For awhile we’ve been collecting cauliflower based recipes in anticipation of a plentiful crop and it’s on us now. The first on the list is cauliflower cutlets with marinara sauce. The cutlets were great but not nearly as simple to make as I thought. Next up roast cauliflower with capers and lemon sauce followed by braised cauliflower with anchovies, garlic, and capers. There are several variations on roast cauliflower, cauliflower salads, and cauliflower soup, all of which we will have sampled by the time the last one is picked. I think the adventure with Blue Apron is giving us the impetus to try things we would have passed over in past years. George’s grandson Garret is picking freely now but still we’re not making a dent in the crop. We’re all small eaters so that, for example, a single head of cabbage lasts two or three meals. Ditto the cauliflower. Ditto broccoli. At least with the leafy greens you can just pick enough for a single meal but choosing among kale, collards, chard, and spinach………… It seems that for every leaf picked, two more sprout.

For no particular reason I stopped feeding the fish off the dock about 6 months ago. A couple of weeks back I took a piece of stale bread and (tried to) feed it to the fish but to my surprise, there were no fish. Always in the past it was a real feeding frenzy when I tossed in the bread so apparently the fish had gone off to greener pastures. That bothered me because in the near future we expect some kids to be visiting and the highlight of their visit has always been fishing and catching off the dock. I had plenty of stale bread in the freezer so went back to a daily routine of sharing that bread with the pan fish that always lived by the dock. Sure enough, by the 3rd day there was good action with one noticeable difference – the fish were real giants. I’ve continued feeding them for the past week and they are for sure back with a vengeance and much larger than ever before. In fact, I think they’re the biggest pan fish I’ve ever seen. I’ll have to be concerned that they might pull one of the kids in the water when hooked.

The cabbage crop is winding down and I’m eyeing that row for tomatoes. Within the next two weeks that transition will have occurred. The row of cauliflower is not far behind, maybe two weeks, and more tomato seedlings should be ready for transplant in that row. I’m planting one row in “conventional” round tomatoes; the other in paste tomatoes – 8 plants in each row. The cherry tomatoes will be scattered as space becomes available. I also have half a dozen renegade tomato plants already growing in the garden. With these you’re never sure of the results – meaning what variety or type and how well they’ll do. but…………. could actually be picking in April whereas the regular selected varieties are late May. Just a note – the bush beans started germinating in only 4 days – a week faster than I thought.

Hooked a really, really, really giant bass last night. I got two jumps before he threw the lure back at me. Probably just as well since it was getting dark and this fish could have turned into a project.

Spotted something in the paper that may be “life changing”. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to find a place to access the Halifax/Intracoastal from the west side of Palm Coast. I was looking at the fishing report in the paper and spotted a picture of a kid with a nice Jack (fish) with the caption Herschel King Park in Palm Coast. Never heard of it but could tell from the pic it might be what I was looking for. If so, it will be about 5 minutes from Nancy’s bridge game and a potential alternate to fishing the surf. It’s even possible I can launch the poke boat there opening a world of new water. Can’t wait until Monday.

The refrigerator died again. I’m fairly sure it’s the compressor starting capacitor but it’s not very convenient for me to access. We cleaned out all the high dollar frozen stuff and moved it to one of our freezers and moved 2 gallon jugs of frozen water we keep for just such an emergency into the fridge and then called the appliance repair guy. Of course it’s a Saturday. The good news is that Nancy is out shopping with a friend all day so no adult supervision/hovering/coaching was necessary and, if all goes well, the problem will have been solved by the time she gets home. I know we should probably think about a new one – this one is only 16 years old – but last time we looked, all they had on the floors are super high tech giant models which would allow us to see what’s in the refrigerator from our phones at a remote location. And with Star Wars inspired lighting systems. I’m of the school of thought that thinks simpler is better and can’t ever think of a time in my life when I was away from home and wanted a look inside the fridge; Or wanted to text someone while standing by the fridge. Or watch TV while standing at the fridge. I’m not sure the repair guy we use could handle all that. Deep down inside I’m thinking we’re better off with an old fridge with a new compressor than a high tech, computer controlled model. What if somebody hacked it??? are there refrigerator voyeurs out there?? I feel the same way about cars – I must be a luddite.

