the moon & garden this morning

there it was, huge, sort of yellowish. more importantly, i remembered it was supermoon and went out to capture it.

it was miraculously light for a while, before the clouds came and ruined my view of the moon. i did go out later in the evening but only got glimpses of the moon behind the clouds passing by...

 there's been a lot of commotion at the shack lately (the county is digging for water mains) and you could see that this poor deer was rather confused of the changed scenery. i'm glad she didn't make a stop at my veggie patch!

this lilium martagon isn't doing so great. first, this spot used to be more shady but because of the digging for the water mains they had to cut down huge trees that cast a shadow to this spot. second and i don't know where they came but there's been a few uninvited guests in my lilies, namely scarlet lily beetles. nasty little buggers.

these blue babies are doing great, they pop up every summer, and are pretty as can be, campanula rotundifolia, the bluebell.

potatoes are doing great, no bugs (so far). will be interesting to see what the crop will be this year.

earlier in the summer i noticed that something is eating the leaves of my beets. wasn't sure whether it was rabbits or deer or maybe snails, but i figured a net of some sort (this is the same kind we use for berry bushes) would provide some protection. so far the nibbling has stopped. this year i'm growing carrots, parsnips, parsley root, yellow and red beets, and possibly a surprise because i yet again was too lazy to make notes on what i planted and where...

the corn isn't doing so great this year, hopefully they start growing soon or they won't be done when autumn comes. 

the shack sits partly on bedrock and they had to blast some of the rock in order to bury the water mains deep enough so that they don't freeze in the winter. certain someone had the crew bring the rubble to be used to extend the upper part of yard. the idea is to form a ledge of the blocks of rock, the crew will bring machines to do that. i'm already thinking what to plant on the ledge...

sigh. i'll just be quiet now.

the peony just is the most beautiful of flowers, especially the pink one. the pink ones have been in the garden for 20 odd years, their location isn't the most convenient but i don't dare move them. i planted the white one (actually 4 of them) about 5 yrs ago and this is the first time i get a blossom on any of them...

as luck would have it...

(she carefully lifts her head to see if anyone is still out there...)

the luck would have it part? the weather, what else! just as i had planned, carefully i might add, to grill some veggies and ambitiously try to do the same to a couple of nice steaks, the heavens open and it not just rains but pours down...

plan B was in order, there was the oven...

the veggies got chopped, the mushrooms filled with a mixture of cream cheese, minced mushroom stubs and fried bacon and topped with some more bacon. i tried a new cut of bacon here and it sort of worked. the traditional strip would have worked better.  

as the oven was on i decided to put the asparagus there as well. 200C with fan on for 15 mins. placed the other veggies on another baking tray, they cooked for 20 mins.

oozing goodness...

lemon juice for the asparagus

minced some lovage and thyme for the other veggies

i'm loving fennel right now

the steak got the old and tried method of pan frying. done my home work on how to get it right on the stove at the shack, not sure i'd been as lucky with my spanking new (coal) weber.

those two seem to have endless stories to tell each other...

ps. if you've ever mixed windows, chrome, nokia booklet and an apple apparatus you might have some sort of idea of my IT desperation during the past several weeks. whether i actually manage to post this online remains to be seen...

happy mother's day!

happy b'day little brother!

braised red cabbage & duck breast

had some red cabbage in the fridge and a duck breast in the freezer (i'm constantly trying to empty it). in days gone by we used stay at the taverna hotel (now called mercure budapest) in budapest. their restaurant used to serve the best goose leg and braised cabbage. oh well, maybe once again one day...

i've tried to braise red cabbage "their way" but obviously never got it just right. nevertheless, i love braised red cabbage, even my way. this time i wanted to try cooking the cabbage in the pressure cooker, to save time, for one. i did some googling and found lobstersquads (fun drawings!) recipe for it. and made this dish my way...



my way really isn't a recipe, sorry about that. in addition to cabbage i used 2 red onions, an apple and 2 dl apple juice (lobstersquad doesn't use any liquid in her recipe). i added red wine and raspberry vinegar, you might want to skip the raspberry vinegar, i don't know what i was thinking...



my mom shreds cabbage with a cheese slicer which does make the cabbage a lot juicier, but i made a mess, i continued with a knife.



dump everything into the cooker...



...mix the ingredients somewhat. i took my potato masher to pack everything, did not want a purple explosion on the walls...did add some salt and black pepper before pouring the apple juice and 2 tbsp vinegar in.



after a mere 8 minutes of phiffing and whisling later...all done!




now that i look at the picture i remembered that i should have scored the skin...




fried the breast on medium for 6 mins per side, then foiled it for 10 mins.



very red but don't let that bother you, green salad would have been a nice addition.



the sun shone for a few hrs last week, it was nice on the deck.




sun was melting ice and snow, but we just got 20 cm more snow...



i'm going thru my seed collection and wondering what all should i grow this year.



however, the sun needs to get pretty busy melting all this before i can hide any seeds in the garden.