Garden Reports and Rejoicing – January 6
I will admit that ten years ago I was sucked into the trend of portraying gardening as being “easy” and “low-maintenance.” Apologies, I’m so sorry, my bad. I, like most Americans, was seduced by our fast food, instant coffee culture.
There are, of course, ways of making your landscape less work but the truth is that anything worth doing takes effort. Whether we want to hear it or not, the good stuff involves work.
That said, there are some times when things that are perceived as difficult are really not so hard. Could it be that similar to the profit-making businesses (fast food, instant coffee, the easy button) that try and convince us that things are effortless, there are industries that tell us that some things are too complicated?
Cooking, for example. Have the majority of Americans been told that cooking their own food is too hard? Have they been convinced that their only involvement in food preparation should come from watching the food/cooking networks?
Today I stopped off at the supermarket on my way home and bought an eggplant and a bag of grated “Six Cheese Italian” mix from Sargento. Since I was running late I also picked up two balls of pizza dough, one whole wheat and one regular, from the Stop and Shop where I do my marketing.
I got home and took three things out of the freezer: one package of tomato sauce, one package of frozen chard, and one patty of pesto. All were made from our garden produce of last summer. I peeled and sliced the eggplant (Who has time for that often recommended practice of salting and letting it sit to drain the “bitter juices”? Not me. Not necessary.) and baked it in the oven on a cookie sheet for about 20 minutes.
Next I combined the two balls of dough and rolled them out into as thin a crust as I could manage. I brushed these with melted butter (hey, I’m from Wisconsin) and put on the toppings. They were scrumptious and yes, they were easy. In less than an hour these pizzas were in the oven and they tasted better than any store bought or delivered product you can find.
When a manufacturer of a product tells you that something is easy, stand back. Think. Know that they want you to believe you aren’t capable of the effort because they are selling something, not because what they are saying is true.
Home grown tomato sauce, roasted eggplant, 6 Cheese Italian blend and black olives. Yum.
Roll out the crust, sprinkle on the grated cheese next, then put toppings on...in this case,the card and feta cheese chunks, sprinkled with red pepper flakes.
