Mushrooms, Seeds, and Scarves, Oh My!

We are officially mushroom-sitting.  Our next-door neighbors went to the Vancouver Olympics and have entrusted us with their mushroom kit.  If you've never seen a mushroom kit, it's quite amazing.  It's a big box of growing medium inoculated with mushroom spores.  You keep it moist and cool and within a week or so many, many, MANY mushrooms begin to grow.  We tried a kit one year in our basement and had a scary amount of portabellas.  This particular kit grows white button mushrooms.  The deal is that if we take care of the mushrooms--spritz them with water and keep them at the right temperature (and out of Vera's reach)--that we can enjoy all the fungi we can harvest.  It's perfect timing because I hadn't yet purchased mushrooms for our weekly Friday night pizza.

Started my vegetable seeds today.  First I prepared the soilless planting mix--1 part peat moss, 1 part vermiculite, and a little perlite--and filled the seedling containers with it, dropped in a couple seeds and topped them off with more planting mix.  I haven't tried growing eggplant before but today I seeded two varieties: Hansel (purple) and Gretel (white).  I'm excited to see how they'll do. 

I also found time to sew.  I love to create new clothing and accessories from recycled/repurposed materials.  Today I upcycled a pair of worn-out yoga pants into a tube scarf.  It's basically a huge continuous loop and when I put it on it's like putting a giant hairband around my neck; it's nice and snuggly.  We'll see if Ben likes it; he may not be crazy about me turning another pair of pants into a scarf.  Most recently I upcycled a pair of flannel pj pants (circa 1995) into a big wrapping scarf.  I'd had the pajamas so long that I finally wore a hole in them.  Thought I'd patch it up, but then I got the idea for the scarf.  When I showed him my latest creation he was not excited, but kind of pouted about it, "I never wanted to see those pjs again!"  Whenever he sees me wearing the scarf he teases that I have a pair of pajama pants wrapped around my neck.  I think it's cool.  Anyway, this scarf is more neutral so hopefully it doesn't look as much like it did in its previous life.

Snowed in!

Vera and I were homebound today.  We took advantage of the big snowstorm and stayed warm by cooking and baking.  I've been trying my hand at some gluten-free recipes lately.  I made a Four Flour Bread from Bette Hagman's The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread.  I was surprised and thrilled with how light and fluffy it turned out; my experience with baking gluten-free is that breads are very dense.  This one was right up there with the best wheat flour breads I've baked (which are few and far between).  I enjoyed the first slice still warm from the oven, slathered with butter, but toasted a couple more slices for a sandwich: smoked turkey breast, Muenster cheese, local winter greens, spread with an Herbed Yogurt Dip leftover from Superbowl hors d'oeuvres.  

Herbed Yogurt Dip 
(adapted from Hors D'oeuvres by Eric Treuille and Victoria Blashford-Snell)
Makes about 2 cups


1 c. fresh parsley, chopped
1 c. fresh basil, chopped
1/2 c. fresh chives, chopped
zest from 1/2 lemon or 1/2 t. dried lemon peel
juice of 1 lemon
6 oz. cream cheese, in small chunks
1 c. whole milk yogurt
3 T. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste


Place herbs, lemon juice and peel, cream cheese, yogurt, and oil in a food processor or blender; pulse until well blended.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Cover and refrigerate for 30 min. to allow the flavors to blend.  Serve chilled with vegetable crudites--I recommend carrot and daikon sticks.

Stuffed!

We rounded out our Portland trip with more eating and drinking on Friday. Didn't get to tour Widmer's Brewery as we'd originally hoped so we spent some time walking the downtown area and enjoying more local fare: coffee and delicious breakfast pastries at Stumptown Coffee, a bacon/maple long john at Voodoo Doughnut, artisan roasted espresso at Spella Caffe (owned by my former Sanford co-worker Andrea Spella), street food (everything you could want from German and Polish to Thai, Korean, and Mexican and beyond all on one block), and a beer sampler at Deschutes Brew Pub. Once again, Vera was a trooper!

We're all glad to be home and in our own beds. I like traveling because not only are they inspiring foodwise (and in Portland's case fashionwise), but they give me a fresh start when I get back. I feel like, "okay, I did that, I relaxed, now I'm ready to start a new week here." It won't take me long to get back to my usual running around. In fact, tomorrow I'm planning to get the supplies for my custom soilless mix and start seeding.

Back to the homestead.

A Break from Wisconsin Weather

This doesn't exactly relate to the LeFort Urban Homestead, but a vacation, especially one that allows me to eat and drink adventurously, always inspires cooking on the homestead. It's not been terribly warm and sunny on our trip to Portland, OR, but it's certainly better than in Milwaukee. The 44-hour Amtrak trip was a good experience. We had a private sleeper car and although the first night with Vera was a little challenging, we did well overall. Spent a couple of nights in the Willamette Valley southwest of Portland eating and tasting wine. The hillsides of vineyards were beautiful as were the miles of hazelnut groves. We stayed at a supercool hotel in McMinnville, Hotel Oregon, part of the McMenamin's independent hotel group. Drove out to the Pacific coast on Wednesday and stopped in Tillamook to tour the well-known Tillamook cheese factory. We've been in Portland since then and are staying at the Ace Hotel very hip hotel near the Pearl District. We met up with Ben's friend Anna today. I didn't get to meet her chickens afterall, but I got the rundown on her poultry setup. Today we visited Chinatown and the Chinese Gardens and couldn't miss the famous Powell's City of Books--if any of you know about my "bookstore (and antique store) syndrome," you can imagine how this visit went. It was quite overwhelming, but I managed to narrow my search to one food preservation book with 400 new recipes. Very exciting! We've eaten at some amazing restaurants on our trip! Some of the most interesting and delicious things I've had: fried cornmeal with scallions and a poached egg, potato buttermilk toast and blood orange juice; fried chickpeas; crostini with candied Seville oranges, Nutella, and toasted hazelnuts; flourless chocolate cake with sweetened beet chips, beet ganache, and pistachio sauce; yuzu drinking vinegar; and Cynar Artichoke (a bitter aperitif distilled from artichokes). Tomorrow we're planning to visit Voodoo Doughnut and possibly track down an old Sanford coworker who has a coffee roasting business here. And of course, we're planning to enjoy more local food and beverages and most likely a brewery tour. One more day to savor! As of Saturday I'll get back to the LeFort homestead and start my first seeds of the season next week.