Outpost 505

I could tell you about the horribly disappointing dinner I made tonight while Shane was off at a moped thing in Toledo.  It involved my first attempt at using a fresh ham steak, and resulted in me eating a giant bowl of green beans for dinner.  How’s that for pathetic?  The green beans were good, [...]

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As we enter July, we’re starting to reap the benefits of the community garden plot.  We’re also starting to experience mid-summer gardening woes: mosquitoes, sunburn, weeding, excessive kale.  I’ve taken a few pictures, but I’m not sure if you can really get a sense for what we’re working with – or what our garden neighbors [...]

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Shane shared this article on Google Reader tonight and it had what I imagine was the intended effect – getting me thinking about the small canning empire I started last summer.  The author argues that canning – in its current urban incarnation – is less about frugality and more about a bourgeois sense of connection [...]

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Hey there.  Long time no post.  How’ve you been?  Busy?  Yeah, us too.  We unpacked the last of the boxes today, so we’re looking forward to a whole lot of the following:

Two weeks ago, we made the move from highrise hell to a cute condo north of Old Town Alexandria.  We’re right off the George [...]

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It’s the end of our local summer, and our entire apartment is up in boxes, waiting for tomorrow’s move.  Our garden is mostly gone, just waiting for a clear path out of the apartment so that the dirt can be dumped and the boxes and pots packed up.  I transplanted the herbs yesterday, and dug [...]

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Eating:
Sunday night we made amazing UHmazing bison burgers on rosemary rolls with my homemade freezer pickles and also something else that I can’t remember – corn, maybe?  The burgers were SO good and made enough that I repeated the meal for lunch twice during the week.  Nom nom nom.  Did I mention that I’ve started [...]

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Eating:

Grilled bourbon bison sausage and roasted veg – purple cauliflower, pattypan squash, red onions, and whatever else we had around.
The roasted veg is our new killer meal option – just toss whatever veg you have in the crisper with some herbs, salt & pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil, then place it all in [...]

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A short list of things that we haven’t really eaten this summer that otherwise frequently appeared in our diets:

mushrooms (they are available at the market – just v. expensive)
bananas
any beans other than green ones
avocados
hummus
pre-made veggie products (total: 1 box mini corn dogs, 1 box veggie nuggets)
citrus (other than lemon juice, primarily for preservation acidity)
cold cuts [...]

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Eating:

Chicken legs with sweet tomatoes, courtesy of Jamie’s Dinners

Corn on the cob, bourbon bison sausage, and grilled veg
Growing:

Also, I canned tomatoes! 8 pints and 3 packets of spaghetti sauce.  Hot and sticky work, but not a bad way to pass an afternoon.

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Eating:
In a bout of “what the hell do we have in the fridge?”, we made our all-local meal:

Pork kefte, broiled Mediterranean veg, and homemade tzatziki sauce, all of which were delicious and have been subsequently snacked on.

Tzatziki (from Serving Up the Harvest)
3 C quartered and thinly sliced cucumbers
1/2 t salt, or more as needed
1 C [...]

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