Mixed Plate: Spring... Is It Really You...?

It totally felt like one of those suspense/horror movies where the girl (likely a buxom, stupid one) is wandering alone, down some dark hallway/alley/staircase, hears a less than encouraging sound and then meekly says, "Bobby (or some other generic boy name)... is that you?" Murderball ensues with much screaming and buckets of red-dyed corn syrup. I would shake my fist at the movie theater saying, why are you falling for the oldest trick in the book, you dimwitted red-shirt cliche? And yet there I go, doing the food/gardening equivalent, planting stuff early with the meek, mewling call into the darkness: Spring... is that you...? Well, no one said the Prime wasn't just a big dumb boob at heart.

Early signs of spring - a suspense movie in the making! - Photo by Wasabi Prime

It starts out looking promising. You get a few days of consistent sun and the spring flowers are becoming to bloom. The frost-covered mornings seem to have tapered off. You even open your windows on a rare Sunday or two, nearly breaking your fingers from trying to pry the winter-sealed sliding panes loose. Call the ball, Wasabi -- Springtime is HERE! The container plants that overwintered are starting to perk up -- I had a crazy amount of parsley I grew last year and for the most part, they're starting to all come back. I even had some garlic bulbs sprouting some big green ramps, meaning woo hoo, I don't have to buy green onions for a while! I also started a couple of things indoors, like lettuce and basil seeds in peat pots, sitting in a Pyrex baking dish. I have to say, those glass dishes are a seed starter's friend -- they retain heat fairly well, easy to clean for later casseroles, and  just the right height to hold soaked peat pots and cover with plastic wrap to give it a little greenhouse environment to wait for the first signs of life, which we're clearly getting.

The promising conditions made me feel bold enough to get some herb starters. I'd been meaning to replace a dwindling lemon thyme plant (just got regular thyme this time, har-har), spicy oregano, and a couple of rosemary plants. I still miss the giant rosemary bushes I had from before, which sadly died after a particularly harsh winter, and hadn't gotten around to re-cultivating a new live rosemary supply. I wanted to get more herbs, as these would round out our current supply of parsley, lemon balm, sage, spearmint and chives. These are the days I crave, being able to shop your own backyard for supplies, versus going to the store to buy such basic items.

Springtime showers, flowers and herbs from True Value - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I spent a weekend exercising my Garden Muscle, aka the workout that feels like you've done about a million squats for three hours, freshening up our garden beds, removing the black garbage bags I cover them with for the cold months, turning the soil with new fertilizer and mixing the stuff from the composter that was buried underneath last fall. It's not pretty work and you wind up with dirt in the most bizarre and intimate places, but whatever. Happy soil = happy plants. I started using the black garbage bags last year as a weed barrier and something to help keep the soil both warm and moist, just cutting a strip down the center for the plants to grow out of. I'm happy to say the black garbage bags definitely help to keep the weeds down -- only had to de-weed the corners and edges the bag didn't cover this time. The winter barriers performed double duty, as once the soil was amended and heaped into rows for planting, I laid the bags back down, weighted them with stakes or rocks, and just cut new openings for this year's plants to grow from.

Never touch another man's rhubarb - wise words from the Joker - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I got a rhubarb plant for the heck of it, because I know they're hearty and grow well in this area, plus I hope to get some strawberry plants to create a strawberry-rhubarb pie garden. Also on the springtime docket is peas. Lots of them. I soaked the pea seeds overnight and then laid them out between wet paper towels on a plate and covered it with plastic wrap. A few days (OK, well maybe a few too many days) near a window, and the peas will sprout. I let mine get too far, so they got tangled and angrily shot through the paper towel, but as long as you see a little white sprout come out, you know the seed is viable and ready to hit the dirt. After much untangling, I was able to plant two sprouted seed packets of sugar snap peas and snow peas. I know, it's a lot, but I also hope to harvest the thinned pea shoots for at least a week's worth of salads.

