Comfort me!

Winter is back. My schedule is full. My to-do list is a mile long. I need some comfort food! I have already blog-whined about the serious shortage of snacks and desserts in my life. So I decided to check the fridge and the internet for something that might comfort me. Found it!

It's custard! Made from fresh brown eggs from the farmers market, local honey, and goat's milk - all legal ingredients for me!

Kay's Honey Custard

4 eggs
1 1/2 C goat milk
1/2 C honey
scrapings from 1/2 a vanilla bean
pinch of salt
cinnamon for sprinkling

Beat the eggs. Add milk and honey to the eggs in the top of a double boiler. (I sat my small pan in a larger pan of water.) Stir constantly over medium heat until the mixture thickens. Add the salt and vanilla scrapings. Taste. Yum! Pour into custard cups and sprinkle with cinnamon. Chill. Indulge!

Make yourself some custard, and come back to see what's popping up in my yard.

And . . .

Look! It's my first asparagus spear!

I hope we all feel better now!

Sounds like summer . . .

But it's not! It's an unseasonably warm December 27th. I started my leisurely Saturday with a trip to a new farmers market. When I returned home I did a little gardening. IN DECEMBER!

Indianapolis has a relatively new Winter Farmers Market on Saturday mornings at 25th and Central, in the renovating Mapleton Fall Creek neighborhood. I had just run out of the apples I picked from my neighbor's tree, so I decided to check it out.



I had lots of varieties to choose from. I bought some Grimes for baking and a couple of good red apples to eat fresh. I got to use one of the three new shopping bags I got for Christmas. Two are nylon and fold up into tiny bundles. One even has a clip so I can attach it to my purse or belt loop. The third is a big canvas shopper from Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville store. I love them all!



I saw these funny fingerling potatoes. Their odd shapes reminded me of ginger root. The same stand offered beautiful winter squash. But I've still got plenty of potatoes and squash from my own garden, so I settled for photos.



Sunset Acres had samples of all their cheeses. I tasted several and decided on the horseradish white cheddar and the white colby. Yum! I also picked up some Fromage a Trois goat cheese featuring a white layer, a sundried tomato layer and a pesto layer.


My last stop was the chicken and egg stand. I bought these beautiful brown eggs and got to see photos of their chickens and Quonset hut-like mobile chicken coops. Their free range chickens are protected by a hard-working guard dog and a puppy in training. The grown dog is training the puppy. The humans just watch in awe. Hawks and eagles are their most dangerous predators. So the dogs watch the ground and the sky. Good dogs!

I talked to my friend, Kyle, who is organizing a downtown food co-op. I might plant extras of some vegetables so I can be a supplier. My dragon tongue beans and sungold orange cherry tomatoes are real eye-catchers, and tasty, too!

I stopped by the homes of a couple of friends on my way home. I still have lots of summer cherries in my freezer and decided to share the wealth.

It was 67 degrees when I returned to Kay's Leaning Tree Farm. We'd had some rain, so the ground was a bit muddy. But it seemed like the right time to move a couple of rogue asparagus plants from the front yard to the asparagus patch in back. I'd been meaning to get around to that chore for eight years. Dormant roots, wet soil, perfect! I hope they like their new home.

It felt great to have a summer-like day in late December. Today we're back to a high in the 30's. It's winter again.

Dinner from the back yard

I did, indeed, saute my first asparagus spears with portabello mushrooms and onions. And my bread came out of the oven just as the steak was hitting my plate. Simply delicious! I even pulled out the "grandma dishes," to remind me of lots of great Sunday dinners at her house.

Look who's here! It's my first asparagus spear!

I inherited my asparagus garden from my home's previous owner. Patrice never ate any of the asparagus. The spears grow into tall ferns if you don't pick them. Patrice liked the ferns. When mature, the ferns add structure to the myrtle beds below them. The myrtle camouflages the spears, so some of them get a little too tall before I see them, and eat them. I eat most of the asparagus spears, and just leave the very thin ones to go to fern. They are so fresh and tender that I always eat a couple of them raw, as I walk back to the house.

I've lived in this house and worked these gardens for eight years now. I know where to look for the first asparagus spears. On a hot day, I can almost watch them grow. They can pop up quickly in the heat.

Patrice created beautiful big flower gardens, that wind around the perimeter of my big yard in the woods. I live in a secret neighborhood. It takes me 12 minutes to get to the center of Indianapolis from my driveway. But my street is secluded. We all get our water from wells. We have corn and soybean fields, lots of shade trees, woods, raccoons, groundhogs (grrrr!) a couple of deer and one coyote. The coyote is living in the woods about a half mile from my house. I can tell when he's living nearer. My rabbit population drops dramatically. I have lots of rabbits just now.

I prefer he live away just now. I have two geriatric cats. Milo is 16 years old, deaf and arthritic. Daddy Cat is at least ten, probably older, and has very few teeth. So I want my boys to be safe in the yard. We like it best when we are all outside together.

I like flowers, but I also like to grow my own food. So I have added a lot of edibles to the landscape. And I have three beds just for vegetables. I've planted black currants, gooseberries and jostaberries. I've let the wild black raspberries invade one edge of flower garden. I have my first blooms ever on the little peach tree. I have an old cherry tree that was broken down to a nub by a tornado that flattened my neighborhood five years ago. It has recovered nicely, and it is full of buds. The birds usually let me pick "my half" of the cherries. As long as there are mulberries available in the woods, I get good berry crops. One year there were no mulberries. The birds ate all my fruit. Most years there is enough for all of us.