more ramps - pizzas

It probably goes without saying that during ramp season we use them in a lot of our cooking. Basically anywhere we might normally use onions, leeks or shallots as ingredients, and then in a few things that feature ramps specifically.

Many of the ramps we harvested this week boasted really beautiful, large bulbs, some as large as my thumb.

Had some of the crew over last night to welcome our friend Pat back from his short vacation. We made pizzas, had some wine and beer, and hung out around the fire for a while. The pizzas all featured ramps that I harvested the day before. 

I made three different pizzas, but each was highlighted with diced ramp bulbs and leaves. In the image above, from left to right, we have almost-ready for the oven: 1) tomatoes, ramps and cheddar cheese, 2) roasted red peppers, pickled artichokes, kalamata olives, ramps, 3) sliced baby red potatoes, mushrooms, ramps (I added mozzarella cheese to the final two pizzas after taking the picture).

Ducks get a little more yard area

This morning I put up a make-shift swimming pool and plastic netting enclosure for the ducks to use, just outside of their coop. They make such a wicked sloppy mess of their bedding in the area around their water bucket that I figured it might be better to have the watering area outside of the coop, at least during the warmer months. Next week I'll put together something more solid and attractive, but today I was in the mood and just used what materials we had on hand, including emptying out a big red tote that usually holds all of our Christmas decorations but now subs as a swimming pool.

We hope to put a fence all the way around the yard this summer so that the ducks can roam freely and safely in the yard and garden during the day. I still have some work to do on the coop, like finishing the roof off with some greenery, and I hope to finish that up this week as well. 

We clipped their wings before setting them loose in the swimming area, although Kim's duck, Daphne, is so fat that I doubt she could fly without some assistance from a jet-pack.

We're getting two eggs a day from them now, which is pretty cool and has me thinking that a couple more layers might be worthwhile.

Pretty pickled ramps for tonight's Foodie Potluck

I seem to be saying this a lot lately but I am just flabbergasted that it has been nine full days since I las updated the blog. Seems like just three or four days ago. How can these days be going by so quickly?! I suppose it's because I've been generally going full bore from early morning until bed time lately, trying to get as many tasks accomplished in the yard and house before I start work at the new restaurant that will be opening soon in town (more to come on that).

Our Foodie Potluck gang is meeting tonight and this month's theme is Earth Day. A few folks expressed interest in the pickled ramps I posted last week so yesterday I pickled a bunch that I had harvested earlier in the day to bring to tonight's potluck.

Kim holding a couple nice bunches of cleaned and trimmed ramps about to be pickled.

Ramps pickled according to the Curried Pickled Ramp recipe I shared last week. I love the color.

I decided to pickle the entire ramp with this one, thinking it might look pretty cool with the leaves still attached (the leaves taste great pickled too). I was right, they look funky and colorful. We'll see how they go over with the group tonight.

Note: I actually do a lot more posting of recipes, images and other info on facebook than I do on the blog, simply because it's so much easier to quickly load a few photos and write a few lines on facebook than it is on the blog. I am, for the most part, sticking fairly well to my new year's resolution to update the blogsite more regularly and frequently, but if you care to see more of this sort of thing (albeit in a "short-hand" version), you ought to friend me on facebook.

I'm at https://www.facebook.com/JavaTikiKing.