While combing through a box in the garage a few months ago, I found a folder stuffed with torn out magazine pages and notes. It was my garden and home inspiration file from nearly a decade ago. As I paged through the pictures, it was fun to see how my style and tastes have evolved. Even though the file contained some ideas I still love, I ended up recycling it, because I feel overwhelmed by the amount of paper in my life. Bills, junk mail, tax notices, stacks of magazines. Ugh. When you’re a kid no one tell you that part of becoming an adult is being buried under a mountain of paper.

To keep track of ideas I love (like this amazing kitchen garden, which I will be doing a sneak peek of soon!), while minimizing paper accumulation, I recently started using Pinterest, which is a virtual pin board where you can file away inspiration from around the web. I use it as an online idea file for garden ideas, recipes to try, chicken coops, and more, plus as a tool for keeping tabs on trends. If you’re on Pinterest, let me know! I’d love to follow along and see what inspires you. Also, I started a pin board called Grow Cook Eat where I am filing away vegetable varieties I want to grow and DIY edible gardening projects. I’d love for this board to be collaborative, so if you want to pin ideas to it, just let me know and I will add you on as a contributor.

(2nd image via Lulabelle’s View)

After we began growing most of our own salad greens, we quickly grew bored eating our way though a big bottle of store bought dressing and started making our own. Now I either make a little jar of dressing to use throughout the week, or I whisk together a very small amount of vinaigrette—just enough to dress the salad we are eating right then.

I have found that 2 teaspoons of vinegar or lemon/lime juice whisked with 2 tablespoons of oil yields the perfect amount of vinaigrette to dress 5 to 6 cups of loosely packed greens (this is the amount of greens that fits in my salad spinner and is enough for two lunch-sized salads or 4 small-ish sized side salads). To mix things up, I add in finely minced garlic or shallot to the vinaigrette, or I will whisk in dry ground mustard or a dab of prepared Dijon. Sometimes I sprinkle in spices like cumin, coriander or paprika, or a bit of harissa (a pepper paste), or minced fresh herbs. The vinaigrette literally takes about two minutes to make and has a really lively flavor.

The arugula in our winter garden is beginning to look a bit haggard. The largest leaves are too harsh and stringy for salads (though they taste delicious cooked with pasta), but the smaller leaves are still tender enough to eat raw. I’m especially fond of tossing this spicy green with toasted pumpkin seeds and a Mexican cheese called Cojita. The toasted pumpkin seeds bring out arugula’s inherent nutty flavor and the crumbles of salty Cojita set off the tangy apple cider vinaigrette.  The key to making this salad extra delicious is to sprinkle a bit of sea salt over the top and a good grind of pepper right before serving.

Arugula Salad with Toasted Pepitas and Cojita Cheese

All squash seeds are edible, but my favorites are the small seeds from acorn and butternut squash. They are small enough that you can eat them whole, without having to hull them. I toss the seeds in a little oil and roast them in a hot oven until they are toasted and use them in salads. I also buy pepitas, which are hulled pumpkin seeds, and toast them in a pan as described below. Both the pepitas and the toasted squash seeds add a wonderful crunch to salads. If you can’t find Cojita, substitute crumbled feta.

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons pepitas (hulled pumpkin seeds)

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 small garlic clove, pressed

Sea salt

Freshly ground pepper

5 cups loosely packed arugula, washed and dried

2 tablespoons crumbled Cojita cheese

Instructions:

Place the pepitas in a dry skillet and set it over high heat. Cook, shaking the pan frequently, until the seeds begin to brown and pop, about 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside. In a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, oil, and garlic. Add a generous pinch of salt and ground pepper to taste. Add the arugula to the bowl and toss until the leaves are well coated. Scatter the toasted pepitas and the cheese over the greens. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and more cracked pepper. Serve immediately.

We are still harvesting quite a few greens out of our garden, despite the slushy weather. We have kale, arugula, pea shoots, and mache, but I am most excited about the broccoli rabe. I sowed it in late August, set a hoop house over the bed and covered it with a lightweight row cover (primarily to keep our chickens from snacking on the greens, but also to protect them from cooler weather). Broccoli rabe is, big surprise, in the broccoli family (brassica), but  it is actually more closely related to turnips, which are called rapa in Italy. The leaves resemble turnip leaves and share their strong, slightly bitter flavor.

