Memorial Day Weekend Labors

Here is the front of the house by this afternoon. You may recall the 3 yards or so of wood chips that sat on the driveway Friday afternoon. You may recall the weather stained color of the pavement. Much was accomplished this weekend, culminating in Q pressure washing all of the concrete today, front and back.

The bark recovered all of the paths in the front, and provided a layer all the way back to the cherry tree.

The Oregon Grapes and huckleberry got weeded around and bark mulched. The fence didn't get put back this weekend because there's about a foot of bark mulch above the surface from the stump grinding and the remains of a stump right where Q hoped to put the new fence post. The back is starting to look better though. Just having those trees gone has given it so much new life.

Some of the potatoes are coming up. I've never grown potatoes before and am very excited.

Edamame are at the top of the picture, followed by a couple rows of black-eyed peas. The blank area just had fava beans planted yesterday and the big leaved plants are bingo beans. We're going to need some major trellising soon.

No pictures, but we have the first half dozen blossoms on the peas.

Weekend cooking exploits...

• I used our kale and spinach today to make homemade saag paneer. I made the cheese from scratch using the recipe from Milk, by Anne Mendelson. It's very satisfying to add the acid and watch the curd separate. Immediate gratification instead of the faith and time you have to give yogurt. Q doesn't like cooked spinach so he got a lentil dal, which turned out well. I ran out of garam masala so the saag turned out a bit flat but it's still very good - I just faked it and added salt/cumin/coriander/nutmeg/cinnamon until it tasted more flavorful. :)
• Homemade doughnuts were Saturday night's experiment. They had good flavor but the oil was not deep enough so they got overly brown where they touched the bottom of the pan. K (roommate) and I both got slightly ill though so we're not planning to repeat that in the near future. I'm kind of happy that my body apparently doesn't believe in deep-fried food.
• I couldn't bear to waste the warm whey from this morning's cheesemaking but realized halfway through throwing the bread together that I didn't have enough spelt flour. We now have a flat focaccia-type spelt and rice flour/tapioca and potato starch/xanthan gum/ and oats bread that's studded with dried cherries. It turned out well considering its bizarre origins and will serve well for breakfast over the next few days.