Winter Garden

First let me introduce the NeverEnding tomato plant. Last summer I had a small space next to our apartment garage that I put out a pot of flowers and a small tomato seedling in the middle. I didn't have much hope for that tomato seedling, but it proved me completely wrong growing up crooked and strong, producing a sweet cherry tomato here and there. When we moved out here in the late fall the tomato pot came with us and lived outside enjoying the sun. Normally I would have let nature, aka frost, take its course ending the life of the tomato plant, but you see I started a edible ornamental pepper plant at the same time. The pepper was to live in the house all winter in a sunny south window, you might say I got sorry for the tomato and it ended up living in the the house too.

IT has sense taken over the whole south window. I had to move the poor pepper plant to the other room to for its own south window. However both are happy and producing lots of tomatoes and peppers. 

Secondly I have been craving a good salad. Therefore I planted two! I had some salad mixed seeds in my seed stash and I bough potting soil in preparation for spring seedlings. And then I used some left over take-out food containers for my soon to be salad!

 I've also got a bowl of spinach starting, but it hasn't sprouted yet.


In other Wienhold news: 

I've completed a 750 piece puzzle, its kinda sad now that it is done. Growing up we used to do puzzles in the winter. This is the first year I've done one all by my self. Soon it will get put away for another year.

Finally I'll leave you with another garden that lives at our house:

The aquarium garden. Someday I hope to put the 30 gallon tank back up and let these plants fill it up with greenery, but for now the little 10 gallon tank is a bright spot in our lounge.

Experiments with Dry Edible Field Peas

Dry Yellow Field Peas, whole peas in the measuring cup and  'split' with a blender in the bowl

A person can buy green or yellow split peas at their local grocery store. The one pound bag costs a couple bucks at most. This is fine if you only eat split peas once or twice a year, we however really like split pea soup and I am always running out of peas.  Long story short, I had Richard bring some edible dry field peas home from work in a 50 pound bag for the huge price of $16. Come to think of it, I think that price included a five gallon bucket of lentils too.

Yesterday I had some ham thawing in the fridge and decided pea soup sounded good. I put two cups of whole peas in bowl of water to soak about 9ish in the morning. By noon they were not very soft, it seemed that the clear seed coat was absorbing the liquid. I read somewhere on line that a person can use a regular kitchen blender to make legume flour.

So I stuck a cup of whole peas in the blender and as you can see in the picture had surprising results. The seed coat comes off and a the pea is bright yellow just like the store bought ones. You can see a pile of the seed coat to the left in the bowl (picture). I skimmed off some of this 'chaf' seed coat but left most in the bowl. Next I added water to the bowl full of blended peas. These seemed to absorb the water better.

A few hours later the whole peas still weren't very soft, they still crunched when I tried to chew them. It was time to add some heat. I boiled the whole peas with the blended ones and they were starting to get soft but the texture wasn't the best, kind a chewy crunchy and they didn't seem to be breaking down like the store bought pea splits. Dinner time was approaching and I didn't have time to let the whole peas cook. Into the blender the peas went, out came yellow pea soup, very thick. Success

In retrospect I will try soaking whole peas in overnight then cooking on the stove top. I will also try putting the whole peas in the crockpot to cook/soak all day. All in all buying field peas from the local elevator is a great way to save money and eat healthy.

I did it!

It was scary, there was lots of steam and noise.  I successfully canned pumpkin. Unlike the store bought canned pumpkin, home canning requires peeling, chopping and blanching chunks of pumpkin. My pumpkins came to us late last fall from a friend overwhelmed with garden pumpkins. The are still hard and fresh, I just love how squash and pumpkins keep over winter.

The blanching took 3 minutes in boiling drinking water. Then I filled the hot jars, 6 wide mouth pints, with chunks of hot pumpkin and ladled the water from the blanching pot on top.  In retrospect I should have got out a ruler to measure the headspace, as the one inch for vegetables looks a whole lot different than the 1/4 inch for jelly.  Next went on the clean hot lids and rings, into the pressure canner they went. I easily filled the canner with room to spare. Then came the steam, let it steam out the vent for 10 minutes before putting the weight on and bringing up the pressure to 11 pounds. Once at 11 pounds I set the timer for 90 minutes and waited checking and turning down the heat to maintain a steady pressure. It was interesting on my gas stove I had to turn is all the way to low or else the pressure kept rising.

Constantly I was checking the pressure canner user guide and my Ball Blue Book Guide to Canning books making sure I was doing everything right. It was kind of nerve racking, having read the warnings of under processed food and the tragic story of a MN family who died from eating under-processed peas.

Finally the timer rang and I turned the heat off. Life got in the way for the next hour as my dad blew a tire and needed help. Once back at he house the canner had cooled and carefully opened and lifted out the still boiling jars. Pretty cool site to see the contents still boiling away in jars that have been off the heat for over an hour. I lined them up on a towel on the counter, four out of the six jars had a good solid seal. As for the two that didn't seal I'll be using them soon in soup.

All in all I'd call it a success.