Winding Down

I’ve been bringing my greenery inside. There are entirely too many houseplants now enjoying the steady temperatures a well-insulated house provides.

It seems I just can’t let them freeze.

There are several duplicates so I may be advertising a few to sell. It always takes a while before the plants settle into their good fortune.

A few of the amaryllis are showing limp, yellowed leaves. I’m going to try hard to remember to treat them (and all the plants) to a bit of fertilizer every other week or so.

There are still a few hills of potatoes to be dug. The carrots are at two stages of development because I’d reseeded the spaces where the original seeding didn’t take.

I’ll have full-sized as well as true baby carrots. The babies will need to be used first as I’m sure they won’t store well. I see carrot cake, carrot salad (slaw), and roasted carrots in the immediate future. The cake will have to go into the freezer (or to church for after service treats) since the fall session of my Whole Life Challenge has begun. Diet austerity looms…

I have yet to pick all the tomatoes, and I left the lone pumpkin on the vine. The cucumbers are wrapped in plastic wrap in the fridge (my brother-in-law swears they keep better that way).

I picked the few peppers that grew. There was a final picking of green beans (given to our local daughter), and one of fresh peas.

I made up a cucumber salad. A large cuke was peeled, cut into quarters lengthwise, and seeds cut away. Then it was chopped into a colander and sprinkled with sea salt. While the salt drew out excess moisture, I podded the peas into a bowl. A couple small peppers, one red and one green, were seeded, cut into rings and added to the bowl.

A red onion was thinly sliced and added. I crumbled a chunk of goat cheese into the bowl, then mixed in the cucumber.

I drizzled olive oil and cider vinegar over all, then mixed it well. I add chopped tomato to the dish when I serve it so the tomato isn’t ever refrigerated. It’s keeping quite well.

Being as I still had lots of corn, I did finally blanch, quick-chill in ice water, and cut from the cob about 20 ears. I froze that in 2-cup packages using my seal-a-meal. I also made a pot of corn chowder, modifying the following recipe, as noted after. I’ll make yet another corn salad this coming week.

Corn Chowder with Chorizo

• 6 C corn kernels

• 4 C lo-salt chicken broth, DIVIDED

• 2 Tbl EVOO

• 6 oz Spanish chorizo (or sausage, ham, or bacon) (1 1/4 C)

• 1 1/2 C chopped onion

• 1 # red spuds, in 1/4” cubes, skin on (3 1/2 C)

• 2 1/2 tsp thyme

• 1/8 tsp cayenne

• 2 C half & half

• Thyme sprigs, optional garnish

Blend half the corn with 1 1/2 C broth to purée. Sauté meat over medium heat. Remove meat and sauté onion and other 3 C corn. Salt & pepper to taste. Add spuds, stirring for 2 minutes. Transfer to large pot, add purée, thyme, cayenne, and rest of broth. Simmer over medium heat, uncovered, 10-12 minutes, or until spuds are tender. Add meat and half & half. Simmer until heated through, about 2 minutes. Adjust seasoning. Simmer an additional 5 minutes to thicken. Garnish servings with thyme sprigs if desired.

I didn’t have chorizo, so used Reynold’s own sweet Italian sausage instead.

I also didn’t have any half & half. I found just using my almond milk (regular milk doesn’t sit well with me) worked just fine.

For the chicken broth, I dissolved chicken-flavored Better than Bouillon in hot water from my kuerig. I’d also skipped over that first step, so I puréed about a third of the cooked soup, and added it back in towards the end of the preparation.

I like spicy, so used a bit more cayenne (red pepper), but you can adjust to your taste as you see fit. This, like most soups, seemed better when reheated as leftovers.

We made a quick trip to Billings to both celebrate finishing the wheat harvest as well as Dennis’s birthday.

I made sure my tomatoes and that lone pumpkin were covered. Dennis tells me that it did drop below the freezing mark again Thursday night, so I’m glad we made the effort again.