Some old, some new, some borrowed, some... green? - Photos by Wasabi Prime

Another item of interest showing some signs of life are Mr. Wasabi's hop plants. We've got about six rhizomes growing in a row by the vegetable garden. He was able to harvest enough hop cones last year for one full batch of beer, and hoping for a bumper crop this year, as it can take a year or two before the vines really mature and start to produce sizeable amounts. This garden will see us drunk, come hell or high water!

What the hell is happening? - Photo by Wasabi Prime

On that note of inebriated relaxation, as all suspense/horror movie cliches go, you're easily lulled into a false sense of security, and in this case, the garden was developing, new growth showing strong beginnings and new plants settling in nicely. And then... the whammy of winter struck us down with some furious whoop-ass. One day of crazy icy rain, hail and big flakes of snow that followed. It wasn't enough to do much, if any damage, but still. Pretty cold, no? And all because someone had to say, "Spring... is it really you?"

UnRecipe: Wasabi Two-Step

Consider it a kitchen lesson inspired by ballroom dancing. But without the B-list actors and questionable celeb wannabes. To avoid the temptation of a burger-and-fries run, but stave off the evils of mealtime boredom, I'll make a few things during the week for meals, just like anyone else. But I don't want to be stuck in the prep time vortex on days where there's just not enough time. Introducing... The Wasabi Two-Step -- no line dancing required. It's basic common sense time management: pick one slow-cook, large quantity, leftover-friendly dish for days that are short on fuss time and one quick-cook, minimal prep, smaller portion meal that's enjoyed freshly cooked. It's the slow-slow-quick-quick-slow of getting jiggy with dinnertime.

Chili and Rice is my BFF (Island style, yo) - Photo by Wasabi Prime

No duh, Wasabi -- did it take a rocket scientist to figure that one out? Hell, no! Brain surgeon, maybe. Very possibly an astrophysicist was involved. My last quick-slow cook week involved getting a slow cooker of chili going while I made a simple eat-it-now dinner of trout and garden greens. The chili was the basic UnRecipe of: chunks of beef, canned tomatoes, chopped onions, sausage and black beans. I throw together a mix of seasonings that I have never measured, so it's different every time (I know, bad recipe developer, bad, bad, bad!). There is no method to this madness, just throw it into the crucible that is the almighty crock pot and let it do its thing for a few hours, letting the cooking vessel do all the real work. That's how you get to be the master of your kitchen domain. Delegate to the robot army of appliances and hope they don't overthrow you in a high-voltage political coup.
One of the best things about chili and stews is the fact that it just gets better the longer it sits. It just ages like a fine, meaty wine. I'll make a chili a whole day in advance of when I want to eat it, just so it has more time to just soak in its own flavors, even in the chill of the fridge. Plus chili is one of those monthly go-to's that I still rely on, as my mother did the same. We'd have it at least once every two weeks, since it was so simple to make and it kept our family fed for several days. Poured over rice, of course -- a Hawaii favorite. I know it may seem weird, but just try it and you'll be a convert to chili and rice.

Summertime fish dish - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I know I'm not fooling anyone -- I clearly made this trout dish during the earlier part of summer, as witnessed by the fresh sugar snap peas. And I'm clearly backlogged on my food photos and posts! This was during the heyday of the Wasabi Garden's pea patch, where I was pulling handfuls of pods every day. Never a bad problem to have. I seared some trout filets we had from a friend's fishing trip, seasoned with some garden pesto, and deglazed the pan with some white wine, butter and sauteed whatever seasonal vegetables I had on hand -- peas, late spring onions, anything green. A dish like this felt very of-the-moment, as we were using things that were at their peak, no real plan in mind, just use what's there. Not that seared fish in a wine and butter sauce couldn't be done at any time of the year, but it was a nice way to work with the ingredients at-hand and enjoy them at their seasonal peak.

What about you? What are your favorite ways to balance time and get a meal on the table?

Mixed Plate: Miss Wasabi, How Does Your Garden Grow?

