Upon discovering a selection of almost empty microgreen and lettuce seeds in my seed box, I decided to dump them all and see what came up. Happily, they’ve produced more than enough to keep me in salads until my larger leaf lettuces catch up and there is nothing, I mean nothing, like fresh lettuce for a salad. So in spite of these rainy cool days, there’s lettuce, green onions, and strawberries to enjoy, thinking of the warmer days around the corner and splashing through the puddles until then.      SPRING SALAD WITH HONEY 4 cups mix of baby greens and lettuce of your choice 1 ½ cup strawberries, sliced ½ cup slivered almonds 4 green onions, sliced ½ cup dried cranberries ½ cup crumbled bleu cheese Honey Balsamic Vinaigrette (recipe below) Toss …

Baby Bok Choy Udon Bowl with Poached Egg

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April has arrived and per the adage she brings with her showers. A week’s worth at least according to the forecast and in taking full advantage this week is all about seeds that can be broadcast at our house. In areas tedious to mow and bordering to the woods, I have broadcast all my favorite wildflowers, a few dozen types from indian blanket and lupines to black eyed susan and coneflower, almost all native and all capable of reseeding themselves. Low maintenance is nice. But with still more old overgrowth to clear, the busiest gardening month arrived, and the house’s interior to finish, unfortunately the fencing projects and our chicken coop have to be put off, for now.                    Most days are gray and cloudy lately, but just enough humidity hangs and just enough warm sun comes through to spur on the baby bok choy. It probably doesn’t help having planted a bit too much to keep up with, but I adore fresh bok choy. The cool rain inspired soup cravings, so I opted to make a sort of play on some favorite Asian soups, mixing and …

On sets

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There are those to whom the cutting scent of a freshly sliced onion is acrid and unpleasant, but to me it’s a sharply clean delicious smell, pungently sweet, a salvatory crier of summer when the first faint scent of wild onion being cut down by the mower drifts in through the open window and perhaps no one misses a few slices taken of the sweet Vidalia being cut for sandwiches. Yes, I am the kind who eats onion raw and unashamedly so. Thus it is that while I enjoy growing onions from seed, I find amending the garden with onion sets for an earlier crop of onions and a still earlier crop of green onions to be the best option. For those of you of like mind, or those who simply want to skip growing your onion from seed, here is a quick and simple guide to setting up an onion bed and planting sets or plants: Plants or sets? Completely your choice. Plants have the green tops and sets don’t so be sure you put …