Broccoli rabe is a fabulous green for fall and winter gardening, because it is edible at every stage. I thinned out the plants when they were just a few inches tall and tossed them into salads. The leafy foliage has a pleasant mustard-y flavor that grows stronger as the plants age. And best of all, broccoli rabe develops small, delicious, broccoli-like heads. The heads are ready for harvest in just under a month in warmer weather, but in fall and winter they form more slowly.

When they first emerge, the heads are tightly packed and compact. With in a few days though, they begin to loosen up and lengthen, and eventually the buds open to reveal bright yellow blossoms. Ideally, you want to harvest when the heads are tightly packed. Just clip the plant off near the soil line, stem, leaves and all.

Broccoli rabe tastes slightly bitter raw. So I often blanch the greens in hot water first, pat them dry, and then saute them with olive oil and garlic. If you miss the ideal harvest window (which sometimes only lasts a couple of days, especially in warmer weather), no worries. The yellow blossoms are slightly sweet and slightly spicy and definitely delicious. Experiment with adding them into stir fries or eat them in salads.

I’m growing ‘Super Rapini’ from Renee’s Garden, but Seeds from Italy offers a great selection of Cima di Rapa (Italian for broccoli rabe). They currently stock 8 varieties, including ‘Sesantina’ which develops larger than average heads.

Also, I hope you will all hop over to Ashley English’s lovely blog, small measure. She kindly reviewed my book and is giving away a copy! All you have to do to enter is a leave a comment with your favorite thing to grow and something you’d like to try.

Today I am so excited to announce that my book, Grow Cook Eat: A Food-Lover’s Guide to Vegetable Gardening, Including 50 Recipes, Plus Harvesting & Storage Tips, is now on sale! Having the opportunity to write this book and work with the extraordinarily talented photographer, Jim Henkens, on all of the gorgeous photos was such a dream come true. I am so proud of this book and I feel very lucky that I get to send it out into the world.

To all of you who read this blog, thank you so much! Your questions and passion for good food inspired much of the content in this book, especially all the specific harvesting details. My goal was to write a gardening book that real life gardeners with busy lives would find useful and accessible, but also inspiring and seductive. Luckily, I landed at Sasquatch Books. The Sasquatch editing and design team was committed to helping make my vision for the book a reality and I really could not be any happier with how it turned out.

Grow Cook Eat is available at local bookstores, online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound and Powells, and at Anthropologie, West Elm, and Williams-Sonoma stores. The book will also be available at many wonderful small nurseries and gift shops and as an eBook. With the help of my crack project editor, Rachelle Longe, I’ve put together a little sneak peek inside Grow Cook Eat. The PDF includes the growing guide for basil and my Nona’s pesto recipe. I hope you enjoy it!

I have a ton of speaking engagements coming up this spring and I am looking forward to meeting a lot of other veggie gardeners. You can find the list over on my events page and on my book’s official Facebook page. I hope you’ll pop over there and like it. I’ll be updating the Facebook page regularly with event information. And in the meantime I will be over on Cloud Nine. I’ll probably be hanging out there for a few days but am looking forward to coming back to earth and planning this year’s garden.

After a long, busy day, this simple split pea soup is my go-to recipe for getting a healthy dinner on the table fast. The soup takes under an hour to make, with only about 15 minutes of hands on work, which gives you plenty of time to relax for a few minutes while your dinner bubbles away on the stove.

Even though I eat pretty much anything, I cook almost exclusively vegetarian, because my husband Jon does not eat meat or fish. Adding smoked Spanish paprika to this soup give it a smoky, savory flavor without the addition of ham. It tastes delicious when made with vegetable broth (or even just water if you are in a pinch), but chicken broth makes a fine substitution, too. Serve the soup with a simple side salad dressed with a lemon vinaigrette, and you’ve got yourself a light tasty supper that will keep your belly warm, something that is especially nice at this time of year.

