{"id":5807,"date":"2014-03-13T15:52:55","date_gmt":"2014-03-13T20:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/?p=5807"},"modified":"2014-03-24T08:12:49","modified_gmt":"2014-03-24T13:12:49","slug":"hope-for-the-seedlings-sixburnersues-best-cabbage-recipes-for-st-patricks-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/2014\/03\/hope-for-the-seedlings-sixburnersues-best-cabbage-recipes-for-st-patricks-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope for the Seedlings + Sixburnersue\u2019s Best Cabbage Recipes for St. Patrick\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"seedling<\/a>Yesterday I was hiding out in the hoop house, pretending that I didn\u2019t have a long list of things to do before getting on a plane tomorrow. It was warm and bright and still inside, the air spritzed with the fine smell of damp potting soil. I could have stayed there for hours, futzing over the hundreds of little baby bok choy seedlings that have popped up in the last week.<\/p>\n

We planted the bok choy seeds with the grand scheme of getting an early crop into our south-facing bed along the outside of the hoop house. Roy has been prepping the bed and installing hoops and a plastic cover to warm the soil up for planting. Bok choy can go into 50\u00b0 soil and by using transplants, you can have a harvest in about a month after transplanting.<\/p>\n

\"seedling<\/a><\/p>\n

Even though we have the hoop house now, it isn\u2019t heated, so the nighttime temperatures are still pretty chilly in there. (The greens in the raised beds have covers over them.) So we had to germinate the bok choy seeds inside. First, I mixed up the seed starting soil (with water) and spread it in 72-hole flats in the hoop house. Then I carried the flats inside, planted the little tiny seeds, covered the flats with plastic tops, carried them upstairs, and arranged them over the floor of Libby\u2019s bedroom. Then I shut the door to keep the room cool and to keep Barney out.<\/p>\n

So you can see, we still do not have a very sophisticated system of seed starting. And, by the way, though Libby\u2019s room was the perfect temperature, and the seeds germinated very evenly, Barney did get in there more than once and pounced on the plastic tops. I think he got in because Farmer nosed the bedroom door open, thinking Libby might be in there.<\/p>\n

Still, we’ll call that part successful. However, we\u2019ve then had to carry the flats down to the hoop house every morning\u2014and then back every night. The seedlings grow straight and sturdy in the gauzy overhead sunlight of the hoop house, so you want them there during the day. (Without adequate direct light, seedlings grow leggy and sideways, as most of you probably know. ) And very soon we\u2019ll be able to just pop the plastic tops back on at night and leave them in there. But right now, because of this ridiculous weather (50\u00b0 yesterday, 25\u00b0 and snowing today) the flats have to go back inside the house at night. Argh!!<\/p>\n

\"bok<\/a><\/p>\n

Anyway, this is certainly not a big problem to be complaining about, and I\u2019m only really recounting this as my way of saying I am oh-so-very-excited about spring coming. (And for making delicious things with bok choy<\/a>, of course!). When I get back from Chicago, I will plant more flats\u2014of lettuce, spinach, kale, and chard. (That is\u2014IF I get back! I\u2019m supposed to get out of downtown Chicago and to the airport on Monday, and isn\u2019t that St. Patrick\u2019s Day? And isn\u2019t there, like, a fairly large parade in Chicago?! Oh well.)<\/p>\n

\"cabbage<\/a><\/p>\n

Since I won\u2019t be actually here on the Irish holiday, I thought I\u2019d better share my favorite cabbage recipes from Sixburnersue with you today. I\u2019ve never been one for boiled cabbage, so for a simple preparation, I go with something like this Quick-Saut\u00e9ed Cabbage <\/a>recipe. For something fancy, there\u2019s always the Savoy Cabbage, Apple, Onion & Gruyere Rustic Tart<\/a>. But probably my favorite holiday cabbage side dish (with the same flavor profile as the tart, just with potatoes added) is this St. Patrick\u2019s Day Cabbage, Onion Apple & Gruyere Gratin<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I may not get to eat one of these dishes on St. Patrick\u2019s Day this year, but I do have some cabbage to look forward to\u2014I planted some cabbage seeds directly into one of the hoop house beds last fall, and I now have a few tiny cabbage plants starting to form heads. With any luck, I\u2019ll have cabbage on say, May Day! And baby bok choy even sooner. Can\u2019t wait.<\/p>\n

\"cabbage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I was hiding out in the hoop house, pretending that I didn\u2019t have a long list of things to do before getting on a plane tomorrow. It was warm and bright and still inside, the air spritzed with the fine smell of damp potting soil. I could have stayed there for hours, futzing over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[9,115,103,14,6,45,1],"tags":[42,44,153],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5807"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5815,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5807\/revisions\/5815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sixburnersue.com\/cooking-fresh-eating-green\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}