Sabey Update

It's been a while since I've posted anything on here. I realized that all I've been writing about is food, and that I am in no way qualified to give advice about cooking! It's probably time for a good old fashioned family update.

Now, I am REALLY bad about taking pictures. But here are a couple of our little Broncos cheerleader:

So, what have we been up to lately? Baby has been very busy, of course. She is soooo close to walking! She will walk holding only one hand or pushing her walking toy. Her physical therapist thinks that she is plenty strong enough; all that she is lacking is confidence at this point. I made her a little indoor "sandbox" with rice and various tools (funnels, shovels, cups, etc.). She loves picking up the rice one pinch at a time and scattering it all over the kitchen floor. We've been working on the concept of not doing that, but it hasn't quite sunk in yet! It's been really cute watching her personality and imagination develop. Today she was playing with a little horse toy, making it walk around with her car sound ("vroooooom, vrooooom"). I taught her to say "neigh", so she started walking the horse around shouting "NEIGH NEIGH NEIGH!".

Nick has been pretty busy with work lately. He loves his new job at A.I. Solutions. They basically try to predict when satellites are likely to collide with space debris or other satellites. The company is based in Maryland, but the branch in Colorado Springs is quite small; only 6 or 7 people work in his office. He is thrilled to work so close to home; no more leaving the house at 6 a.m. to try to find a decent parking space at Schriever Air Force Base.

I've been enjoying life as a stay-at-home-mom, as usual. I take a nap almost every day (my dream come true). I promised myself when Baby was a newborn that I would never feel guilty about napping again after all of the sleep deprivation she caused :). I'm been practicing my flute lately after joining the Pikes Peak Flute Choir. Baby crawls on my lap and puts her face right in front of mine while I play, squinting as I blow air into her eyes (silly girl!). My garden DIED due to the early snow this week. So sad! I've actually been enjoying the cooler weather. I will soon miss my daily walks with Baby or hanging laundry outside to dry, but it is nice to spend full days indoors whenever I get a chance. I love sitting on the floor reading books to Baby (a thousand times), doing puzzles, making play-doh (which Baby just thinks is a nasty food), walking Baby up and down the stairs (two thousand times), and of course, cooking. I've been baking all of our bread (sandwich bread, rolls, tortillas, naan, whatever), sometimes successfully, sometimes not, and trying other experiments like making yogurt in the crock pot. I'm discovering that I really love all things domestic. The feminists of my mother's generation would probably disapprove of how I spend my time, but you know what? I LOVE having the freedom and time to learn all of these interesting skills. Maybe someday down the road I'll start a home-based business or take a part-time job or become involved in local politics or something. For now, I'm just not ready to give up my naps and time at home with Baby. I'm enjoying every minute of it.

That's about it!

Chimichurri Sauce and the Old Stone Church

First things first: Have I ever mentioned my favorite restaurant, the Old Stone Church? Located in Castle Rock, it's nearly halfway between Colorado Springs and Littleton, where my parents live, so we occasionally meet for lunch when a granddaughter visit is required. The restaurant is located inside a renovated church built in 1888; not only can you request the booth in the old confessional, but the atmosphere is quite elegant and quaint with stained glass windows and a bubbling fountain inside.

We've only been for lunch, as the entree prices are $8-12 versus $18-25 per plate for dinner. My favorite menu items include the Crab Cakes with Anaheim chile cream and angel hair pasta or the Brie cheese, grilled and served with roasted garlic, blackberry jalapeno chutney and flatbread. Nick usually goes for the flautas (crispy flour tortillas filled with grilled chicken and mild jalapeno salsa) or the traditional fish and chips with amber beer batter and jalapeno tartar sauce. I've tried half a dozen other menu items that were absolutely perfect. Don't get me started on the desserts - the bananas foster or white chocolate bread pudding are nearly impossible to share.

Perhaps the best part of the meal is the grilled flatbread served with bright green chimichurri sauce brought to your table as soon as you sit down. Chimichurri is a traditional Argentinian barbecue sauce made with fresh herbs, olive oil, and vinegar. While gauchos may have originally served it atop grilled steaks, the flavors can brighten up a variety of dishes, including pasta, bean salads, grilled chicken, fish, or vegetables, or a simple dipping sauce for bread.

