YummOOOOOHHHH!

I have been meaning all year to send you to my husband's blog. This idea started in January. He is meant to be journaling (at least) weekly and recounting his garden adventures. Prep work. Planting. Growing. Harvesting. Cooking. Canning. And, bless his heart, we thought for two months this spring we might be moving and the garden went in late, then family came to visit twice and summer is his busy season at work. Oh, we are still gardening, and he has taken copious pictures, but the writing part has been a bit neglected. I think he still loves the idea, and maybe with mobile blogging he'll post more regularly. 

After an amazingly successful dinner tonight I decided it was time to post some of this stuff myself. Here I am, complete with the Florence Henson hairflip, the 1950's apron made lovingly by my mother. And barefoot. But decidedly NOT pregnant. Probably I'm just loaded up on good food.

For the 4th of July, the kids did their second annual produce and goodie stand. Jedi Knight worked in the garden for a couple of hours to help Plantboy get everything harvested and ready to go.

This is before the sale. I still have tons of onions, garlic and shallots drying on the back patio that I just use whenever. Because it has been hot this summer, our peas and beans didn't do nearly as well as they normally do, and the potato plant tops died off early, so while there are potatoes in the ground, they aren't really growing. Still, with all the sunshine and heat, the tomato crop is looking to be a bumper one. Every year brings a different experience and new things to learn. I think part of the reason Plantboy enjoys the garden so much is for the challenge of it.

 

 This was last Sunday's dinner offering: Crockpot roast, balsamic pesto, string vegetables over farfalle pasta. The roast was cooked in Plantboy's Italian style stewed tomatoes that he canned last fall. The pesto was made with basil and shallots from the garden. I used a cool shredder tool on three colors of carrots, zucchini and yellow summer squash (all from our garden) for the pasta. The pesto went on top of the pasta and veggies, but they were too pretty to photograph with anything covering them. When you add the vinegar to your pesto it loses some of that pretty green color, but it gains a huge amount of flavor. There are also red peppers in with the veggies, but not ours yet. We still have a couple of weeks to go on peppers. 

 This next meal is Plantboy's fresh caught salmon with two types of quinoa. The veggies include carrots and orange squash (cubed, purchased) that I roasted together in a pan with a teaspoon or two of brown sugar. There is also asparagus and roasted beets. This year we planted nearly all yellow beets because they can be cooked with other food without making everything turn purple!

 This next one is so pretty I could hardly stand to eat it. The meat is from my crockpot cookbook and is called chicken Provencal. Cook the chicken in a can of stewed Italian tomatoes (again, I used Plantboy's) and a can of paste. Add salt, pepper, onions and garlic to taste. About an hour before serving throw chopped red and yellow pepper. In the middle are Israeli couscous. Good luck finding these bad boys, but I think they are worth it. Market of Choice used to sell them in bulk, but this time around we had to buy them in a bag and they were pricey. They are just like huge couscous. They are awesome with Mediterranean food or to make into a lemony-pine nut pasta salad. Hot or cold. Whatever. The veggies here are shredded zucchini and yellow squash topped with fresh Parmesan. I sauteed them in olive oil for about three minutes. Fresh basil. Of course.

Padawan has taken to calling this pie Pentaberry Pie, rather than the traditional Razzleberry pie because it has FIVE different berries. Marion, rasp, blue, straw and black. Awesome. Just awesome. I followed the recipe I posted here before but used a deep dish pie plate and added about 50% more berries and corresponding flour and sugar. I also made a regular dish . . . which, truthfully baked up a little better. But honestly, there were two solid inches of berries in this thing when it was cooled and cut. It was so pretty I wanted to cry. 

 This next meal is boiled garden potatoes--two varieties, just whatever we had, fresh blueberries (picked at a local farm; our garden doesn't produce a lot all at once), green beans locally grown and Plantboy's salmon grilled with a hint of brown sugar and purple onions. His dipping sauce is one we found at Costco. Habenero something or other. I made my pulled pork in the stuff last weekend and it was pretty much the best ever.

 How is a dinner list complete without breakfast-dinner? Eggs and bacon NOT grown in the backyard. Not a real animal person here. Fingerling potatoes boiled for a few minutes and then fried in butter and olive oil with fresh shallot and rosemary. The waffle is a to-die-for liege waffle topped for dinner and not dessert--avocado, strawberries, and feta. There was a drizzle of reduced balsamic and/or olive oil for the waffle too. And if you've never had berries and feta in reduced balsamic, well, then, you aren't a true foodie yet.

 I end up with about ten of these pictures every year. Plantboy gets his carrots all harvested, cleaned and lined up and can't help but take pictures. If you are already growing carrots, then get a packet of COLORED carrot seeds next year. Really. It will make you so happy. And if you aren't growing carrots, then, seriously, get on it. What are you waiting for? These beauties are actually no bigger than my index finger. They were the ones Plantboy pulled up when he had to thin the crop. I didn't peel them (too small); I sauteed them as-is. Tops and everything. So lovely. That is a bit of spinach hanging out over on the side. In April and May we had garden salad just about every night.