I totally meant to write this earlier, as the Wasabi Garden has been puttering along as early as February when I was starting seeds in our laundry room and it was looking completely garden un-glamorous and probably more like an illicit weed stash. But efforts and a mild winter prevailed, and while I have no impressive harvest bounty to show off yet, I do have some radishes along with baby greens and perennial herbs that have picked up springtime steam.

The radness of radishes - Photo by Wasabi Prime

I think gardening appeals to the hopeful optimist in all of us. We take these seemingly inert little seeds, shove them into the ground and hope that not only will something green come out, it'll produce an edible delight that will amount to a meal. Or at least a pretty garnish sprinkling. Our backyard vegetable garden consists of three good-sized raised beds and a smattering of plastic containers that have now become designated lettuce/microgreen growers, as the caterpillar invasion from last year taught me well to keep that bounty out of easy reach. I lost a whole batch of spinach to gross little caterpillar eggs that were laid on every damn leaf, and yes, I'm still mad about that. Grr.

The first year I decided to dive into this whole veggie gardening thing, I went buck-wild with tomatoes, starting a ridiculous amount of seeds, babying them to successful healthy plants, and harvesting literally pounds of tomatoes a day. That was fantastic, but I realized I should diversify a little, plus it really wore the soil out as tomatoes can be a drain on nutrients. Fast forward a couple of years and mixed results with different vegetables, and I've come to find a few hearty staples that I like to stick with. In general my rules for veggie choices, aside from the obvious "will it grow successfully here?" question, are does it have a short growing cycle, is it something that can be frozen or prepared for storage in case of overage and of course the obvious -- will we eat the thing? If I an answer yes to all these questions, than it becomes a candidate for the highly exclusive Wasabi Garden Club.

For springtime goods, I've become a big fan of radishes and sugar peas. Radishes are just easy root veggies that grow fast and you can eat all the parts, using the sprouts when thinning down rows, to the whole root and green tops when they're ready to pluck from the ground. As for peas, I got a good tip from garden blogger and pal, South Sound Garden, for soaking the seeds overnight, then placing between wet paper towels for early sprouting and a test for viability. This worked out well, I could throw out the duds, and put the pea sprouts directly in the garden beds to let nature take its course. The photos in this post are actually a little old; the sprouts are now full-on plants and probably over two feet, in dire need of me to attach them to a webbing or some posts. When I start to see the first signs of their white blooms, I know I'll be in sugar pea heaven soon!

From sprouts to starts to om-nom-nomming - Photos by Wasabi Prime

I have some herbs that have perked up after winter's chill, like chives, thyme, mint, sage, lemon balm, and I started from seed more flat-leaf parsley and cilantro. It's a slower road going from seed, but I'm seeing larger leaves from the cilantro and parsley and eagerly await my chance to clip from them. I've also got some red leaf lettuce going in some pots, but hesitate clipping them quite yet, in fear of over-snipping. I also have some shallots and some plain old garlic cloves shoved in the ground to harvest their green tops or ramps, if you're a foodie-nerd who's into the latest trends. Putting garlic cloves that are starting to sprout straight into the ground is a great way to let nothing go to waste, as it will definitly sprout a hearty green top that you can snip and use like scallions, but with a light garlic flavor.

I actually did start several rows of scallions, but they're a bit slow to get going and look more like rows of little chives right now. I also put in carrots, beets, swiss chard, green beans, and am giving leeks another try, but for the most part, those are not in a photogenic state right now. I'm hopeful for their Mr. DeMille-worthy closeup at some point this year. Yet again, the hopeful optmist of the gardener pops up. Maybe that's a good life lesson in the labor of gardening -- aside from enjoying something you grew from seed, it's a great lesson in having faith in things that grow, whatever it may be. If you have a moment, send a wish of good luck to the little sprouts everywhere, in the hopes they grow big, strong and om-nommable soon.

Sprouts that hope to be carrots and beets someday soon! - Photos by Wasabi Prime