Tyler packed me lunch the other day and it made me very happy...

Things are starting to get going in the garden — right now I have tah-tsai (which I thought was a new green for me but it’s actually another way to say tatsoi — funny), flashy trout’s back lettuce and borage are all sprouting and we’ve been eating some volunteer arugula as well. The rhubarb is getting very big and leafy and the snap peas have finally sprouted! The garlic is looking great although it still has a few months of growing — I usually pick it in June or July. And I have all the vegetable seeds I’m going to plant this spring and summer and will probably start my indoor seed trays in a week or so to be transplanted out in several weeks.

That’s all just a long-winded way of saying happy spring! Although not very much of the food photographed in this post came from the garden I still call it Yard Fresh as a catch-all for good things that I’ve been cooking and eating lately. Hope you are doing well. Growing anything interesting this season? Eat anything tasty lately?

Loved the art on the bag and the sandwich inside it. Simple ham sammy with seeded wheat hit the spot.

The only thing really going in the yard right now that's ready to eat is the arugula that volunteered so we've been having a lot of salads with it and throwing it in scrambles and sandwiches.

I love Edelweiss Sausage & Delicatessen and their oregano-coated Nuremberger is one of my favorites. I sauteed it and served it with potatoes and kale with lemon butter. Really good.

And I can't make a trip to Edelweiss without getting some of their paprika loaf thinly sliced. If you haven't had it then please do yourself a favor and go buy some. You won't be disappointed.

My favorite way to eat it is stacked on lightly toasted bread with mayonnaise and sometimes slivered onion. That's it -- keep it simple.

Simple broiled cheese bread with egg. Mixed mozzarella, onion and mayonnaise for the cheese sauce.

Another tasty, savory breakfast -- this time with leftover spaghetti in red sauce.

I've had this Nigel Slater's cookbook Tender for about a year now and I'm really looking forward to cooking more from it this summer.

A peek inside...

When I first started writing about food professionally in 2003 I turned to Nigel Slater and his writing in The Observer and I loved his voice. A lot of food writing can wax poetic and favor form over the content but Nigel Slater’s writing never does. It’s honest and I’ve really enjoyed reading him over the years. If you haven’t read his memoir Toast I recommend it. It’s a wonderful book and I had fun reviewing it for Culinate way back when. (While putting this post together I learned that a film based on it starring Freddie Highmore and Helena Bonham Carter aired this past Christmas on BBC1 and at the Berlin, Taipei and Warsaw Film Festivals. Can’t wait to see it!)

I purchased one of Nigel Slater’s newest cookbooks — Tender — pretty soon after it hit shelves last spring in America and I’ve enjoyed cooking from it ever since. (It was published in two volumes in the UK in 2009; in the US by Ten Speed Press in 2011, the second US volume Ripe comes out this April.) The book is part recipe and part narrative — giving you background into Slater’s London home garden that he broke ground for in early 2000 and maintains with his partner.

Chapters are based on ingredients sourced from Slater’s garden and cooked in his kitchen so it’s homespun and inspiring and feeds right into my Yard Fresh ways. I love this book and I hope that you will too. Here are some of the tasty foods that I’ve cooked from it lately…

Thinly sliced roasted potatoes with butter and thyme.

Beer braised beef stew with homemade applesauce and roasted potatoes.

Stew and potato leftovers with one over-easy for breakfast.

This cauliflour cheese mustard soup is so good that I got a few friends to make it in the same week. Really.

Cabbage sausage soup with a few other bites on the side.

Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch
by Nigel Slater
pub. date April, 2011
620 pages
$40, Ten Speed Press
www.nigelslater.com

Because Gruner was out of their's the last time I went I decided to try my hand at deviled pickled beet eggs. They turned out great.

I planted my peas over the weekend even though I usually wait until early April. It’s been so warm that I thought I’d give it a shot. While planting them I noticed that the nettles are all coming up around the front porch along with the rhubarb and all the tiny oregano, peppermint, sorrel and lemon balm.

I bought a bale of straw last weekend at Urban Farm Store and weeded a few areas in the front and then covered them with it. Next weekend I’ll do the same in the back and plant some borage and arugula. I’m so happy that spring is on its way. I’m really looking forward to gardening this summer especially now that we cut down the old apple tree in the backyard. It’s bittersweet because we really loved that tree but it was old, hollowed out and threatening to do some structural damage. We’ll also get a lot more backyard sun light now that it’s gone.