Chris is coming for a quick visit next month – in Saturday afternoon, out Monday afternoon. Hardly seems worth all that flying time but……………. He does lots of CA to Hawaii flying so by now he’s accustomed to long flights.

In the garden – picking cauliflower and planting bush beans. Just about right for the cauliflower but early for the beans but since there’s no frost on into the horizon, why not take the chance. I planted 2 x 4’ rows and will do another 2 x 4’ rows in 2-3 weeks, weather permitting. Maybe an April green bean crop.

Spec fishing is hot. Almost any time I go out I can bring in a meal or two or ten. But for some reason, they’re all small. It’s not just me but the several others fishing the lake are experiencing the same thing – loads of small ones, nothing of any size. In our collective thinking, the fish we’re getting this year were all hatched last year – which was a high water year. We all throw back about 2/3 of what we actually catch so maybe next year will be the year of the giants.

Between the lake and the garden we’re a real “mother earth” operation and it’s a lot closer than the grocery store. Right now cabbage is the go to crop since it has a finite life cycle and will start splitting if not picked. I grew a new variety this year which was touted as best for cole slaw and cabbage salad. It really is – a lighter flavor and crispy. If it’s cooked, high heat for 2-3 minutes is the limit. The other garden product that we are working over pretty good are the collards. I always grow them, primarily for trading purposes, but never actually eat them. This year we’re eating them thanks to Blue Apron that introduced us to different ways to fix them. Ditto Kale. Over abundance of spinach continues both the conventional varieties and the New Zealand variety. Nancy took 6 more grocery bags of the New Zealand to her bridge club where it’s greeted with open arms. (I read recently that this variety is considered an invasive species in California and banned whichI can believe it.) And finally the cauliflower is popping. I was starting to get worried that all we were going to get this year was leaves and was searching for reasons for that to happen. Finally one popped out and I got a little hope. Five days later I’m up to 10 and expect 18 to 20 by the end of the month. So I go from trying to explain a crop failure to how to handle the surplus. We’ve been collecting new cauliflower recipes so we’re ready for the challenge. Two I’m looking forward to is Cauliflower pizza (a blue apron recipe) and cauliflower cutlets.

We met Joey last week for his birthday lunch and he brought a bag of star fruit. He has a star fruit tree on one of his properties and it’s really prolific. I cut them up and froze them for use in my green smoothies. We went to PUBLIX and saw they were selling ones that were less than half the size of Joey’s for $3.50 each – same price currently as cauliflower and Bok choy.

Nancy’s “wounds” are healing nicely and she’ll get the last row of stitches removed today. Most of the swelling and bruising are gone; ditto the giant bandages. She has another appointment set up with them in a week or so to assess the scarring but I’m thinking that will be nothing at all. I see no scarring at all from the first one and suspect the second will be about the same.

Major landscape change going on here. I think I mentioned a year or so back that the house that sat adjacent to our property had been torn down. The house was an eye sore so we all viewed the development as a positive thing. There had always been a fence along the property line but it was long since broken down and, like the house, a bit of an eyesore. Apparently the guy who bought the property felt the same way and this past week sent in the heavy equipment to clear away all the trees and shrubs and create a large pasture. They dug a huge hole, filled it with all the trees and brush and set it on fire. It took a couple of days to burn it all. A new fence completed the pasture look. This particular piece was probably 10 acres and was adjacent to a much larger chunk – 100’s of acres – with a really nice home/estate on the far end of the lake. Rumor is that he’s going to add cattle to the mix which will give us a real country feel. I may have a source for cow manure right at hand but the barb wire fence looks foreboding. I think it makes the whole area look better and less cluttered – more real country.

