With all of the beets I've been seeing around the garden lately, I thought everyone might appreciate this delicious recipe I made the other night. It comes from Orangette, a wonderful food blog I've been reading lately. She has a plethora of amazing sounding recipes. This one was wonderful, and since I could not unearth my tart pan in the midst of cooking, I instead made several mini-tarts, instead, which were quite adorable. Enjoy!

Beet-Feta Tart
From Orangette

1 half-recipe Martha Stewart’s pâte brisée without sugar (flaky pie dough, enough for one 9” tart)
2 medium-sized red beets, washed, roasted (at 400 degrees in an aluminum foil packet for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until very tender; you don’t want a crunchy beet here), and peeled
2 large eggs
¾ cup milk (I used whole)
4 oz French feta, crumbled
A pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the pâte brisée into a circle large enough to line a 9” round removable-bottom tart pan. Transfer the dough into the pan, pressing it gently to the edge and up along the sides. Line the dough-lined tart pan with a sheet of aluminum foil, and place enough beans, rice, or pie weights in the aluminum foil to cover the base of the tart pan in a single layer. This will prevent the dough from puffing when you blind-bake it. Place the tart pan in the oven, and bake for 15 or so minutes, until the edges of the tart shell look set and barely golden. Remove the aluminum foil and weights from the tart pan, and continue baking until the tart shell is light golden. Remove the tart pan from the oven and allow to cool.

Turn the oven down to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Meanwhile, cut the roasted and peeled beets into ¼-inch slices. Mix the eggs, milk, feta, and salt in a small bowl or measuring cup.

Arrange the beet slices in the blind-baked tart shell, taking care to cover the base of the shell as well as possible. It is preferable to only have one layer of beets, although you may want to add an extra beet here or there to cover an empty spot. Pour the egg mixture over the beets.

Bake the tart for 40 minutes to an hour, until the filling is set and lightly golden in areas. Allow to cool for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Fundraiser Subcommittee Meeting

The first meeting of the Fundraiser Subcommittee, also known as "Clase de ceramica" will be at Martha's house, 608 N. Ruby St., 4 p.m. Saturday. Modest refreshments will be served.

Bring anything you might have already made and come prepared to look at each others' items and be inspired. Martha will get out many ideas to show some of the range of possibilities of things to make.

If you are already part of this subcommittee, or would like to be, please come join us.

Welcome to the Blog

A review of what was in the email, so you don't have to flip back and forth once you've logged in...

Posting:
To post a new discussion, follow the link “new post” in the very top right corner. Enter your topic title, text and label(s) for the post. You will see sample labels to the right – “Flower Area, Food Bank, Irrigation, Things To Do”, etc. We should try to keep some common labels, which will make it easier to read only the topics that you are interested in. That way later you can click on “Irrigation”, for example, under Labels, and it will bring up all of the topics that have been labeled as such. If your post would be appropriately filed under an existing label, please use that one. You can also use multiple labels, if appropriate.

Alternatively, if coming here to post feels like too much, and you just want to post quickly from your email account, you can send an email to Eberggarden.newpost@blogger.com and it will be posted directly. This won’t post with a label, but I will go in from time to time and clean up the site to remedy this. This is a different option for posting to our blog.

You can also post pictures with your posts by clicking on the “add image” box there.

Posting Comments:
This is how Posts turn into Discussions. If you click on any given post, it will bring you to a page showing just the text for that post, and a link to “Post a Comment.” If you are interested in participating in a discussion, please post comments, instead of new posts, so that we can more easily follow the conversation (like an email thread). When you post a comment, you are given the option to receive emails whenever a comment is added to that particular discussion – just click the box before posting your comment and you will stay plugged in on that particular thread.

Calendar:
With the help of Ed, I have posted a Google calendar at the bottom of this page. If you scroll down below the posts, you will see it. It is currently empty, but should be a great tool for things happening. I will post information to the blog soon on how to add an event to the calendar.

One thing I forgot to mention earlier - comments, suggestions, requests, etc. are very welcome. I expect there are folks out there who know a lot more than I do about blogging and/or web miscellany, and also folks who have good ideas about what might make this a more useful tool. Please feel free to speak up - it takes a village, and all that jazz... cheers!

Flowers on the berm

July 5: If water is in fact available on the berm now, we could put half of the cosmos that are in the pot in Plot #37 up there, plus the sunflowers that have been waiting in pots on the greenhouse shelf. In a short time, the berm would bloom and everyone around would feel happy just seeing it.

(July 5): In Becky Chambers' Plot #37, there's a large pot full of cosmos. These need to be set into the flower area soon. The flower area is also becoming carpeted with a low-growing weed that's not hard to remove, yet. Once flowers are set in and the area weeded, heavy mulch might be the next thing on the list. Thanks!

Food bank -- what's done, and things still to do

(July 5): The main food bank area planting is nearing completion. If we remove weeds all the way to the pipe between FB area and personal plots, we can still sow another two rows of broccoli. We could also sow bunching onion seeds, carrots, and/or radishes behind cabbages in the tomato section, also around cucumber cages. When we use the mound of dirt just north of the potato bed to hill up the potatoes (should be soon), we can plant chard in that spot. There are still a few spots left unplanted in Becky Chambers' plot #37, but I hope to fill it up today, with sprouted seeds left over from the main food bank area. So far in Plot #37 (to be used, with Becky's permission, mainly for the food banks) I've put in sweet potatoes, tomatoes, okra, bush beans, beets, and cosmos. I plan today to put in the leftover squash and other sprouts from the main food bank area , and to sow some salad greens in the corners. Once the planting is finished, a final weeding should be done and heavy mulch with cardboard and or newspapers (at least 4 layers), covered with straw, should be laid down to avoid having to weed every week. Mulching the squash and sweet potato hill, though, may not be possible.

Irrigation Setup is Complete

The irrigation system is finally in done!

We still need to take water coverage readings and fine-tune the spray patterns, but the hard work is done, thanks mainly to Joan.