  
The only thing from the garden here is probably the purple onion . . . we made these a little early in the season for them to be from our garden. Those are sweet potatoes (or yams or whatever you call the red garnet ones), not carrots. I boiled the s.p. and the red potatoes for a couple of minutes before skewering them. It is okay to point out here that somebody with skewers this organized probably has obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yeah. I know.

 An early strawberry harvest. During June we were picking almost this many about every three days. We picked up at a local u-pick farm also so that there were plenty for jam and smoothies for the next several months.

  
Okay, okay, these next two have absolutely nothing to do with the garden, and everything to do with processed sugar, but they are just so cute. I discovered a new kind of food coloring called color gels that are so much better than regular food coloring. The colors are more vibrant and there is no bitter taste. The Youngling got an Oregon Ducks cake for his birthday and Padawan took a Cookie Monster cake to the Blue and Gold banquet. The best part about Cookie Monster is that he was just as blue inside!

 This little creation is called Jarfait. Plantboy and I had this at a delightful restaurant in Newport in June, and then I came home and made up my own version. It is basically a personal trifle. I layered angel food cake, homemade custard (not too sweet) with blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries from the garden. Oh, yeah, everybody loves a Jarfait.

The kids are getting to be better pickers. This was our u-pick haul in about 45 minutes at the farm. Plantboy found out when they were going to be the most "on" and he came home at lunch one day to help us. Freezer jam for a whole year, baby!

 This has been a wonderful year for our harvest. In every way. Although I'm beginning to feel the pressure that comes from beginning a new job and making life changes, I'm also feeling enormously blessed for the life we have here in Oregon. There is so much to see and do and love here. Happy eating!

Commitment

My mom was in town this week (see Facebook for copious pictures) and we had a chance to talk about, well, just about everything. One of the things we talked about was the idea of commitment in the rising generation. She mentioned hearing some general authority or another talking a while back in a meeting about a current concern with the youth being that they just won't decide to live the gospel--they are wishy-washy in their adherence to gospel teachings, and complacent about finding and holding onto testimonies.

It is kind of a standing joke, almost a cultural icon: the eternally uncommitted 20 (or 30 or 40)-something male who just can't seem to pull it together long enough to get married or have children or, just, you know, GROW UP. The Peter Pan syndrome.

But it isn't just men that fail to launch, or women to whom they won't pledge. What I've been thinking is that what makes people commit to any cause, is that they feel the fire of it deep in their heart. What makes you speak out, march, pledge, donate time and treasure is a deep-seeded feeling of belief that what you are doing matters. That it makes a difference. That it might change the world, or at least your corner of it.

In the Book of Mormon, the direst descriptor given to any fallen people is that they are "past feeling." I wonder if this past-feelingness is becoming epidemic in our society. We speak so often about being desensitized to violence, but my thought today is the violence is only one of so many things we are desensitized too. I fear that with so much to fill our time, we have lost the ability to be still and allow the Universe to show us what it has to teach. To let the Holy Ghost feel up the empty recesses in our souls instead of more activities. More media. More noise.

In my Sunday School lesson today there was a quote from Brigham Young that you have probably heard about "the fire of the covenant." I remember a wealth of experiences both as a youth and as a young adult that seared that covenant into me, leaving a permanent impression on my heart. A fire I've learned to recognize and feel as the burning of truth and testimony.

I pray that the youth the Lord causes to be put in my way will feel. That they will feel anything. That they won't succumb to the fashionable ennui that is so common to teens in any age, and maybe most particularly to teens of this age. And that on the other hand they won't immerse themselves in false emotion so there is no room for the truer, deeper feelings the Lord would have them experience.

This epidemic of snark spills over into other areas of their lives as well. I see youth so unwilling to leave the nest, to serve, to try their own strength. Too many without a cause to hang their lives on. We cannot falter in our own dreaming and striving. We must show them how glorious and satisfying life can be when you have the courage to covenant, and to live those covenants. It takes courage to feel, to feel deeply and to be vocal about those tender and vulnerable feelings. We are in need of heroes with such courage.

Remembering

My mother sent me a letter on my mission in which she wrote, "You have the ability to glean a lot of wisdom from everyday experiences." I've often believed this to be one of the greatest compliments I've ever been paid, and a fortunate byproduct of my unfortunate tendency to overthink everything. In my mission journal and my letters home, my hands would ache and time would run out long before I was finished telling what I had observed, and how it had changed me. 

