Winter Kale & White Bean Soup

Amazingly, despite the really cold weather, the bed of kale is still green and doing well out in the garden. I was doing a cold-weather experiment in this uncovered bed. Those are Tyfon greens, or the remains of Tyfon greens, to the left. They pretty much vanish when the temps hit the mid-teens. The kale, as you can see, is quite perky despite multiple nights of mid-teens and no cover at all.



So I picked a batch and found a wonderful Kale & White bean soup recipe over at allrecipes.com by Jean Carper. You can click the the title below to go to the site.

Bean Soup With Kale

SUBMITTED BY: USA WEEKEND columnist Jean Carper
* 1 tablespoon olive oil or canola oil
* 8 large garlic cloves, crushed or minced
* 1 medium yellow onion, chopped
* 4 cups chopped raw kale
* 4 cups low-fat, low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
* 2 (15 ounce) cans white beans, such as cannellini or navy, undrained
* 4 plum tomatoes, chopped
* 2 teaspoons dried Italian herb seasoning
* Salt and pepper to taste
* 1 cup chopped parsley

DIRECTIONS

1. In a large pot, heat olive oil. Add garlic and onion; saute until soft. Add kale and saute, stirring, until wilted. Add 3 cups of broth, 2 cups of beans, and all of the tomato, herbs, salt and pepper. Simmer 5 minutes. In a blender or food processor, mix the remaining beans and broth until smooth. Stir into soup to thicken. Simmer 15 minutes. Ladle into bowls; sprinkle with chopped parsley.

This is what became of the kale:



And WOW it is a delicious soup. I did a couple of things differently - probably used a bit more kale than it called for, added 1 tsp. of bacon drippings (I am a real Southerner...) and instead of plum tomatoes - which aren't in season when kale it -- I used a small can of diced tomatoes. It was WONDERFUL! The parsley really adds a great green flavor. Can't wait to make more.

Hope you all are staying warm in this cold January! Here's to warm soups and warm hearts.

Garlic & Asparagus in Winter

One great thing about a garden blog is that I can look back at pics from the summer and marvel at how green and lush everything is. Right now, those are not words that would come to mind looking at the garden and surrounds.



This is the asparagus patch's first winter. It grew very well it's first year - seems to love the raised bed and rich soil. I plan to plant another bed of it this spring. We should be able to sneak a batch of these this spring to steam and dip in butter, then by Spring of 2010 we should have a strong supply going. I understand asparagus can live for decades. It's a great garden investment, but one that require a few years patience!



Meanwhile, over in this bed we have the baby garlic that went in the ground in either late October or early November....



So next summer, hopefully, we'll have fresh garlic out of the garden. Exciting! Meanwhile, we're expecting two nights this week down to 10 and then 4 degrees. Yikes. Got to go rake a big pile of leaves over the fig "bush." You can see it this past summer in this post "What a difference two weeks makes"

Barn in Winter Sun

One pleasant thing about the erratic weather is that between cold fronts you get the occasional lovely day! Yesterday was in the 50's and sunny. Perfect for a long walk about the place. Over the fence I can see the neighbors hay barn, show above. I love the way the afternoon sun shines on it in the winter, especially combined with the silver and golden winter grass.

My inner "Garden Clock" started stirring this week. Despite the arrival of the garden catalogs starting in late December, it was quiet. But yesterday I felt the first stirrings of the 2009 gardening season - within anyway! Soon I'll be getting the monthly garden guide out (Thanks Arkansas Extension Service) and doing the little mental calculations to adjust the suggested dates, which are for Little Rock, to our slightly colder NW Arkansas. If I remember correctly, there's stuff I can start planting as soon as mid to late February! OK, not much stuff, but a thing or two? I'll check and let you know...

Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden. It's good to be back.

Roadrunner Seeks Wife: Has Three Houses

On my walk today, I snapped this pic of my favorite little birdhouse, which I found at a craft show in Missouri. I put it up in early summer 2008 and several little birds were checking it out, but then vanished.



This was soon explained when I noticed the male roadrunner was constructing a huge nest in the tree above where I had hung the little birdhouse. No (smart) little bird builds a house just below a fast, wily predator...



Ricky the roadrunner spent time sitting on this next during the summer, but no lady-friend ever appeared. Ricky also built nests (or were they hunting blinds?) in the big pine out back AND the top utility shelf in the garage (via the doggie door) incorporating the business end of the electric chainsaw on that shelf into the twigs of the nest! So it seems he's still single. But hopeful.

Back to the Larrapin Blog 2009!

Well after a long holiday season of work, projects, more work, and the holdays, I'm back to posting here on this blog! I missed it. Knowing I'm committed to posting once a week gets me out taking pictures more often. This morning I was trying to get some good shots of the chickens (those will post later) but when I came back in, we saw this cutie on the pine tree outside the kitchen window.



The bird book says he's a juvenile yellow bellied sap sucker. He was busy pilfering the stashes of seeds and suet that the nuthatch hides under the pine bark...



With the weather cold, we're seeing every kind of woodpecker with the notable exception of a red headed woodpecker. Even though the bird book says they range here, we've never seen one here at Larrapin (yet).



Happy 2009 from the folks and critters of Larrapin Garden!

The Value of Good Neighbors...

If you've ever had the experience of bad neighbors, the you know the value of good ones. We've had both. Thankfully our neighbors at Larrapin Garden are wonderful. Sometimes they stare at me over the fence while I'm gardening. Other times they tend to let the food hang out of their mouths a little while eating. There is the rare session of bawling at night once the calves are moved away from Moms...but all in all, these kinds of neighbors are the ones to have.

I'd like to say they are mine, but these fine neighbors belong to another fine neighbor down the road. I have the pleasure of sharing their company while gardening. These pics were taken a week or so ago, when it was chilly enough to have plumes of cow breath in the morning sunshine.

And here is the first Bluebird house at Larrapin Garden, waiting for a resident.

Blogs begin somewhere...

I've wanted to start this blog since I moved to Fayetteville, AR in 2005. Now it's February 2007, but here goes. This was the scene last week, a light snow and nighttime temps of ten degrees. As I write this now, a week later, a warm spell had the peepers in the cow  pond next door singing for the first time last night. The gardening year is about to begin.