The Northern Garden

My sister is a natural. Gardener and mother, that is. Which leads me to her veggilicious garden and squeezilicious baby, North. When she focuses her love, it grows. Can you guess which one she is loving on now? How'd you guess?! North is growing (big boy, he is!) and the garden, well, it is surviving, let's say. Maybe when you have a baby the days and months just get all tangled up and before you know it, a whole season has passed and seeds are not in the ground...until Tia Marci shows up at your door.

Let's take it back a year. I, again, showed up at their door and peeked into the backyard to see a luscious garden, fraught with ripe vegetables ready to be picked and devoured. This year, I peeked through the front window to see a baby fraught with milk, ready to be auntie-kissed and hugged. I didn't even make it to the backyard garden until hours later...

I couldn't help but notice how priorities get shifted when a new body comes into the house and demands your attention 24/7. Okay, he's not that bad. He's actually the best baby ever! ;) (Oh North, Auntie loves you!) And I found it kind of comical comparing the garden of 2010 (Pre-North) to the garden of 2011 (Post-North).

Let's take a photo walk through of the Pre-North garden situation and the Post-North garden situation.

Pre-North: 

I just want to reach out and eat some 'maters

Post-North: 

There is a lot of room to just get your hands dirty, I guess...

Pre-North: 

Let's pull some out and eat!

Post-North: 

Zanahorias? You wouldn't know since there are no plants to identify.

Pre-North: 

beautiful sunflowers against back shed

Post-North: 

lonely prayer flags against back shed

Pre-North: 

Territorial blue jays and squirrels were the only warm-blooded visitors

Post-North: 

Well, squirrelly wirrily North!

 

And a smidgen more of mister smiley

So, I suppose I've learned that motherhood pretty much out weighs domestic and outdoor duties around the house. I can't lie and say auntiehood isn't any different actually...

Yep, I got the seeds in the ground and then went right back to loving on mister boo.

Admiring the garden from afar and my nephew up close-

Marci

Cast Iron Pita Bread

I have to admit that I was pretty stoked to try the cast iron pita bread from Smitten Kitchen's blog for a while because it looked so light and fluffy and moist, which is everything I do not experience from store bought pita bread. Although my final product did not look too much like Smitten Kitchen's pita bread pictures, it did taste delicious and more like naan than pita, actually.

The players

Super simple: flour, yeast, water, olive oil and salt

All mixed up

 Contemplating dough...

 Digging in! Forearms did get a little tired for this one. You knead until the dough gets nice and glossy.

 Rest little pita, rest. You *were* just pushed around for 10 minutes.

 Glossy and YUM!

 Divide dough into 8 balls and roll them out.

 My swap meet cast iron skillet met a new friend, pita. 

And, I may be eating it with nutella at the moment...Last night I was traditional and ate it with hummus, and it was great and all, but with its gooey, moist texture and sort of bland flavor I think it must be gussied up with some chocolate hazelnut spread, please. The recipe can be found here.

On another note, I am a little irked at the moment because I thought, hey, bread doesn't take long to cook in the oven, right? Well, wrong. The No-Knead Bread recipe from the New York Times actually takes up to 60 minutes in the oven. WTF?! So, sadly I won't be bringing it into my art class to share my new bread making skillz because I *assumed* it wouldn't take more than 30 minutes. Either I learned nothing from this little bread making experiment, or my classmates will think I made this all up and didn't bake anything because I don't have any proof. Or both. Shoot. 

I guess I'll just enjoy me a whole loaf of No Knead Bread tonight by myself. I didn't really want to share with 40 other people anyways. (just kidding, really)

-Marci

Irish Soda Bread-the anti yeast

Bread without yeast is still bread, right? I hope so, or I failed as a bread maker. sigh. What about Irish Soda Bread without the baking soda? double sigh. I'll get to that later. My second attempt in bread making came from one of my favorite websites, 101 Cookbooks, by Heidi Swanson. She made a bread called, Irish Mum's Brown Bread, which can be sliced and should be eaten with Irish butter. Thanks Trader Joe's for being awesome and stocking Irish butter. mmmmmm.

The players

Mysteriously the 'soda' part of the Irish Soda Bread is missing from the picture.

