Backyard Farmgals

This is lovely.  I think that I could sip this on my wrap-around porch on sweltering summer days, chatting with my girlfriends in their hoop skirts and fanning myself deep in the South.  Wait, I don't live in the South!  I live in a high dessert and there are NO hoop skirts.  How did women wear those things in the humid South anyway?  Insanity if you ask me. Since I am in a high desert with as little clothes as possible because it is really stinkin' HOT, and I don't have a wrap-around porch, I sip this lovely concoction on my patio over looking the garden while I chat with my chickens (who are also NOT wearing hoop skirts). Really, I get off topic easily.  It's because it's so fun to type hoop skirt... This is simply a very nice way to enjoy rhubarb, and it couldn't be easier.  Try it, you will like it, and it's kind of fun to make your own soda... think black and white Andy Griffith in the soda shop kind of fun.  My kids love it! ...

Okay... I know it sounds a little weird.  Rhubarb + beer = jam... what???  Actually this turned out completely divine.  For those of you who steer clear of the spirits, let me reassure you that the alcohol cooks out, I mean really cooks out, what remains after 215ºF is the most fantastic array of flavors.  Sweet and sour with a little of that malted wheat and barley flavor in the background.  It is divine, and I am not exaggerating! As I was cooking this up, my mind kept wandering to what it would compliment and one word seemed to stick out: PORK!  I bought a half of a pasture raised organic butchered pig from Clifford Family Farm last fall.  I never thought we would eat through it all.  Let me tell you... this pig has been delicious!  My family has eagerly gobbled it down and we are looking forward to purchasing another this fall.  (Don't you love knowing your farmer and how your food was grown?  I do!)  I pressure ...

With rhubarb season in full swing, I have found myself on the hunt for new recipes.  I was lucky enough to run across this fantastic recipe from a new cookbook that I got at The King's English in SLC (fantastic little bookstore in the 15th and 15th area).  I love seasonal cookbooks, it makes it so easy for me to cook with whatever is growing in the garden.  When looking for this rhubarb recipe, I also ran across several other in-season recipes that I can make right along with it.  The unique thing about this book, which is called "Chicken and Egg" is that it focuses on recipes that use either chicken or eggs (go figure!).  Since I am the co-mother to a flock of 60 hens, this book sang to me as I eyed it.  It has a lot of pictures, which to me is essential.  How do I know what something is going to look like if I don't have a picture to reference?  Let's just say cookbooks without pictures are insanely useless to me (once again we have established ...

I picked my first bunch of rhubarb yesterday.  Oh, the joys of the first harvest and the hope that it gives of more to come.  I have to admit I am in love with rhubarb, not just for culinary purposes, but I am in love with the plant itself.  How can you not love a plant that is as old as dirt itself, that has leaves wider than my whole body, and glorious thick stained red stalks shooting up from the ground?  I love this plant!  It is the first to poke through the ground in the spring; it gives me hope that winter WILL (one day) end!!!  I needed rhubarb this Spring; Winter is still threatening, snowing in the canyons and higher elevations.  I kind of stick out my tongue at Old Man Winter as I slice those thick tangy stalks off the plant! Rhubarb is a very ancient member of the buckwheat family and is a perennial, which means plant it once and it comes back year after year.  It has been documented in ancient China for medicinal uses as far...

This was a huge week for all of us gardening fools.  Unfortunately for me, it rained every single day that I had off work and was sunny and beautiful on the days that I was gone.  I was fortunate enough to almost break a few bones in my foot on Tuesday which got me off work early on Thursday and Friday.  If you think that I promptly went home and iced, elevated and rested my foot like a good nurse, you are mistaken!  I painfully donned my garden boots and went to plant garden #2.   With Woodman’s help, we have been able to terrace the garden at my mom’s house which gave us the opportunity to square-foot part of it.  I got almost everything planted.  I am still a little leery about the basil and a few other plants, it’s just too blasted cold for the most tender things.  If summer ever gets here, I will have pesto from my basil! The potatoes are popping up through the ground.  I started to hill dirt around the plants.  It is so exciting...