Cooking and Cleaning

First things first: I’d taken a wheatberry salad to the Memorial Day program in Opheim. The American Legion Auxiliary, of which I’m a (not very active) member provides the meal after the program. A couple of the other (more active) members requested the recipe. Of course I didn’t have it with me, so I promised to share it via this column. One remarked she hadn’t had a wheatberry salad since her mother made them when she was young, so good memories were stirred.

Sweet Wheatberry Salad

2 C raw wheat

1 C pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

1 C chopped tart apple

1/2 C dried apricots, chopped

1/2 C dried cranberries

1 C parsley, chopped fine

Put wheat in a large bowl, cover with water, and let sit one hour. Drain. Boil 7C water, add wheat, then simmer, uncovered, 40 minutes. Drain and cool. Put in a large bowl, add the rest and mix.

Whisk together the following for a vinaigrette dressing: 1/2 C ginger ale, 3 Tbl cider vinegar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 2 Tbl lemon juice, and 2 Tbl olive oil. Pour over salad and mix well. (This keeps well for a week.)

I ran short of pumpkin seeds, so added raw sunflower kernels, unsalted. I keep a bag of those in the freezer. I added extra chopped apple (two of them, unpeeled, of course), and more chopped apricot.

I’m still enjoying fresh asparagus. If you read online advice about asparagus, said advice will tell you it’s a spring crop and to stop harvesting it after the start of June. However, I believe that advice is aimed at more southerly states. Our spring is so late and we enjoy such cool evenings and nights that I’ll continue harvesting my crop until well into June, almost until July. My asparagus is still producing plenty for my consumption, with enough to share with both my mother-in-law and our local daughter, that I feel no regrets about my practice. In other words, doing this hasn’t hurt my asparagus row. I’ll share one last asparagus recipe for this gardening season:

Creamy Fettuccini with Asparagus and Peas

Asparagus, 1 bunch, cut into 1/2” pieces

1 C frozen peas

1/4 C water

3 Tbl butter

3 Tbl flour

2 C milk

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 C parmesan

Salt and pepper to taste

Fettuccini, cooked to al dente

Combine the asparagus, peas, and water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, until tender/crisp. Drain. In another pan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, heat at medium, until the sauce has thickened. Stir in the garlic and cheese. Season to taste. Pour over the cooked pasta and stir in the veggies.

You’ll get to guess at the amount of fettuccini to cook, as I do. Sometimes I have too much (3C), sometimes not enough (1C). Aim for about 2 C cooked.

Later today I intend to redistribute my houseplants. They did get moved to the great out-of-doors early last week. They’ve been languishing on our back deck, getting reacquainted with nature. They’ll fill in gaps in my flowerbeds. I have enough shallow-rooted Canadian poplar trees (cottonless cottonwoods) in my yard that digging in the flowerbeds can be difficult. I’m really glad I put in perennials years ago, before the tree roots were so numerous. It seems that when one of the roots gets nicked, a tree will try to grow from that wound. I spend a lot of time with pruning shears chopping down those upstarts. So, filling in gaps with houseplants is my solution.

I also intend to bring in my window ACs from the garage and get them installed today. The summer heat has hit with a vengeance, hasn’t it? We could definitely use some rain. In an effort to bring rain, I washed windows and installed the screens. Dennis washed our field pickup and the air seeder. None of that worked so I guess I’ll drag out my sprinkler and put it to work. I have been running the drip system quite often. I’m very pleased to see my various crops coming up, as well as the spring wheat. I do love green. Green onions will be harvested this week as my energy allows.

The other crop I’m enjoying right now is rhubarb. I have four large plants of really red rhubarb and two of the greener kind. Those two were from a plant our daughters discovered in our shelterbelt when they were still in grade school. I think the original homesteader planted it. I had dug out, with great effort, two shoots from that plant and put them near my current garden. At that time I wasn’t sure exactly how my garden should be set up, so I refrained from putting in any permanent plantings. Those two green rhubarb remain but they really don’t thrive. They exist. They’re too close to a tree lilac my oldest received in fifth grade that we planted near the garden. There’s also a poplar too close so they don’t get enough sunlight. The soil is poor. The trees take the water. I really don’t care to move the green rhubarb as I prefer the red (it makes prettier desserts). So they remain as is, preventing weeds in that space. And the leaves are pretty.

I’ll leave you with one last recipe. I’d shared this one via Facebook with one of my cousins in Nebraska. She’d been making dozens of cupcakes for graduation parties there, so I commented on her photo of the cupcakes with a photo of these scones hot from the oven. Right after getting the recipe, she asked on Facebook if any of her neighbors had rhubarb to share. We both agreed shipping from here would be ridiculously expensive.

Rhubarb Scones

1 C chopped rhubarb

1/2 C sugar

2 1/4 C flour

1 Tbl baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

8 Tbl unsalted cold butter, cut up

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 C cold buttermilk OR half & half

Heat oven to 375°. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Mix dry ingredients together. Cut in butter until coarse crumbs form. Mix vanilla into the buttermilk, then add to the dry ingredients just until the dough comes together. You can add a little buttermilk if it seems too dry. Fold in the rhubarb. Knead a few times on a floured surface. Pat into a flat rectangle, cut into squares. Arrange squares 2” apart on the parchment. Bake 20 minutes or until just turning golden. Don’t overbake. Store airtight.