New and final set of Blue Apron meals arrived. Included was an enchilada recipe, a burger recipe, and a shrimp/pasta recipe. The enchilada turned out a little hot for Nancy but I thought it was good. It was another recipe with a lot going on at double time and at a high temp. The pasta recipe included broccoli and shrimp cooked in a hot pan simultaneously with the pasta cooking. We’ve had something close but the broccoli was boiled first to soften it whereas all the cooking here was in a hot frying pan. Very good. We’ll finish off this installment next week since we’re going down to Tom’s for his Super Bowl party and won’t be hungry for a day or two.

The azalea’s are in full bloom, about a month earlier than usual. Based on that, I bit the bullet and started the 2017 tomatoes. This year will be totally different from last – which was marginal at best. First, I’m planting directly in the garden as opposed to starting in the house. I just think they get a much better start in sunlight than with artificial lighting. I also think my garden soil is actually equal to or better than commercial bedding soil. This will hopefully lesson the transplanting shock when I move the seedlings. Second, the varieties are carefully selected to be extra disease resistant and are very expensive – almost $1 per seed. Since it’s very early in the season to be planting tomato seeds outside, I only planted two seeds of each variety. I want to get the plants going as early as possible so they can better handle the insect attack that comes in the spring. If we do get another burst of cold air, totally within the realm of reality, I will be ready to cover the seedlings. And even if I lose this first planting, I have seeds at the ready for a later try. I’ve planted 6 varieties including 2 plum/paste type, 3 round medium size fruit, and 1 cherry tomato. Of these, I have excellent experience with 3 and zero with the other 3. Joey has also just planted several plants (not seeds) that are supposedly good for this area so we’re going to compare notes as the season progresses. Since he put his plants in last week and I only just put in seeds, he’ll be at least a month ahead of me. My current thinking is to start the second tranche about the first of March. So for the next 10-14 days I’ll be on pins and needles waiting to see if we have a good germination.

Winter again. After a week or so of really great weather, we’re going to have another winter. Starting with a little rain, we’re predicted to have a 5 day stretch with highs only into the 60’s and low’s at the lower 40’s. Nothing mentioned about frost or freezes so no impact on the garden – only the gardener. And, the good news, this hit of global cooling has improved the spec fishing. For the first time this season the larger ones have started schooling and, coincidentally, the bass have started hitting in the grass. The spec’s are right on schedule; the bass maybe a little ahead.

Another large bunch of radishes, another large pot of radish soup. This time Nancy upped her game and added the carrots I picked at the same time. The garlic I planted is starting to pop as are the Floridaho potatoes. These are both 90-100 day crops which means a May harvest. The other recent addition to the garden is a small patch of Pak Choy or Bak Choi, maybe even Bok Choy – it appears in several different spellings in different catalogs. After having a nice stir fry with the last Blue Apron batch and finding it difficult to buy consistently at Publix and noticing that it is over priced when they do have it, I decided to buy some seeds and give it a try. It germinated incredibly fast, about 3 days, and nearly 100%. After a week or two I transplanted the seedlings to a prepared garden location and they’ve taken off nicely – 100% transplant success – 3 rows of 4 plants. Assuming they all mature, that’s a good return on the seed investment, especially considering the there’s probably another 100 or so seeds still in the packet. Just one plant (one stir fry) covers the cost of the entire seed packet. Fifty days until stir fry time.

In other garden news – picked 5 bags of goodies for the Crescent City bridge ladies including bags of swiss chard, spinach, collards, lettuce, and cabbage. The only thing I could have added was a bag of kale but I ran out of bags. Not sure how they’ll divvy up that loot but if you hear of riots in north Florida, chances are I’m at the root of it (not DT).