Hope you’ve been getting outside more now that it’s been so nice. Here are a few of the tasty things we’ve been cooking and eating lately…

Dungeness scramble with butter, Meyer lemon and yellow onion.

Roasted chicken and brussels sprout sandwich on sourdough.

Big and buttery Grand Central Bakery peanut butter cookies.

Breakfast in bed with those PB cookies, tangerine and coffee and orange juice.

Leftover beans and rice from the excellent Mi Mero Mole with Costa Rican Lizano. Gallo Pinto!

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Turn your weeds into wine -- dandelion wine! I'll be talking all things fermented at this years Yard, Garden & Patio Show on Saturday, February 18th at the Oregon Convention Center.

My good friend Karen Schwartz of Calendula Garden Design is involved yet again in a big way in this year’s Yard, Garden & Patio Show at the Oregon Convention Center February 17-19. She and her friend Carol Senna of Melingo Studio Landscape Design are the coordinators/organizers of the Incredible Edible Garden which includes espaliered fruit trees, a preserving station, dining area, stacked stone beds and much more. Here’s the scoop straight from the YGP website:

You are in for a very special treat. This year’s Incredible Edible Garden is being transformed by garden designers Karen Schwartz and Carol Senna into a lovely French jardin potager. The goal of the potager, an ornamental vegetable or kitchen garden, is to make the function of providing food aesthetically pleasing. Plants and garden structures are chosen as much for their functionality as for their color and form to offer year round interest.

Raised beds, charming wattle fencing, tucked away dining spaces and creative, edible screening options will be on display. We hope you’ll be enticed into the growing garden-to-table movement. Experts will be on hand to provide bed preparation, planting, plant selection, preserving and other food and gardening-related tips and information. Even if food gardening isn’t in your future, you’ll be inspired by the design elements the garden offers. We’re very excited for you to see it.

It’s a very elaborate and time consuming project and I can’t wait to walk through Karen and Carol’s Garden along with the other several other life-sized gardens fully decked out and on display for the show. General all ages admission to the show is $10 and you can purchase tickets in advance or at the door.

Here’s a little more info. from the website:

Enjoy daily performances by Ahmed Hassan host of DIY Network’s Yard Crashers, the spectacular 7 Gardens of the World, Outdoor Cooking Classes, and fun for all ages. Experience our Garden to Table – Incredible Edible Garden, Free Garden Seminars & Demonstrations, the Remarkable Green Market and more.

I’m really happy that Karen invited me and many other local folks to attend for hour to two hour slots to answer edible gardening questions. The programming that I’m involved in is called Meet the Experts! and you can check out the schedule here. I’ll be hanging out and answering questions about new harvest extension techniques and food and drink fermentation from 2-3pm on Saturday, February 18th at the Incredible Edible Garden. I wouldn’t call myself an expert, I’d call myself an enthusiast but there are folks participating in Meet the Experts! who are indeed experts who you might be interested in checking out including Vern Nelson, Linda Ziedrich and many others.

Please stop by and say hello. Hope to see you there!

This weekend!

Portland’s 2012 Yard, Garden & Patio Show
February 17-19, 2012 at the Oregon Convention Center
www.ygpshow.com
Tickets are $10 all ages and available at the door. Or you can…
Buy tickets in advance

I wonder how many gallon-sized deli jars of spicy garlic dills I've made over the years. Too many to count...

I made some of these foods weeks ago but there’s been so much to post about here — mainly the third annual Portland Fermentation Festival — that I haven’t gotten around to posting photos until now.

We’ve been eating well and appreciating all the good things that have come from the garden in recent weeks. Next up from the garden — beets and carrots. This weekend I planted my garlic. I’ll probably put in more this week. We eat a lot of garlic and it’s so easy to grow…

Our neighboor gave us this side of chinook and it was so good. Smothered it in olive oil with some salt and pepper and put it skin-side down on the grill with lemons on top. Delicious.

Didn't eat all of it so made a nice and simple chowder with it the next night.

I make hot sauces and salsas all summer long and well into fall. This hot sauce had poblanos, jalapenos, tomatoes, onion and lots of garlic. Powerful stuff.

Used a little of that hot sauce with this potato poblano andouille hash with eggs.

What our daily take from the garden looked like for much of September.

Tuna sandwich with tomatoes and lemon cukes on sourdough.

The chicken and the egg -- chicken curry and rice with egg. Sounds strange but it was really good.

These are all up now for the fall garden. Hello fall, you came too early but it's still nice to see you.

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