Hemolysis Avoided

Last weekend my sister and mom went to my uncle's house for his twin daughters' confirmations. When they arrived yesterday the carried with them a bag full of treasure. By treasure I mean morel mushrooms. I have not eaten a morel in ten years. They are incredibly delicious and super easy to make. They thing is, since the last time I'd eaten one I was 8, I had of course never cooked one. I was a little bit worried about the prospect of doing this because as I learned in the best book ever written, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, morels are complete with a hemolytic enzyme. I can't remember exactly what this does, but the latin prefix heme- means iron, and in this case relates to your blood cells. And I remember -lyse means to break or split so it becomes quite apparent that something bad could be happening to those all-important red cells. Thankfully, neither me nor my mom died from my cooking. I will admit though, I felt like a bit of a hypochondriac because at every twinge of my stomach or possibly-imagined headache I was certain my blood cells were lysing by the thousands.

The way in which they were prepared is almost ridiculously simple and uber delicious. It goes like this:

1. Put saltines or another such crumby, salty cracker in a contraption of some sort.
2.Break them to tiny bits with gusto.
3. Clean and chop morels while the butter and olive oil heat up.
4. Crack and beat up an egg.
5. Dip morel pieces into the egg to coat and then into the cracker crumbs.
6. Pan-fry over medium heat until browned but not dark.
7. Eat slowly, looking towards the sky in ecstasy at this gift from Spring.
8. Repeat step seven as much as possible.

Prom!

Well today is my senior prom which is all rather exciting, but I'm not such a fan of dances. It'll still be a blast though and if you're lucky I might post a picture of myself and the date.

In gardening news, the peas have sprouted and look rather weird. I've never grown peas before so this is interesting. The first planting of lettuces are approaching leaf lettuce size and I might be robbing a few leaves for my tacos that I'm having for lunch. Mmmm that sounds really delicious does it not? I'm not sure if its allowed to steal from head lettuce or romaine, but oh well I plan on doing it anyway.

I hilled the first set of potatoes that basically just shot up out of the ground like nobody's business. The carrots have finally sprouted and I can see that I was a little bit disorganized in my planting. There will be like 5 inches of no carrot and then suddenly three on top of one another. I guess I'll have to thin those out which makes me sad. Also, the cucumber seeds I started have sprouted and I just can't wait to get my hands on some fresh cucumbers for cucumber salad and homemade pickles. I like using Mrs. Wage's (I think) kosher dill mix. I just pour it over top and refrigerate and the pickles are absolutely delicious. I'm also very excited for one of my favorite recipes that I'll get to enjoy 100% homegrown in 1.5-2 months. It goes like this:

New potatoes with the skins on, halved or quartered
Fresh rosemary
Fresh peas, shelled or sugar snap
Butter

Now that I think about it the butter will not be homegrown. But all of the vegetables are in the ground so assuming no catastrophe occurs we'll get to enjoy that soon (ish). Hey I think I'll post up my essay about hydrogen power. For all of you people that dream of clean energy, this paper is a tantalizing story of a new technology from an up-and-coming firm from Silicon Valley. I think I'll go put that up in a second post after lunch.

Peace!

The World's Smallest Salad

Good News! I went out to check on my second lettuce planting and the seeds are sprouting! I must have forgotten how small the fake leaves were on lettuce seedlings because they seem sooooo tiny! Wow that is three sentences in a row with exclamation points. I should calm down. Also, and I should probably post a picture of this, some bulbs managed to grow up through the layer of compost. Before we planted the garden there had been some pretty wimpy bulbs growing in one spot. Since all but one had died the year before, and by early April there were no signs of the remaining one, I decided to just bury it. Turns out it was a bit tougher than I thought and grew all the way through the one foot thick layer of compost that fills my raised bed. I was more than a bit surprised, and also happy. The problem is it grew up at the back of one of the tomato cages. Hopefully for it it will grow big enough to get strong before the tomato plant that will also be there overshadows it. If not, well, I'll just have to wish it goodbye one more time. For some reason, my debilitating plant empathy doesn't apply to these bulbs. And when I say debilitating I mean it. Pulling out anything that might make food or killing any plants makes me really sad inside. This is why I am so bad at thinning plants. Take my tomato seedlings for example, I am afraid to kill one of them so that I only have one of each type for fear that the remaining one will die and I'll be out a tomato plant for the year. Thus, I have two of each kind I started from seed and I'm probably going to end up planting all four plants. The bright side is that two of them are determinate so they won't grow up to be monsters anyway, and the other is a cherry tomato so maybe it won't get as big.

Other exciting news from the farm is that I have eaten my very first salad. As you undoubtedly inferred from the title, it was rather small. As all of the regulars out there already know, I have been itching to thin out the seedlings, and today was the day. In this next batch of seedlings I won't have to thin quite so early, but as that was my first time planting lettuce I planted two seeds per hole not realizing the impressive germination rate. I ended up with four plants in a 2-3 inch wide area because I had 2 sets of on-top-of-each-other seedlings. I went out and picked the smaller of each of the pairs to give the remaining one a bit more room so it wouldn't have to fight for water and nutrients and all the good soily stuff. I brought in my 1/100th of an ounce of lettuce, took its picture, washed it, and ate it. I put about one drop of dressing to add some flavor. It was quite possibly the best salad of my life. I can't wait until I can have a big bowlful of the deliciousness. I think part of the excitement is that it is homegrown and thus naturally superior, but the fact that Forelenschuss is darn attractive probably helps too. I could eat like 5 entire heads of it before I got bored and stopped. Anyway, I'm a real pig so that's fine. Right now I'm thinking about my favorite salad recipe, which goes something like this and is absolutely delicious.

Lettuce- lots
Tomatoes- maybe 1/4th of a cup, diced
Peppers- about 1/4th of a cup, diced
Onions- .25-.75 cups. I looooove sauteed onions so I put in a ton.
Salsa- as much as you would put were it normal salad dressing
Ranch- just a small amount to taste
Cheddar Cheese- a healthy sprinkle

Directions:
Saute the peppers, onions, and tomatoes (you don't have to saute the tomatoes if you prefer raw, but raw tomatoes aren't my favorite so I like to give them a little heatin). While they saute tear up a liberal amount of lettuce. Sprinkle the cheese on top and then pile on the sauteed vegetables. Add the salsa and dressing to taste. Eat, enjoy, and be happy (and healthy!).