This was a bad week to be Nancy. On Tuesday she had a skin cancer procedure that ended with 12 stitches where her right eyebrow once existed. By the next morning her right eye was black and blue; the left eye on Thursday. On Friday she went to the retina doc to get her Avastin shot in the eye. The icing on the cake was a call from her Palm Coast bridge partner saying she couldn’t play this week due to illness. And then next week she has another cancer removed from her face.

Big storm coming this afternoon and on into tonight with strong – hurricane strength – straight line winds and even tornadoes. Lot’s of rain and just generally nasty. I’m ok with the rain but the wind, not so much. I’ll be tying down all the dock furniture and anything loose.

I frequently mention how good my garden soil is and this week I got a first hand reminder of just how bad it was when I started. Garret’s wife, Ginny, has decided she wants a garden and got started on it yesterday. I was there working on the new plumbing and she asked me to give her some advice on locating the garden. She had a great sunny location picked. It had previously been a large patch of black berry bushes – aka a dense bramble patch that put out mini wild blackberries. They had mowed it to ground level a month or so back but it was starting to sprout back. She wants to save a few and cultivate them to produce berries. I have my doubts about that but it’s worth a try. She started digging out the unwanted plants and found it was like digging into concrete. It looked like simple sand but when you went dig in – rock solid. The small sand particles are very dense and pack tightly. It brought back memories – actually nightmares. If you try to poke your finger into the ground it will bottom out about an inch in. Contrasting that to the garden, I can push my whole hand in wrist deep and even deeper than that in some places. With any kind of garden implement such as a hand shovel, it’s easy digging 18” deep and has the texture and color of chocolate cake dough. When I use the small electric tiller it sinks immediately down to the body of the machine. If we try that at Garret’s, it will be tough going getting a bite of even an inch or two so it will have to be turned initially with something like a pick. Most folks give up pretty quickly or elect to do raised beds with store bought soil and compost. That’s exactly what Joey did. It costs money but it gets instant results.

Nancy made the creamed New Zealand Spinach using a recipe she got from her South Carolina niece. She had emphasized how much shrinkage there would be so I cut a full grocery bag full, which I estimate to be about 5 gallons. I picked the leaves off the stems which yielded about 2.5 gallons; stems to the compost pile. We split the leaves into 3 one gallon zip lock’s. I weighed the bags and they were 10 oz each. That, plus I now have a good feeling for how much we’re giving someone when we provide a full grocery bag. Last week we gave 6 grocery bags to the bridge ladies and I know that will hold them for a while.

I did the measurement only because the recipe called for 8 oz of spinach and wanted to be sure we were following the program. There was plenty of other food so if I didn’t like the spinach, no great loss. Surprise! It was quite good. The way the garden is producing the NZ spinach, we could virtually live on it and all the bridge ladies too. And as diligent as I’ve been in pulling out the renegade seedlings, more pop up randomly every day.

If I’m Trump, I’m introducing the idea of repealing the 19th.

If the bag is labeled Idaho potatoes and I cut one or two up to capture the eyes and plant them in my Florida garden – are the resulting potatoes Idaho potatoes or Florida potatoes? I’m calling them Florido or Floraho’s – that assumes they’ll survive and thrive. A few years back I tried my luck with potatoes and was nominally successful but the current garden soil is an order of magnitude better (for root crops) so my expectations are higher.
Check out this cabbage. It’s a new variety called Murdoc and is touted as excellent for slaw and cabbage salad. We’ll confirm or deny that later this week. The entire row you see includes 4 cabbage varieties including Chinese. We picked one of the Chinese last week and split it right down the middle – half for us, half for George and Barbara. That monster had to weigh 15 pounds; the Murdoc in the pic is about 10.