Each batch turned out a different shade of green, but they all taste delicious!

Since my garden is overflowing with fresh basil, I decided to make a huge batch of chimichurri sauce this week. I froze most of it in Ball's freezer jam containers and reserved a bit to freeze in ice cube trays for use whenever we just need individual servings for bread dipping with dinner. If you are a guest at my house this winter, chances are you will be served beautiful, fragrant chimichurri sauce with some home-baked bread; that is, unless we eat it all first!

Tomato Time

I thought I'd pass along a few more recipes for the home canners out there!

1. Traditional Salsa (from Ball's Fresh Preserving website)

This is my second year making this recipe, and it is much more flavorful than store-bought salsa. Last year, I made 14 pints, which lasted, oh, about a month (I set aside 10 for Christmas gifts). I really want to make enough this summer to keep us swimming in all the salsa we can eat for the next year. So far, I've made 16 pints, but only 13 remain after eating and gifting a few already. Salsa is SOOO much work, but hopefully I get my act together to make some more this month!

2. Barbara Kingsolver's Secret Family Recipe Tomato Sauce

I discovered this recipe in Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle. It's quite tasty, but I'm not sure if it's cost effective to make tomato sauce. For some reason, whenever I can anything with tomatoes, it only makes about half as much as the recipe promises. My 7 pints ended up costing about $4.50 each (plus the cost of jars, which I re-used from last year). You can easily buy a 28-ounce jar of tomato sauce for about $2.50, so homemade ends up being quite a bit more expensive (although I don't know the cost of a jar of organic tomato sauce, which would be more comparable).

3. Zesty Peach Barbecue Sauce (from Ball's Fresh Preserving website)

I'm just glad to have some barbecue sauce in my pantry whose #1 ingredient isn't High Fructose Corn Syrup! I've canned 15 jars, 12 ounces each, and may even make more so that I have plenty for Christmas gifts. I served some roasted chicken with this BBQ sauce on it for dinner the other night; it's delicious!

Colorado Balloon Classic

We were out of the house by 6:15 a.m. this morning (a Saturday!) to visit the Colorado Balloon Classic for the first time. This is the largest hot air balloon festival in Colorado, taking place every Labor Day weekend at Memorial Park.

Baby was a little bit tired; very sweet, but very quiet. We packed chocolate zucchini muffins for breakfast, which seemed to cheer her up a bit.

Unfortunately, the weather was a bit foggy and they decided not to launch the balloons this morning. Usually, they do a mass ascension at 7 a.m., but today they just filled them with air and kept them tethered to the ground.

Mmmmmmmm....pork chop on a stick...at 7 a.m...

There's that smile!

Vegetable Garden: Harvest Season

Baby eyeing today's harvest.

I have a confession to make: I haven't stepped foot in my vegetable garden in weeks except to pick veggies. The weeds are persistent (as shown in every picture below!) but they don't seem to be crowding the good guys out yet. I've had some successes and some failures this year. Since we live at such high altitude, I thought I'd share what's happening in my vegetable garden for those gardeners in my region that want to compare notes. If you don't care, you may want to get out now...this is a long post :)

1. Lettuce: SUCCESS!

We had much more lettuce and mesclun that we were able to eat this year. Yay! From my understanding, lettuce is a spring crop that starts to bolt and go to seed during the hottest summer days. I planted it in a shady corner of the garden and thanks to our moderate weather at high altitude, we were still eating salads through late July. Now, some of it has gone to seed and I haven't made a salad in a while, but it may still be good -- I'll have to try a salad for lunch tomorrow.

2. Tomatoes: FAILURE!

"Uh, mom? Are you sure this is how a tomato plant is supposed to look?"

No, dear. Sure, there are a fair number of tomatoes (these ones are mini yellow pear tomatoes). They're tasty. It's just that there are no leaves for some reason. I wanted LOTS of tomatoes this year, so I planted 8 seedlings this spring. Maybe I didn't water them enough. I only applied fertilizer twice. Does anyone have any ideas why they turned out so sad?

3. Banana Peppers: SUCCESS!

All of my pepper plants are producing perfect-looking banana peppers. The above picture doesn't do them justice; many peppers are clustered in groups and hiding behind leaves.

