Marshmallows

There is nothing after a long day of weeding, or drafting motions or research like toasting marshmallows over a fire.  We have a fire pit so this weekend I decided to make my own marshmallows, unfortunately it rained, and the marshmallows are too small and dense for toasting.  Instead I ended up with small ones which are perfect for hot coco.

Next time I will use a square smaller pan to make the marshmallows thicker and will add a second egg white, which I will fold in more carefully to try to get more of a "jet-puffed" texture.  I don't want them to be quite as light as store bought, but lighter than they were this time. 

About 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
3 1/2 envelopes (2 tablespoons plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) unflavored gelatin
1 cup cold water, divided
2 cups granulated sugar (cane sugar worked just fine)
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites or reconstituted powdered egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla

Oil glass pan, then sprinkle with powdered sugar as you would flower a pan.

 

In Kitchenaid bowl sprinkle gelatin over 1/2 cup cold water. Set aside for it to soften and create a kind of jell, the gelatin will absorb all of the water. 

 

In a 3-quart heavy saucepan cook granulated sugar, corn syrup, second 1/2 cup of cold water, and salt over low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon, until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to moderate and boil mixture, without stirring until it reaches the late soft ball stage.

To test the stage drop a small amount of the boiling sugar into cold water, if it forms a soft ball when you pull it out you have reached the soft ball stage.  If it forms a hard ball, you have heated it too much.


Stir sugar mixture into gelatin.  Beat until it has tripled in volume.  In separate bowl with clean beaters beat egg whites to stiff peaks.  Mix into sugar mixture. 

Poor into pan.  Sift powdered sugar over the marshmallows. 

Let this dry for 3 to 24 hours.  Run a butter knife around the edge and turn out onto cutting board.  Use a oiled pizza cutter to slice into the appropriate sized squares.

Roll each marshmallow in powdered sugar, this will make the sides less sticky. 

Store in air tight container.  Be warned that the powdered sugar will get everywhere in your kitchen.  Hopefully my next round will work out right. 

Salad Box

We determined that we did not yet have enough space to grow our salads, and so I built a raised bed, its actually quite simple.
I started with two eight foot boards and two four foot bords.  Then connect them with a metal brace. 

This will form a large box, 4 inches deep.  Take this box wherever you are placing it, I place mine by our sandbox. 

Cover the bottom of the box with cardboard (a good use for any boxes you may have). 
Then fill it with compost and garden soil. 

 

 

Every week I will plant a row of carrots, one cabbage, one swish chard, one arugula, one kale, one black seed lettuce, a red romaine lettuce, a green romaine lettuce, and a regular lettuce.  In May I will be adding sun flowers.    



 



Planting Potatoes

Potatoes are wonderful plants.  They can grow in sandy soil and produce prolifically under bad conditions.  They contain most of the needed vitamins and minerals as well as a large amount of calories for the effort and space needed to grow them.  They make for a great staple particularly in areas with poor soil and where most of the area is used for cash crops.  The world produces 374.4 tons of potatoes a year (as of 2011). 

Potatoes were first domesticated in Peru around 8000-5000 BC, and were a staple crop for much of the region.  When they were brought to Europe they, like tomatoes were treated with suspicion, as both are part of the nightshade family.  Most nightshades are poison, in fact the leaves of both of these plants are poisons.  In order to convince people to eat them the King of France had them planted in Versailles gardens and guarded during the day.  Because they were guarded people assumed they were valuable and stole them.  Eventually potatoes did spread throughout Europe, in fact it is estimated that potatoes caused 1/4 of the population growth in Europe between 1700 and 1900.  While the lack of genetic diversity added to the cause of the Potato Famine there is still a significant amount of diversity there are 4000 types of potato.  Most potatoes in the US were bread in Europe. 

Last year we planted 5 and got 15 lbs of potatoes, this year we are planting significantly more

Planting:

Before planting potatoes we cut them so that each piece has two sprouting eyes. 
We are planting 28 russets, 12 Russian fingerlings, 19 North Utah russets, 13 standard white, 28 red potatoes, 12 purple potatoes, and 76 Yukon gold potatoes. 

We then let them dry for 2 days.  Then, while I was at work Peter planted them, in the end we could only fit 106 potatoes.  After the plants come up we will continually add more dirt (not covering the top of the plant) until they flower.  We anticipate that each plant will produce as much as 10 lbs (though not all will become plants).

Pavlova

Pavlova is a dessert named after a 1920s ballerina that can be made entirely from things we produce in our back yard.  (I feel the need to note that this particular one is not, we haven't made any sugar from sugar beets, maybe next year).  Also, in order to both make this entirely from our yard, and to make it kosher for Passover I will be making potato starch, for an easier non Passover version, use corn starch.

Making the potato starch: 

Start by lining a colander with 2 sheets of cheese cloth.

Then  grate a potato using the smallest holes in your grater. 

Squeeze the cloth so that as much of the liquid as possible comes out.  Pour half a cup of water over the potato and then squeeze it out, repeat.  Press the potato in the cheese cloth with a can for 2 hours.  Then poor the liquid off carefully keeping the starchy paste at the bottom.

Making Pavlova:

Preheat oven to 250 and place rack in center of the oven.  Place parchment paper on a baking sheet.  Mix 1/2 tablespoon of potato starch and 1 cup sugar in a small bowl.  Beet 4 egg whites into soft peaks and white bubbles appear (2-3 min.). 

Continue beating while adding the sugar and starch.  Then add any extracts you wish to use (I like adding vanilla, although we obviously don't grow it, you can also add a variety of flavors you can make yourself).  Beat 4-5 min. until stiff peaks form. 

Spread meringue into a circle (if you are making more than one, you can put them into multiple circles) on the parchment paper.  Make sure the center is lower then the edges, forming a slight well in the center. 

Bake 1 hour 15 min.  The outside will be dry and a cream color.  Turn once during this time.  Turn off oven and leave the door open while the meringues cool. 

You can keep these in a cool dry place for a few days.  Just before serving fill with fruit of your choice with sugar, much like the kind you would put on a shortcake. 

Spring update

Spring is here.  This means that it was raining during the weekend, so instead of working we went to the living planet aquarium which just reopened. 

The space is much better than it was, particularly for the penguins who now have more than twice the space.  Additionally the Amazon area is vastly improved as is the otter area (which has an indoor and outdoor area).  The only problem currently is that they opened before they had actually managed to move all of the animals.  I look forward to seeing it once they have actually finished moving.

Because we were not able to plant this weekend we had to plant into the night tonight.  Our first radishes (3 kinds), carrots (5 kinds), parsnips, beets, sugar beets (so we can make our own sugar if we want to), lettuce (2 kinds thus far), cabbage, kale, onions (3 kinds), peas, and garlic are in.  The radishes we planted a few weeks ago are even coming up.   

Early spring also shows us just how many types of fruit we can expect, our plum tree is full of flowers (the pink are for one kind which get ripe earlier, the white another)

and our peach trees are starting to bloom. 

Our raspberries are starting to come back, meaning we should have a huge number of raspberries this year. 

Peter also planted more cherry bushes, each will produce 20 lbs. by the time it is 5 years old, I don't think he really understands how many cherries this will be.