One thing that’s changed this season is that George and Barbara along with their grandson and his wife are more aggressively picking. There’s still plenty and we’ve given loads and loads of produce to Nancy’s bridge ladies and her quilting buddy Esther so it’s actually nice to see it being eaten this year. In past years we’ve ended up tossing quite a bit into the compost pile as it went past it’s prime and bolting – I hated that. It’s feeling like that’s not going to happen this year. The biggest hit is the accidental New Zealand spinach that totally self seeded from last year. I took 6 large grocery bags up to Crescent City to the bridge club last week and could do that this week if I want. Nancy loves creamed spinach and insists that I should like it too so we’re going to try to make some using the New Zealand spinach. She tells me it takes quite a bit of spinach to make a decent side dish so if I like it, we sure have what seems to be an infinite supply. I didn’t think I’d really like radish soup but she whipped up another big pot the other day and we really enjoyed it. It uses the total plant – root and greens – so there’s no cleanup, no waste and nutritionally loaded.

George and I went out fishing for spec’s this morning and for a couple of hours was catching one with every cast. They’re still running smaller than in previous years but there’s certainly no shortage. I’ve also gone out a few times this week fishing for bass – it’s seasonally a little early but we’ve had a nice warm winter (so far). I managed to pick up a few small ones each trip so I’m happy with that.

We got the second installment of the Blue Apron Christmas gift – 3 more gourmet meals; one fish, one chicken, and one pasta dish. We ate the fish already which included a side that included lentils and collard greens as the main ingredients. Neither of us had ever tried anything even vaguely similar. There was a strange spice neither of us had ever heard of – Ras el Hanout that had a nice hot bite to it. Once again when I looked at the ingredients my immediate thoughts were that I wasn’t going to like this and, if we did, there wasn’t enough food for both of us. Wrong and Wrong. What really made me happy was trying another recipe for collard greens. If we can locate that magic spice, the rest of the meal can be replicated easily. The nutrition sheet that comes with it said it was 650 calories and loaded with nutritional goodies.

The second meal was called Pillard chicken with fennel and potato. Pillard apparently means pounded or flattened since that’s what you do with the chicken breasts. After making 5 of these meals another common element is the use of lemon zest and juice liberally. That’s not something we normally do but it really livens otherwise plain dishes. The veggie dish mixed boiled potato and roasted fennel (along with some lemon juice), salt, pepper, and drizzled with olive oil. Doesn’t sound all that good but it really was.

Meal three was Bucatini Pasta Bolognese with brussel sprouts. All the previous comments regarding how good it was held true for this meal. Either it was easier to make or we’re getting used to the faster pace in cooking. Actually most of the cooking on this meal was on medium heat instead of high and we did 100% of the prep work before starting any cooking at all. I’m not much on brussel sprouts but they blended in just fine and I’m guessing they could be replaced with a cabbage – in which we have a large garden position. There was nothing exotic in this recipe so it will be easily replicated. We always have a few pounds of bucatini on hand as well as the rest of the ingredients.

Progress on the house project – done externally and about half done with the plumbing. All the air conditioning ducting installed and we’re about a quarter of the way thru with the electrical wiring (including 100% of the digital wiring). I’m guessing all the plumbing and electrical will be done by the end of this month. It could be livable by the end of March.

Had a funny one the other day. George has a local friend, an old country guy who’s lived in rural Florida all his life. He comes over fishing occasionally and always comments on the garden and, from time to time, takes some fresh produce. He has a garden that is much larger than mine but apparently not as productive. The other day he’s particularly effusive about how nice my garden is and how he just can’t get anything to grow. Then in the same breath he comments that I shouldn’t be using pine needles in the walking rows between the planting rows because it will make the soil too acid to grow garden veggies. I just looked at him and started laughing – does it look like it’s too acid to grow veggies???? He got the message and started laughing too. I’m guessing he’ll have pine needles in between his planting rows next season.

