The ever prolific green.

It's been a while since we've written but a lot has happened since we last posted.

The heat has been increasingly drying. We deep water nearly every day now. A boisterous rainstorm the other day flooded the yard with much needed moisture but smaller seedlings have dried up in just a few days absence of our watering routine. Only the thick-rooted, absorbent plants survive here.

Weeding is more work than usual; they seem to be sprouting constantly. It keeps us busy maintaining the yard but we don't hesitate to visit the garden.

Our first salad harvest! Greens like mad, green onion and oregano.

The greens are quite prolific, despite the 3 hours or so of direct sunlight they receive.

Our productive cucumber plants.

Cucumber flowers.

Salvia gregii, French dwarf marigolds, and possibly tomatillos.

Our cat prowling the roadrunner.

S/He knows.

Our flower garden sunflowers.

We can't quite tell what these are but they're the first flowers to have opened this season.

Jordan slowly soaking our squash and watermelon rows.

Lazarus, the grape cutting we thought had died.

Another soon-to-bloom sunflower.

The nightshades bed panorama.

Making Yogurt

Making yogurt is stupid easy and cheap. You need milk and yogurt. Costco sells two gallons of full fat milk for about $5. I picked up a container of organic yogurt for less than a buck. You only need to buy the yogurt once, so opt for a variety with as many active cultures as possible. I found one with eight. 

The process: 

1. Heat up your milk to 160° F, or just until it's about to boil. I use a meat thermometer to measure the temperature.

2. Once the milk is hot enough, turn off the stove and let the milk cool to about 110°. It'll take a while.  

3. Add a tablespoon or so of your yogurt and mix it in.

4. Now you have to maintain this temperature, which is kind of tough. We have a gas oven with a pilot light, so it's always warm. Putting the lid on the pot and closing the oven door is enough for me. You might need to wrap the pot in a blanket for added insulation.

5. Keep your soon-to-be yogurt at 110° for 6-8 hours. The longer you let it sit, the more sour it will become.

6. And boom, you've got gallons of yogurt. Save some of your yogurt to use as a culture in the next batch. 

If you mess up and don't end up with yogurt, just squeeze a lemon into your milk mixture and stir until curds form. Drain off the liquid (or save it, I like whey) and you're left with farmer's cheese, essentially Indian paneer.

To make Greek yogurt, drain your yogurt through cheese cloth. I like to keep my yogurt relatively thin so it's drinkable. My favorite is to mix it with salt and ground cumin for a savory lassi.

Restoring Cast Iron

Cast iron lasts lifetimes and is readily available for next to nothing at thrift stores, or you can find it new for less than you'd spend on a non-stick that'd only last, if you're careful, for about a decade. We found an ugly, rusted, abused pan at a thrift store for a few bucks and decided to restore it. The process was a bit time-consuming and smoky, but we can now fry eggs and sear meat, which was impossible in the cast iron enamel cookware I'd brought with me. 

How to do it:

1. Scrub the cast iron with steel wool

2. Coat it with fat (we used leftover bacon fat)

3. Stick it in the oven on broil and let it heat up until it's smoking (open your windows and be prepared for everything to smell like bacon grease for a week)

4. Take out the pan and let it cool

 5. Repeat steps 2-4 until the cast iron has a silky black patina and is smooth, i.e., not sticky, to the touch

To clean, you just rinse and scrub without soap. Stick the pan on a hot stove to evaporate any excess liquid. Periodically rub it down with oil.