4. Purple Pole Beans: FAILURE!

My first few bean seeds sprouted and grew to be about 4 inches tall before stopping. They were located near the ant colony and were riddled with bite holes, so I assumed that was the problem (ants or aphids). In July, I replanted them on the opposite end of the garden, in the same spot where the garlic grew. The same thing happened! Weird.

5. Zucchini: SUCCESS!

Now I understand where zucchini gets its reputation. Every time I visit the garden, there is at least one huge, shiny zucchini waiting for me; they seem to appear overnight! I think they taste best when harvested small, but sometimes they're practically the size of baseball bats by the time I notice them.

6. Basil: SUCCESS!

I'll admit, I didn't have much faith in my little basil plants. Only 9 seeds out of the dozens sowed became sprouts, and they were pretty puny for a while. In the last few weeks, every one of them has really blossomed into a decent sized plant. I desperately need to harvest it so they will grow even bigger!

7. Carrots: SUCCESS!

I've been cooking with carrots for most of the summer. It's nice to just head out to the backyard whenever a recipe calls for a carrot or two. It's my understanding that you can just leave these in the ground until you need them (instead of needing to harvest them soon after they reach maturity like most other veggies). The only problem I've had is that the dirt is so clay-like (too dry? too wet? not sure) that it's nearly impossible to pull those suckers out of the ground without a trowel.

8. Cucumbers: ????????

I've been excitedly watching the cucumber plants sprawl this summer, expecting a bumper crop. The strange thing is, today I harvested my first cucumber. It seems that the leaves and plants are doing OK, but for some reason it's not producing much. Maybe it's just a bit behind schedule and I'll be making greek salads all September and October.

9. Miscellaneous: some good, some just OK

Sugar snap peas: These finished producing in late spring, and I only harvested a couple bowls full. They were OK, not too exciting.

Cherries: Our poor little cherry tree just is not thriving. It produced a couple dozen cherries this year, enough to give the birds a tasty little snack. We planted it 3 years ago and it should be much more than just a little twig by now. We suspect that the clay soil is the culprit. It was nearly impossible to dig the hole, and our baby apple tree died the first winter.

Rhubarb and raspberries: I just planted the rhubarb this year, but the raspberries have been going for 3 years. This summer was AWESOME for raspberries! Baby and I went outside every other day or so and she sat on the ground, arms outstretched as I tried to pick berries fast enough for her. I didn't keep track of how many we ate this year, but every time we went out back for a month or so I picked 20-40 berries. Baby LOVED them!

Chives and Cilantro: FAILURE. Do chives ever get white flowers? I thought they were supposed to be purple. I sunk a plastic pot underground to contain the cilantro, but there were only a few small plants and I missed harvest time.

How are your gardens this year? Do you have any tips for my tomatoes?

Too Many Pickles?

In my quest to eat locally, I am starting to go a bit overboard with the home canning. So far this year I have canned strawberry-rhubarb jam, blackberry jam, banana pepper relish, salsa, and now...more pickles than we could ever eat.

Ranch Foods Direct (2901 N. El Paso St., Colorado Springs) hosted a free pickling class on Saturday taught by Rachel Zimmerman. Rachel was the youngest of 10 children, and one of her earliest memories is sitting on a stool as a toddler, entrusted with the responsibility of placing the peach halves into the bottom of gallon jars; her little hands were the only ones that fit. In class, we made a batch of dill pickles, and I was eager to volunteer as her assistant so I could get hands-on experience.

Her recipe comes from a vintage Kerr canning book, no longer in print.

Dill Pickles - Fresh Kosher Style

36 to 36 cucumbers, 3-4 inches long

3 cups vinegar

3 cups water

6 tablespoons pickling salt

Fresh or dried dill

Garlic

Mustard Seed

Wash the cucumbers. Make a brine of the vinegar, water and salt. Bring to boil. Place a generous layer of dill, 1/2 to 1 clove of garlic (sliced) and 1/2 tablespoon of mustard seed in bottom of each clean quart jar. Pack the cucumbers into the jars. When the jars are half filled with cucumbers add another layer of dill and complete the packing of the jars. Fill the jars to within 1/2 inch of the top with the boiling brine. Put cap on jars, screwing the band firmly tight. Process 15 minutes* in boiling water bath. Pickles will shrivel some after processing. They will later plump in sealed jar.