This month in youth Sunday School, the kids are talking about ordinances and covenants. The lesson outlines aren't as clearly delineated from one another as they seemed to be last month, and there is a lot of redundancy built in. The result is that I've read many conference talks this month on the sacrament. The recurring theme I have noticed over and over is the idea of "remembering." I was pondering this word a lot on Sunday. During my lesson, the Spirit was very strong, and the kids were really getting it. I don't know that they were a lot more forthcoming than usual, but there was a definite difference. They were more attentive, brows were more furrowed, and there were even a few glistening eyes. Then, boom, without it being according to plan, there was an account from my mission I felt impressed to share. It was a little thing really, seemingly unimportant, but somehow it was exactly the right thing at the right moment. It was a thing that hadn't been part of my preparation or even conscious thought for some years.

But it was a thing that helped my precious young class to see that their gospel preparation and knowledge is serious . . . and those years between baptism and the temple are vital. The moment was sublime and reminded me of every good reason we come to Church. I felt humbled and grateful that the Lord had put me in a place where I might make a difference.

And I understood something I've never quite seen before. 

Though it doesn't appear on any list, remembering, in its many and varied form, is itself a gift of the Spirit. Remembrance takes so many forms and meanings, each of them vital to gospel living. 

Remembering past blessings makes us grateful and humble.

Remembering is how we keep our covenants as we take the sacrament.

Remembering the Savior gives us the integrity to keep our covenants when we are away from Church.

Remembering our own weaknesses can keep us from judging others.

Remembering our ancestors helps us honor our religion and our liberty.

Remembering preserves our spiritual and familial traditions. 

My simple, unheralded event from my mission, came back to my memory in the very moment that my class needed to hear the words. If this is not the Spirit working, then I don't know what is. When I teach my class this week, I am going to ask them to pray with all the energy of their hearts that the Spirit will bless them with remembrance, so that it will be a shield and a protection to them against a world where everything changes and drifts into decay. 

In the words of Teryl Givens:

"I believe remembering can be the highest form of devotion. To remember is to rescue the sacred from the vacuum of oblivion. To remember Christ’s sacrifice every Sunday at the sacrament table, is to say “no” to the ravages of time; to refuse to allow his supernal sacrifice to be just another datum in the catalogue of what is past. To remember past blessings is to give continuing recognition of the gift, and re-confirm the relationship to the Giver as one that persists in the here and now. Few-very few-are entirely bereft of at least one solace giving-memory. A childhood prayer answered, a testimony borne long ago, a fleeting moment of perfect peace. And for those few who despairingly insist they have never heard so much as a whisper, then know this: We don’t need to look for a burning bush, when all we need is to be still and remember that we have known the goodness of love, the rightness of virtue, the nobility of kindness and faithfulness. And ask if we see in such beauties the random effects of Darwinian products, or can we not perceive in them the handwriting of God on our hearts?"

That almost sounds like poetry to me. 

Just Give Me a Reason

If you automatically answered "just a little bit's enough" when you saw the title to this post then chances are this song has been stuck in your head at least once this summer. As it happens, this song has been stuck in my head more than once in the last few months. Probably more like once every day. Besides being crazy catchy and well-sung by Pink and that guy from FUN, I really love what this song says to me.

You see, the poppy love songs we are so familiar with are usually about unrequited love or new love or hyper-sexualized love, or love so strong that it will never even hit a speed bump. But this love song is different. The singer acknowledges that all of that initial attraction stuff was wild and passionate but that she is afraid they are past that now. She acknowledges a terrifying bundle of insecurity and asks him if he is tired of their love--but has that way of asking that gives him no choice but to agree with her.  He comes back to sing to her in a way that can only be described as bemused. "I'm sorry, I don't understand where all of this is coming from. I thought that we were fine."

This is such a typical guy thing to say, and yet his follow up line tells us what is so typical girl, "Your head is running wild again; my dear we still have everything, and its all in your mind."

I think they are probably both right. Women need to stop over analyzing and over thinking everything, but men need to acknowledge female insecurity as well and look for little ways every day to mitigate these feelings through small acts of kindness.

And then that awesome ear-worm of a chorus:

Just give me a reason

Just a little bit's enough

Just a second we're not broken

Just bent

And we can learn to love again

It's in the stars

It's been written in the scars on hearts

That we're not broken

Just bent

And we can learn to love again

The thing is, when you have loved somebody for a while, love no longer feels like an ocean wave of emotion and attraction that sweeps you up beyond your control. Love isn't tsunami, it is the ebb and flow of the tides. And when love changes to this form, you must make a conscious choice every day to keep it alive.

Plant boy and I both love this song. I think we see ourselves in it. Plantboy's love, just like the man's in the song, has touched every part of me and helped to make me whole. . . And yet we still inadvertently hurt each other sometimes. The scars of the past are still written in our hearts. We may have healed one another but we cannot undo the past either. We are what we are. And sometimes, even couples who really love each other, get a little bit bent and must come clean with one another and learn to love again. This song isn't about falling in love in a love song. This is a song about falling in love every day in real life. Sometimes all you need is one reason to remember why you started this crazy journey together to begin with.

Even love written in the stars must choose every day if it is going to keep moving forward.