Chickpea Stew With Dill

I know, it's like I'm not even trying anymore. What's so chickenless about chickpea stew (besides the obvious)? All I can say in my defense is that it has quite a chickenless amount of dill in it.

Chickpea Stew With Dill

Ingredients

2 Tbsp. olive oil

4 large carrots, sliced

1 rib celery, sliced

1/2 head garlic; cloves separated, peeled, and sliced

1/2 tsp. dried cumin

1/4 c. fresh dill or 1 Tbsp. dried

1 1/2 c. cooked chickpeas

2 1/2 c. veggie broth

2 c. canned/packaged diced tomatoes (I've said it before and I'll say it again: Pomi is the way to go if you don't can your own)

2 tsp. lemon juice

1/4 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. black pepper

2 c. cooked brown rice

Directions

In a stew pot, heat the olive oil over medium-high. Add the carrots, celery, garlic, and cumin. Saute until the vegetables are soft but not falling apart, about 7 minutes. Add the dill; saute to coat. Add the chickpeas, broth, tomatoes, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer 20 minutes. If you want a thick stew, stir in the rice and serve with bread. For a thinner version, spoon the rice into individual serving bowls and ladle the chickpea mixture over it. Serves 4.

I must take this opportunity to publicly retract a comment I made on someone's blog yesterday (I can't remember whose, and it's better to do it here where all my readers can see it anyway.) I said that Publix Supermarkets has a good business model and that they really take care of their employees. Well, what should happen but this evening my husband comes home from work and tells me that there's a temporary Publix boycott underway due to a human rights issue. If they raised the price of their tomatoes just a penny per pound starting this next fiscal year, they could afford to pay harvesters a living wage. For the time being, they are holding out, which sucks.

Luckily I was recently tipped off about a market called Harvill's in the Winter Park area (thanks, Nichole!) They sell a lot of local produce and farm-fresh eggs. May not necessarily be organic, but at least every fruit and vegetable I bought today came from within my home state. I'll be psyched to share pics and descriptions of what promises to be a mostly-local week!

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.

Home Again!

I promised pictures from Virginia. Above is one of a tractor. You can find more at Doveland Farm. Hint: If you love animals, it's worth taking a peek.

We had a great time and feel indebted to our host, Sandra, who barely made us raise a finger. She housed us, cooked for us, showed us around the area, and even taught us the ancient mystical art of buying stuff at auction and flipping it. We got a 40s era radio and record player for forty bucks and are commissioning our engineer buddy to turn it into an MP3 player. I'll put pictures up when it's done so you can bask in its vintage elegance and get in touch if you're interested... though I'll tell you right now it may challenge my husband to part with it when the time comes.

On to more food-related matters!

Here in FL we have to solarize our soil to keep nematodes from latching onto our veggies' roots and sucking their little veggie lives away. For months I've been meaning to start a small herb patch that wouldn't need such extravagant treatment. On Monday, I finally got around to planting some parsley and chives. Hooray!

I've been reading up on home permaculture, and the number one point every author makes is that nothing will look like you think it should. There are no nice, neat little rows in this type of gardening. If your yard looks like a forest, you're doing it right.

So, am I doing it right? In the picture below, do my parsley and chives look planned, or like they just sprung up?

I know I promised to update you on the mystery project taking place in our yard. All I can tell you is that the site of said project has moved- it will now be located nearer the house. We'll probably get started on that tonight when my husband gets home from work. Exciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitedddddddddd.

In the meantime, we dug a few beds at the old site of the mystery project. Like my herb garden, there will be no discernible rows, just lots and lots of symbiotic foods growing close together. We are currently solarizing the beds:

Solarization involves turning the earth a bit, then laying sheets of opaque plastic over the exposed soil and weighing it down to keep weeds from creeping in at the edges. As you can see, my husband and I can't afford to visit Home Depot right now, so we cut up garbage bags and weighed them down with everything from scavenged planks to beer bottles. That fence you see in the background? Yup, you'd better believe our neighbors just put it up today. The instant we have enough mature veggies to fill a gift basket, they're getting one on their doorstep. Thanks for not demanding that we clean up our hillbilly mess, neighbors!!

One last update: we're spending this weekend at Green Flamingo. Probably fishing and barbequing, in addition to volunteering on the farm. I get to eat fish again! (As mentioned previously, I seldom buy fish at the grocery store.) It's gonna be sweeeeeeet. Will have pics Monday.

Beat the eggs. Whip the cream. Show no mercy.