Good Day on the Home Front

For our first meal of the day today, I made Cheesy Egg Wedges which I haven't made for a while.  Wonder why as they are so tasty.  Well, I guess I do know why.  Cottage cheese is an ingredient and we usually gobble up the cottage cheese I make with either chopped up raw veggies or cut up fruit.  But I had just enough left today to use, so something made me remember this particular breakfast dish and I made it.

The original recipe serves six and is made in a 9" pie plate.  I halved the recipe this morning, baked it in a funny little 7-1/2" pie plate I have, and we still have one-half left over for breakfast tomorrow morning.  The eggs were served with a dollop of salsa on top, augmented by coleslaw made from some of our red cabbage and a sausage patty for each of us.

Fortified by that meal, we went out to clear the few inches of snow we got late yesterday.  I shoveled and Papa Pea shoveled and plowed.

Back inside, I tackled the jumble of papers and graphs and designs I've had spread out on the kitchen table and kinda, sorta, almost, nearly finished my garden plans for this coming season.   

All twenty-six 4' x 8' raised beds are figured out but for one small glitch.  Some dummy forgot to make a notation of which bed she planted the garlic in last October.  I even have a picture of it from a blog post I did then.

I've looked at this picture from all angles including upside down, but hard as I've tried, I can't tell exactly which bed it is.  Even though the bed is heavily mulched and has a cattle panel lying on top of it, which kept the mulch from blowing off in our fall winds, it's now thoroughly buried under a good quantity of lovely, white snow as are all the rest of the beds.  Bottom line, I may have to do a little quick juggling come spring when the garlic bed emerges from the snow.  I've left myself a little wiggle room to do that.

Other than making sure I rotate the crops planted in the field garden (as I do in the raised beds) and two new areas we've been working up for the past couple of years, there aren't so many different varieties of vegetables to pencil in for those areas.  It's mainly the veggies that need more room (potatoes, beans, pickling cukes, cabbage, shell peas, squashes) that are planted in the larger areas. 

This year (silly me), I'm also planting a block of Painted Mountain Corn.  It's the only corn variety I've ever grown successfully up here in Minnesota.  Being totally frustrated by our corn being laid flat by our high winds the last couple of years I did plant it means this year we've got to figure out a way of surrounding and supporting the corn patch to prevent it from happening again this year.  We've got a couple of ideas, and I would so love to get a good crop again.

Picture from the last time I grew it.

 When the ears are harvested at the right (early) time after development, they are actually good eating as "sweet" corn.  The dried corn is wonderful ground as cornmeal and the beautiful ears make outstanding fall decorations.

This afternoon 'twas time to strain and stash away the beef bone broth I've had simmering during the day.  Did that and made a big pot of cheddar-cauliflower soup for tonight.

The last couple of times I've made this, I've added cook wild rice, and we really like the added flavor and texture it gives to the soup.

More snow, possibly heavy, is predicted for this weekend.  I guess we'd better keep our boots handy and shoveling muscles at the ready.