I did a post cold spell garden check and was pleased that all of the newly germinated and/or transplanted seedlings made it thru. My largest transplant block is a 3’x6’ beet patch which I’ve loaded up with really tiny new beets. Beet seed pods contain multiple seeds so when they germinate you often get several bunched tightly together and unless you thin them properly, they never really grow. The surest way is to take tiny scissors and cut away all but the strongest looking one. It really difficult to separate them and plant each sprout independently but I always try. I think I may have made a breakthrough with this particular garden patch which, it turns out, is much, much softer than most other areas. That makes it very easy to pull out the individual seedlings without damage or much root disruption and even easier to plant them again with the appropriate spacing to avoid crowding. There’s always very high fallout in this process but I have high hopes after working in this soil. The variety is also one I haven’t tried in the past so this is a double test.
With this last patch planted I am now officially 100% planted – no space for anything. In fact if I kept the plant spacing perfectly per packet instructions, I’m probably 110%. For example, yesterday I spotted a strip that was 5’ long x 6” wide and decided to try growing garlic. I did a couple times in Utah but never here so I stole a head from Nancy’s kitchen stash, broke it into about a dozen cloves and then loaded up the strip. Who knows??

Uh Oh – Nancy just opened a bag of potatoes and found several with “eyes”. That means more garden space issues since I just can’t pass up planting them. I have some flowers in one garden corner that are doing nothing but looking good. Would I rather have potatoes or flowers? easy choice.
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Way to go Donald. I don’t like CNN either.

We’re having winter today. It was forecast to possibly freeze overnight but here at the lake I think we bottomed out at 35. We were saved by a brisk north wind that keeps any frost from settling and, in our case, picks up warmth from the lake. You can literally see the steam coming off the lake and I can imagine that “warmer moist” air protecting the garden. I did cover some seedlings and tomatoes last night and am hoping that was sufficient. I don’t expect the green beans to survive but they were fairly well picked out anyway. Next stop for them – compost pile. It should be warmer tonight and up into the 70’s by mid week. Maybe this is it for the winter!!!

We fixed the last of the Blue Apron meals – a chicken stir fry dish with fresh Pok Choy. As with the other recipes, there was a lot going on in a short time so I was flustered most of the way. The rice came out not optimal but even so, everything else was great and even the overdone rice worked. I have to learn to read the whole recipe a couple of times before starting and then doing all the prep work in advance of turning on the stove or oven. I also need to arrange the ingredients convenient to the stove while something is cooking. Don’t have a glass of wine during the prep. This is all probably amateur 101 but my cooking projects have always been low and slow. I’m considering growing some Choy next fall – lots of varieties to choose among and they’re fast growing and “right” sized for us.
I picked a Chinese cabbage yesterday. This guy had to weigh 15 – 20 pounds so I called Barbara and asked if she wanted half a cabbage. It was tasty but next season I’m switching to a much smaller, single meal size variety. I’m finishing up the winter growing season by finishing off the main lettuce patch and replanting it with beet seedlings and picking the main beet patch clean and replanting it with lettuce seedlings. The rest of the winter crop will mature gradually for the next month or so and be picked on an as available/as needed basis. At least half are leaf crops where we just cut leaves as desired and let the plant continue to produce until either the heat or bugs end the season. I’m ordering the spring/summer seeds this week so it’s more or less a continuous, non stop operation between now and June. I’ve studied the seed catalogs and selected a few old standbys and a few new items. I’m way overbuying new tomato varieties as they promise new levels of heat tolerance and disease resistance. I continue to try to find those one or two varieties that I can depend on season after season. Generally they never turn out as good as the catalog predicts but………… what’s a guy to do??

I think I’m getting a handle on this Trump character. He looks at every interaction as a prelude to a negotiation and is establishing a position with leverage. Talk to the Taiwanese to alert the Chinese that he has some leverage; ditto the Russians; ditto the Mexicans, folks in the middle East. With Obama, it became obvious to all that he would fold in a tough negotiation or retreat from any pressure point internationally. Even jerks like Assad just walked all over him. That perception of the US as a wuss has to be dispelled as a starting point. You know there’s going to be major league trade discussions with Mexico and China so start the positioning right away so there’s some leverage when the real negotiations start. Watch how quickly he ok’s the two stalled pipeline projects to make it understood that the US oil industry is open to grow.