The recipe was quite simple to follow which makes it even more embarrassing that I forgot to add the baking soda until it had been in the oven for a few minutes. Oops, first bread baking mistake. I quickly removed the dough from the oven, sprinkled it with the baking soda, tried to knead it into the dough and popped it back in the oven. *fingers crossed*

First things first, mix dry and wet ingredients together and ponder what shape the wet ingredients have created.  

 Next, mix it all up, but I'd use a fork if I were you. Wooden spoons are no good for mixing sticky ingredients. And guess what? No rising time! Plop it in the oven (with baking soda) and bake!

It was really was scrumptious with the Kerrygold Irish butter. 

I enjoyed this bread for its saltiness and heartiness. It probably would have tasted even better with a Guinness on the side too. Recipe can be found here.

Cheers,

-Marci

The art (class) of bread making: Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Oh yes, I have skillz now. I can say I am a bread maker. Making 4 different types of bread counts as being a bread maker, right? Art class project/long-time goal has commenced.
Well, I started off with a doozy...a cinnamony, sugary, gooey, deliciousness of a bread. And it was out of sight in less than 16 hours.  Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread was recommended to me by one of my teacher friends and I'm so glad she did!

The players

Note the not-so-fancy imitation vanilla, but also note nutmeg from France. Yeah. Let's hallucinate. 

 

My favorite players from the recipe photo-op are the eggs. They are Floppy eggs. Meet our chicken:

I love her, even if I sometimes curse her because she acts like a runaway teenager. 

 

Back to gooey deliciousness and away from Barred Rock chickens. As my first bread experiment, it was a bit complicated with all the ingredients and such, but then all the other bread making was down hill...except the pita. It all started with mixing up the dry and wet ingredients and stirring them into a sticky mess, which resulted in zero pictures because I couldn't even unstick my own two hands. It will be super sticky, but don't fret, it will eventually become tamer and ready to be rolled into a 12" X 20" oval.

Kind of wishing I had a rolling pin, but I did have a long, sharp knife pointed at you!

Then butter it up and sprinkle your heart away with the cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg. 

 

Cut the dough into 6 slices. Then stack the slices and cut into 6 squares. Shove those babies into a greased loaf pan. 

 

Um, eat. Preferably with milk and right out of the oven.

Big thumbs up on the dessert bread factor. My housemates loved it. I loved it. I think you will love it. The recipe can be found here, at Joy the Baker.

Washing it down with some milk as we speak.

-Marci

One year anniversary

Happy one year anniversary to my dear friend and blogging buddy. 

We don't have a lot of readers. We don't even blog too regularly. But, in this past year I think that all doesn't matter too much. It begin as a New Year's resolution for me to try something new and creative. I shared it with my sister, brother-in-law and Tyler on New Year's Eve and I tried to name it, "How does my garden grow?" but Tyler couldn't stop thinking impure thoughts. Good thing I waited another 4 months to act on my decision because it gave me the time to come up with a fitting name and fitting blogging partner.

I wanted Tierra Rural to be about food, nature, the environment, innovative ideas, sharing, gardening, connecting and us. And I think it is. Tierra Rural has brought me closer to a great friend and to the natural world around me. We hope to keep growing with the blog and to make it more informative and inviting every year. (I do really hope we can double our followers ;)

So, here's to friendship and new adventures in the blogosphere! Cheers

Marci

I want, I want, I want for spring

Something has come over me this spring and it's not good. It's this sudden want for everything. I'm slowly being sucked into a black hole of consumerism, but I haven't been sucked in yet! I am staying strong to my commitment to buy things based on need and not want.

However as I continue to resist I figured there is no harm in sharing my latest, cutest I want, I want, I want item for the garden. Check out this fantastically cute vegetable flag banner!

It's 28 buckaroos at the Windsparrow Studio shop on Etsy. You can check out this banner as well as others here: Windsparrow Studio on Etsy. You can cruise for other gardening I want, I want, I want items on etsy but let me warn you before you do: cruising etsy is a time zapper.

Ah, now I will return to picturing that cute little banner hanging on my back fence welcoming people into my garden. Hmmmm.... I may just give in on this one!

--Lila

While you were traveling Marci...

NPR ran a story on window farming (even though I think it should really be called window gardening, but that's a different story) that I thought you would enjoy. So you can listen to it here.

Here's a video the window farming project too:



Pretty interesting, eh?

Lila