New Year's Day Harvest?!

Hello 2008. I'm excited about the year to come. I had new found energy today that did not exist last week. I spent a chunk of the day cleaning the house and doing laundry, seemed right to start the new year with a clean scene.

With cold weather predicted for the next few days including a night in the teens, I decided it was time to do a major harvest from the garden. It's hard to imagine that we could have so much still growing strong out there, I mean its January first for goodness sake. But here is what I picked today clockwise from the top:

3 heads of cabbage
4 heads of bok choy
a bowl of lettuce
3 heads of raddichio
about a dozen turnips-with greens

1 head of tatsoi

a handful of brussel sprouts
some red russian kale
a big bowl of arugula

Center:

2 bunches of cilantro

a bunch of dill

a gallon bag of broccoli side shoots and two small heads of broccoli

I made a pot of greens and peas soup for dinner, a tradition for the past few years. A recipe my father found by Mark Bittman in the New York Times, super flexible, easy and delicious. It combines the traditional New Years Day good luck foods in one dish. I browned a link of local hot italian pork sausage, sauteed onions, celery and garlic in the sausage grease, added a couple of cups of frozen purple hull peas from the summer garden, water to cover, a bay leaf and some thyme and rosemary- simmered about 30 minutes, then added about 6 cups of chopped turnip greens and kale and the sausage and simmered another 15 minutes, delish with a skillet of cornbread, MMM! You can use ham or bacon and any kind of greens you have on hand, get creative.

We are trying out our own version of locavore for the next month or so. Going to see how few groceries we can buy and just eat out of the garden, pantry and freezer.

(Close up of veggies, aren't they beautiful? I'm still trying to figure out how to get the words with the pictures-sorry)
It won't all be local but the house is full of food and I thought it would be cool to see how far we could stretch what is here. We'll still buy dairy and staples like flour for the bodacious whole grain bread Mr. D has been baking a couple of times a week, but will plan to bring as little as possible home and get creative with what's on hand.

Other big news is that after the inch+ of rain on the 30th, not only was Morgan Creek perking right along but so was our little creek which hadn't even had a puddle in it for almost 6 months. What a delight to walk yesterday and today and hear the sound of water burbling over rocks. Hooray. See below, this is the same spot that was just a trickle a few days earlier.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !