A slice of the life I'm trying to cultivate

[torquill]

"Hmm, I feel like some rhubarb cobbler for dessert."

Go downstairs, get shoes and flashlight, head out to the garden. Pull a good double handful of rhubarb stalks. Bring them inside, wash and trim them. Cut them into 1/2" pieces, as the plant variety is such that peeling is unnecessary.

Pull out a small casserole and dump the pieces in. Look up a rhubarb pie recipe for the flour:sugar ratio, eyeball the amount of fruit, and estimate amounts. Pour the flour and sugar mix on. Toss some oatmeal in a bowl, add a half-handful of brown sugar, a dollop of flour, and a few tablespoons of butter; mash it together. Cover the top of the fruit with it.

Look at a few more recipes, set the oven to 425F, toss in the casserole dish, and set the timer to 35 minutes as a first guess. Head back upstairs. Watch old TV shows while the aroma of cobbler wafts up the stairs. Go down and pull it out. Watch some more TV until it's cool enough to touch. Eat dessert. Elapsed time since the rhubarb was pulled off the plant: 90 minutes.

I can cook well enough I don't need recipes for everything. I have a garden which provides us with something we all love, year-round, 24 hours a day. I have an hour in my evening which I can devote to combining the two.

This is the life I'm slowly working toward, and I love it.

Comments

[luna-torquill.livejournal.com]

Grab a cheap bag of lentils or chickpeas. When the summer plants check out (I note we have a frost advisory tonight, so it may be soon), clear the bed and sow it thickly with the legumes. Rake them in a bit or cover it with screen to save the seed from the birds. They'll grow over the winter, start taking off in spring, and they'll be nice and lush around about the time you'd plant tomatoes and peppers. Turn them under, let the bed sit for a few days, and plant. They'll give you a gentle nitrogen boost and good organic matter, and they don't tie up the bed too long.