*Add 1 minute processing time for each 1000 feet elevation above 1000 feet. For Colorado Springs residents, this would be 21 minutes processing time.

Rachel showed us a couple of variations to this recipe. You can add a layer of cherry or grape leaves in the top of the jar to add crispness (that's right, just go pluck a few leaves off your cherry tree or grape vine). Another option is to add some sliced fresh ginger root for a spicier flavor. I did both of these variations in my pickles.

This is only one of the boxes of cucumbers, washed and ready to go with a bowl of fresh dill.

Now, you may be wondering why I made so many pickles for a small family of 3. First of all, I had no idea how many cucumbers were in each 25 pound box being sold at the farmers' market. I went up to one stand, and they were selling the most beautiful, small cucumbers for $20/box. The neighboring farmer may have overheard our conversation because when I approached, she said they were selling cucumbers for $20 as well but she would give me a box for $15. I paid for my cukes before realizing that this farm stand was selling larger ones, and I really wanted small ones so I could can them whole. Too embarassed to "return" my produce, I went back to the first stand and bought another box. I thought, maybe I'll get a couple dozen quarts out of this and I'll have enough for Christmas stocking stuffers. A whopping 38 quarts later, I still had half a box to go...I called my neighbor and begged her to take them off my hands. I didn't care if she threw them away, as long as they were out of my sight! (She made bread and butter pickles).

These are a bit shriveled and will plump up later.

Thanks, mom, for coming to help out when I realized I was in over my head! Poor Baby would have been rather neglected otherwise. I can't taste the pickles for 6-8 weeks, so let's just hope that they're delicious...or I'll have a bunch of unlucky Christmas gift recipients!

Since this is my first year doing pickles, the start-up costs are a bit higher than they'll likely be next year (for example, I will not have to buy the jars again, only lids). Also, I'm including the cost of all 50 pounds of cucumbers even though I only used about 37 pounds.

• 38 new wide-mouth quart jars (on sale for $11/12 jars): $34.83
• Cucumbers (50 pounds): $35.00
• Pickling Salt: $1.29
• Fresh dill ($2 each, 3 bunches): $6.00
• Apple Cider Vinegar ($4.39 each, 2 gallons): $8.78
• Mustard Seed (estimated, I lost the reciept): $5.00
• Fresh ginger root ($3.99/lb, 0.5 pounds): $2.00
• Garlic (homegrown): FREE
• Cherry leaves (homegrown): FREE

Total cost per quart: $2.44

I believe that store-bought pickles are about $3 -$4 for a 24-ounce jar. The lowest sale price that I've seen for pickle spears is $2.50 each. Since a quart jar is 32 ounces, that would cost approximately $3.33 per quart. So, I saved a little bit of money and now have a year's supply of locally grown, mostly organic pickles (I did not buy organic vinegar or mustard seed). Next year, I'll save even more when I recycle those canning jars. Maybe it was worth it to completely trash my kitchen for a day?

Local Restaurant: Bird Dog BBQ

Hopefully, most of you are already aware of this AMAZING restaurant. Just in case someone out there has never tried it, I thought I'd do my best to spread the word! Bird Dog BBQ has two locations: one in the King Soopers shopping center on Stetson Hills and Powers, and another in the Shops at Briargate. Nick and I go here occasionally, but it's been a while, so I was surprised to see the stickers on their door celebrating their title as "Best BBQ Colorado Springs" in 2007, 2008, and 2009 (awarded by the readers of The Gazette).

I'm not a huge BBQ fan, in general -- usually every item on the plate is slathered in the same super-sweet sauce -- but I will never tire of Bird Dog. I stopped by to pick up lunch for my in-laws who were visiting today, and I ordered just the simple pork BBQ sandwich ($4.45). I love how they serve the BBQ sauce on the side, so you can determine how much to add and whether you want mild or spicy. Of course, you can't beat their BBQ beans, coleslaw, texas toast, and other sides (although I've never tried the fried okra). Nick always orders their "Doghouse" meal ($8.25), which sounds a bit ridiculous: an open-faced sandwich featuring brisket or pork and hot link polish sausage covered in beans and cheese. Yum!

Oh, and they also offer catering!