Lady Henevere: Year in review

[LittleRoosterCroft]

I am so sorry...it is so hard to lose the ones we are attached too, especially this way.

 

[Lady Henevere]

Thanks, everyone.

 

[Lady Henevere]

I haven't been posting much since I haven't been doing anything self sufficient lately. The garden is dying back (what little there was), I'm busy with work, and I haven't even been cooking from scratch. I saw a naturopath yesterday and she suggested an anti-inflammatory, anti-allergen diet, which puts some major restrictions on what I can eat. I think that's going to force me to cook at home more.

Fall is a great time to plant here, so I might put some lettuce, chard, and carrots in. I have a bizarre resistance to growing my own greens -- I have never even tried it. I think it's because I hear that they have to be watched closely and picked before they bolt, so I am always afraid that a few busy days at work will destroy my entire crop of greens. It's silly, I know. Especially since I love fresh salads and it's hard to get lettuces to stay fresh for more than a few days. It would make so much more sense to have them fresh and ready in the back yard. I just need to suck it up and buy some lettuce seeds.

What's your favorite lettuce to grow? Do you find some are easier than others? How about greens for cooking?

 

[Wifezilla]

strawberry cabbage lettuce is delicious. I got some seeds from freemotion in a seed swap this spring.

As for cooking green, i really like kale.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

The trick to lettuce, is to plant a few feet per week, allowing for easy continual harvest through the season.
We like all kinds, but an absolute favorite head lettuce is the Butterhead.
A few days neglect will not cause too much if any worry either.
Go for it!

 

[i_am2bz]

I always grow romaine, red leaf (red sails), green leaf (grand rapids), & spinach. Nom nom nom! Lettuce is sooo easy, you reallly should try it! Mine didn't bolt until it got reeeally hot this year.

 

[Farmfresh]

I am going to try lettuce and spinach in my long container pots upstairs under our roof window this winter. It is cool up there since we no longer heat it, but I am hoping it will be warm enough for those crops.

 

[moolie]

We always grow buttercrunch and Romaine, this year we tried Valmaine and it was fab--no bolting (it's heat resistant AND heirloom!)

 

[framing fowl]

I just get one of the mixed lettuce seed packs and I'm always surprised. I just scatter a few seeds each week for a continual harvest during the season. I didn't even plant mine in rows. I just dedicated a few areas in my boxes and just let them do their thing. They're pretty maintenance free so if they do bolt, just compost them and move on. I actually had more problems with my spinach bolting than my lettuce.

 

[Lady Henevere]

Okay, you've convinced me. Lettuce is on the to-do list for the weekend.

I have no idea what to eat. That sounds like an incredibly stupid thing to say, especially coming from someone who has spent years reading about nutrition, allergens, etc. and trying new diets to see what would end my constant abdominal pain. Turns out wheat that was the main culprit, but because I would try going without wheat for a week or two and see no improvement, I didn't realize it was the problem for years. It took six weeks of a completely wheat-free diet to discover that it had been causing me so much distress.

Getting wheat out of my diet was a big change, especially in a home with a carb-loving teen who is growing, running, and wants to eat all the time. (She did say to me, "Your wheat allergy is ruining my diet -- you never bake anymore." Sorry sweetie -- I really am. But nothing is stopping you from whipping out your own batch of brownies.) Surprisingly, I miss beer more than bread. But it hasn't been too painful, and I have adapted.

Except maybe I haven't. When I saw the naturopath last week, she thought I might still have some food allergies/intolerances messing with my digestive tract. She recommended cutting some of the main allergens in food -- wheat (done), dairy (a big staple for me), and corn (yum, in so many ways). She didn't mention cutting soy or tree nuts.

So far I am an utter failure. I have been traveling (try finding an allergen-free meal in an airport), and last night was dinner with friends at a Mexican restaurant (I had cheese and corn -- oops). I need to get it together and do this right.

I'm also a vegetarian, which makes this harder. I can't eat the dead flesh of animals; it grosses me out. It just doesn't seem like food to me, the way a golden retriever or eyeballs don't seem like food to a lot of people. So while to a non-veg person this low-allergen diet might be easy -- just have variations on meat and veggies -- I'm having a hard time with it. All I can think of is rice and veggies. There must be more out there, but my food creativity is running low.

So I'm trying to come up with ideas about what to eat. I think I want some gluten-free oatmeal to replace my yogurt breakfast, and sometimes I have eggs which I am supposed to be eating anyway to raise my cholesterol. Then I can have....rice and veggies. Rice and veggies Asian style (I have tamari - soy sauce with no wheat), rice and veggies Indian style (I need to learn how to make a good curry), rice and veggies Cuban style (mmm, plantains and black beans!). I can also have salads (with boiled egg for protein, no cheese), baked sweet potatoes (no butter), and....well....there must be more....

Any ideas?