Split Pea Soup with Smoked Paprika

Serves 4

You can find both dulce and picante Spanish paprika in the spice aisle of most super markets. The most common brand is El Rey de la Vera and it is sold in cute little red tins. I use both of these spices quite bit in soups and as a garnish.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup finely chopped carrot (about 2 large carrots)

1 teaspoon hot (picante) smoked Spanish paprika

1/2 teaspoon sweet (dulce) smoked Spanish paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup dry split green peas

4 cups vegetable broth

2 cups water

1/2 to 1 cups hot water (optional)

Pea shoots (optional garnish)

Instructions:

Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat. When it shimmers, add in the onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent (about 2 minutes). Add the carrot and cook until the onion begins to brown (about 2 more minutes). Stir in the hot and sweet paprika and salt, then add the split peas, broth and water. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to low. Partially cover the pot and simmer until the peas are very soft and begin to break apart, 30 to 40 minutes. Puree the soup in batches in a blender or with an immersion blender. If necessary, whisk in hot water to thin the soup to your preferred consistency. Divide the soup between bowls, drizzle with olive oil and garnish with a pea shoot, if using.

Outside of Boring, Oregon, on a rural road that winds past tree farms and fence-lined pastures, sits a rustic wooden barn that houses Red Pig Tools, makers of beautiful, classic garden tools. All of the tools in the Red Pig line are made on the property by blacksmith Bob Denman, who is dedicated to crafting smart, handsome, heirloom quality tools.

In my own garden I only regularly use five tools: a garden fork, spade, 3-tine cultivator, trowel, and bow rake (as well as an old steak knife for harvesting). Though I recently added a Red Pig Hand Plow to the mix, because when I picked it up, it felt weighty in my hand, like it was ready to go to work. The plough comes in both right- and left-handed versions, and Bob designed the sharp curved blade for making furrows, digging small seedling holes, tamping soil and uprooting weeds.

Bob and his wife, Rita, are clearly gardeners because all their tools feature smart design details that only someone who uses them regularly would think to make. For instance, the heads of the hoes are sharp on all three sides, which makes it easy to corner around plants. The tools are also very sturdy because Bob hand-forges the blade and shank of each tool out of steel and then rivets them to the hardwood handles.

The Red Pig Tools retail shop is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 to 6:00 and the tools are also available through the shop’s website. You’ll find pretty much every kind of tool you’ll need!

Succulent Ornament (Set of 3), $55 from Flora Grubb. Three small succulent cuttings come tucked in a box and ready to hang on the tree, or where you would like. The cuttings are live and the box includes instructions on how to plant up the succulents in a container after the holidays!

Gnome Cookie Jar, $52 from Seltzer Studios. I’m pretty sure everyone needs a gnome with a gilded hat. This little guy is made of white porcelain and a whole lot of cute.

Loll Swing, $143.65 from Loll Design. A swing is pretty much the definition of fun. This modern swing from Loll Design is just 100% recycled plastic and can be hung from a tree, porch or swing set.  Perfect for the kids big and small!

Fungus-Among-Us Tea Towel, $28 from makelike. For the forager in your life. This tea towel from the Portland-based design studio makelike is screen printed by hand onto a lovely European linen tea towel. It is really almost too pretty to sully in the kitchen. I think I might hang it up as art instead.

2012 Block Print Wall Calendar, $15 from Rigel Stuhmiller. The artist Rigel Stuhmiller creates beautiful hand carved linoleum block prints of vegetables, fruit and chickens. Her rustic prints are so beautiful and true and the 2012 calendar features 27 of them. At the end of the year you could extend the life of the calendar by framing your favorite prints.

Victory Garden Postcard, $1.75 from the Dead Feminists. This tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, who planted a victory garden on the lawn of the White House, would make such a nice stocking stuffer. First printed in 2008, the card encouraged First Lady Michelle Obama to follow Mrs. Roosevelt’s lead. I love the graphics and the message.

 Poppy and Butterfly Cloche, $36 from Terrain. I have a small but growing collection of glass cloches that I use indoors as decoration and in the garden during spring as a season extension tool. They add just a touch of elegance to my otherwise very utilitarian vegetable garden. This particular cloche features a pretty painted illustration of flowers and butterflies.

