Growing Gardens

As Ken's cooking expertise has grown, he has become increasingly interested in organic and local produce. One of his dreams is to grow and raise all of the food for his future restaurant himself. So we figured it was probably a good idea to begin greening up our thumbs by planting a small garden. Ken and I both grew up in families that did a lot of gardening but we haven't really ever had our own gardens as adults. (I did participate in a community garden with a group of friends while living in Chicago. We had a lot of fun and I highly recommend community gardens-- but I wouldn't have called that garden my own.) So this is a new experience for both of us. Ken purchased a book, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, that he loves and recommends. The author encourages use of deeper beds, wide raised rows, and organic methods. He also has specific recommendations for growing different vegetables, composting, and many tips to make your garden beautiful and healthy.

Below are 2 pictures of the garden when it was first planted. You'll notice in the picture that there is a large pile of dirt/gravel that Ken had to take off the top of the garden. We're not really sure what that's about--- we're renting and we suspect that the garden area was used as a garbage/lawn waste area at some point.








Here is the garden after a couple weeks...



And pictures from a couple days ago...
The top image is of the big garden where we've planted lots of different greens, herbs, beans, peas and pea pods, beets, squash, etc. The bottom image is of the tomato/pepper/eggplant bed which is separate from the rest of the garden.



I'll post more pictures of the garden soon and I think we'll probably be having our first salad of garden greens sometime in the next week. I can hardly wait!

Until then-- Here's a picture of an activity that I've found to often go hand in hand with gardening. The grill was a gift from Ken's parents for his birthday. Thanks again Andy and Diane!

Elk Steaks

I only have a second, but wanted to put up some pictures of a dinner we had with a few friends a month or two ago. The main course featured elk steaks from a local Illinois farm. This elk meat was extremely tender and had a subtle nutty flavor. We've been making an effort to buy local produce and meat so this elk is an excellent option. Elk also requires substantially fewer resources to raise than something like beef-- so that's good too!

Mixed greens with homemade caesar dressing & croutons (infinitely better than store bought)













Elk Steaks with leeks, roasted vegetables, and a savory puff














Chocolate covered cream puffs and after dinner games











As always, please feel to email or comment with recipe requests etc.

One Fish, Two Fish

Now that its summer and I have time to start posting pictures again, I am faced with a dilemma. While I would like to be putting up pictures of our garden and latest feasts, I have this massive backlog of beautiful pictures of Ken's food. At this point, I've stopped taking new pictures because there are so many old ones. Even more unfortunate, I don't remember much about the old photos-- how the food tasted, how it was made, specifics of the event.

In order to resolve this problem, I'm just going to post some of the older pictures with minimal details as I run across them. I'll also start taking and posting new pictures as I am inspired

Below are two images of fish dinners that we had at some point over the winter. Ken and I have been trying to eat more fish as it is a healthy alternate source of protien.

Wild Salmon, Asparagras, and Leeks



Fried Catfish with Ginger Spinach and Roasted Squash