Recycled Glass Bubble Wall Terrariums, $55 from Sprout Home. Terrariums make such a great gift because you can enjoy them long after the holidays are gone. This terrarium sits flush up against a wall and looks particularly cool when filled with moss and air plants.

Subscription to Wilder Quarterly, 59.99 from Wilder Quarterly. The tagline for this brand new quarterly magazine is “a publication for people enthralled with the natural world.” The pages are filled with gorgeous photography and articles that span from recipes to vegetable gardening to travel and design.  It is smart. It is beautiful. And it is definitely a read cover-to-cover-in-one-sitting kind of magazine.

In my wanderings through the internet I come across quite a few fun ideas for gardeners. So I have gathered all my favorite products together and divvied them up in to three holiday gift guides: practical gifts, fun gifts, and books. I thought I’d start off with the list of practical gifts because it is always fun to receive something that you can put to use in the garden!

1. Urbio Vertical Garden, $20 to $200 from Urbio. The designers of these awesome magnetic wall containers raised the seed money for their project on the crowd sourced funding site, Kickstarter. The hip white eco-plastic containers each contain a super-strong magnet that can be placed on any ferrous metallic surface or to special metal back plates that attach to a regular wall. These are so super cool! You can use them to plant succulents, herbs, individual lettuces and create your own custom living wall. Unfortunately they aren’t quite ready to ship for the holidays, but you can pre-order the Urbio planters and they will arrive in your mailbox in early 2012.

2. Moleskin Recipe Journal, $19.95 from Moleskin: I adore my recipe journal, because it gives me one place to record all the recipes that I make up on the fly. The journal has a thick black cover with a cute embossed design. Inside there are tabs for appetizers, first course, main dishes, side dishes and desserts. Each page has plenty of room to jot down ingredients, instructions, and notes for when you make the recipe again.

3. Kamik Jennifer Rainboots, $65 from Zappos: I’ve had a pair of Kamik wellies for several years and they are the best! So comfortable, easy to hose off and completely waterproof.  My pair lives by the back door and I wear them almost every single day to feed the chickens, walk the dog, and garden. I particularly love this new Hunter-like style. So cute!

4. 5” Stirrup Hoe with a Replaceable Blade, $47 from Johnny’s Select Seeds: If I could only have one tool, I would choose a stirrup hoe because it makes weeding so fast and easy. The oscillating, stirrup-shaped blade cuts right under the soil, slicing off the roots of weeds. This particular hoe is the best because it has a blade that you can replace when it gets dull.

5. Botanical Series Write and Erase Plant Tags, $17 from Sprout Home. Ever forget to label the plants in your garden and end up wondering what exactly you grew at the end of the season? Me too. Which is why I love these plant tags! They are super sturdy and you can rub the label off at the end of the season and use them again the following year.

6. JR, Richard, and Ralph Birdhouses, $195 from Modern Birdhouses. A birdhouse always makes a fine gift, especially in winter. These simple birdhouses are made of sustainably harvested teak and were designed to entice cavity-dwelling birds like chickadees, bluebirds, and wrens. They have a removable floor, which makes it easy to keep the houses clean.

7. Bamboo Gloves, $24 from Ethel gloves. I don’t really like to wear gloves when I’m gardening  unless I am hauling rocks or cutting brambles. But when I do need to wear gloves, I reach for my pair of Ethel gloves, because they protect my hands without getting in the way. These gloves are made from a bamboo material that is thin, but durable, has just the right amount of stretch and is anti-microbial. And the suede like material provides plenty of grip, but is completely vegan-friendly.

8. Colorful Tubtrug, $16.95 from Gardener’s Supply Company. Tubtrugs are so versatile! You can use them to haul soil, compost, and yard debris, and as a storage container. I have a bright yellow one and would be happy to have trug in every color!

9. Seeds from Wild Garden Seeds. Seeds make great stocking stuffers and buying from Wild Garden gives you the opportunity to help sustain the Morton family, who have undertaken the hard and important work of developing new, regionally adapted, open pollinated vegetable varieties for organic gardeners and farmers. Some of my favorite varieties, including ‘Solar Flashback’ calendula (pictured above), ‘Rainbow Lacinato’ kale and ‘Purple Peacock’ broccoli were bred by Wild Garden and all of the seed they sell is certified organic and grown at the Gathering Together Farm in Southern Oregon.

10. Smith & Hawken Potting Bench, $799 from Target. Okay, so this is clearly a splurge, but it really is a lovely yet practical potting bench! It is made of FSC-certified, naturally rot resistant eucalyptus wood and is full of clever design details, like a lift-off work surface that has soil storage bins underneath. The racks above give you plenty of space to organize pens, plant tags, and fertilizers, and there is lots of space to store pots. Plus, you could use it as a outdoor buffet/barbecue work station in summer after all your pots are filled.

When I stepped outside this morning to feed the hens, I found my arugula and broccoli rabe edged with a fine layer of frost. Frozen droplets of dew twinkled like crystals on the Brussels sprouts and the rumpled leaves of the ‘Lacinato’ kale reminded me of an etching. The whole backyard looked sparkly and bright as the sun began to peek through the fog.

As much as I love tomatoes and basil, I get the most satisfaction harvesting food from my winter garden. Last night I was too tired to cook, so I took a frozen pizza crust out of the freezer, rubbed olive oil over it and sprinkled on slivers of garlic and mozzarella cheese. I slipped the pizza into the oven and popped outside to harvest some arugula. When the cheese began to bubble on the pizza, I opened the oven door and scattered three big handfuls of arugula over the top of the pizza. I pulled it from the oven a few minutes later and felt victorious that I’d managed to make my makeshift dinner slightly more healthy.

The peas I planted at the end of summer surprised me by beginning to flower. What a treat to find a sweet little pea blossom in the garden in December! I’ve been harvesting the pea shoots for salads and am curious to see if the peas will grow like gangbusters in spring or fizzle out.

My purple Brussels sprouts are my favorite plant in the winter garden, even though to date the sprouts are only about the size of a pencil eraser. The plants are so gorgeous and I am apparently not the only one who appreciates them, as I have caught the very chubby squirrel who lives in our tree taking a drink from the rainwater that collects at the base of the big leaves.

My ‘Purple Peacock’ broccoli is just starting to form a head at the center of the plants. Once I cut it out, loads of side shoots will begin to form up and down the main stem. I love this variety because it produces pretty purple broccoli and the kale like leaves are delicious.

I read in the New York Times that Bo Muller-Moore, a folk artist who designed a tee-shirt that reads “Eat More Kale”, received a cease and desist letter from Chick-Fil-A. I’ve always found Chick-Fil-A’s advertising campaign featuring cows holding up signs that say “Eat mor chickin” to be pretty funny, but I am appalled that the company is threatening to take legal action against Mr. Muller-Moore. I really don’t think that people would confuse the two campaigns and, frankly, people who want to wear an “Eat More Kale” t-shirt probably don’t frequent Chick-Fil-A. Plus, kale is so beautiful, so delicious, and so nutritious that it is just plain silly to try and put a stop to someone who advocates eating more of it. Boo on Chick-Fil-A, I say.

I know this looks a lot like a weed, but mache is really a delicious salad green that is extremely cold tolerant. A little frost and even snow does not get this dainty green down. My mache is a bit small yet for salads, but it will burst into growth in late winter when the days being to lengthen again. A prospect that I am looking forward to!

On this first day of December I am delighted to share the final desktop calendar of the year with you. For each month of this big, fun, busy year, Anne Bryant created an image that fit both the season and our calendar’s theme of urban homesteading. I am hard pressed to choose a favorite, but December’s calendar is surely one of the best. I love the teal color and the idea that decorating for the holidays does not necessarily mean making a trip to your nearest big box store. The garden is full of material that can be used to make your home festive at this time of year. Mossy twigs, colorful berries, pine cones, evergreen boughs, and even garden supplies like wooden crates, galvanized buckets, and burlap can all be pressed into holiday service. This past weekend I dressed up the unfortunate wrought iron railing that graces the stoop of our rental house with cedar garland and twinkly white lights. For a pop of color, I added in cheerful sprigs of orange berries from our nandina shrubs and shiny green holly leaves for texture. It makes me smile every time I walk up to the front door!

To put the December calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is choose the size that best fits your monitor and then click on the link below—the file will automatically download to your computer and then you can set it up as your background image.

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