modom (palindrome guy) wrote:
> Monday night's dinner was rogan josh, using Penzey's spice blend and
> the recipe from the label. I boned out a couple of bargain lamb
> shanks for the meat and made a stock from the leg bones. The dogs
> loved the bones when they were done simmering. I loved the rogan
> josh.
>
> The community garden we're creating is just about done. Last Tuesday
> and Wednesday three of us manhandled a gas-powered trencher through
> the "black gumbo" soil we have around here to lay in PVC irrigation
> pipe. The top 6-10 inches of the soil has been amended and tilled,
> but anything below that is heavy black clay. Incidentally, that
> heavy, sticky clay is one of the reasons the old west cattle drives
> went through Fort Worth and not Dallas: it's a mess to walk through
> when it's wet. Clumps up on your feet. You get taller walking over
> it. Over in Fort Worth, the soil is sandy loam. Good for cattle
> drives and better for the sorry-assed trencher we rented, too. It's
> chain blade was no match for the gumbo. At one point, we hitched it
> to the bumper winch of a one-ton GMC pickup to haul it through the
> unyielding gumbo, but mostly, we pushed, pulled and cussed it down the
> line.
>
> I've never worked so hard in all my years. Tuesday night I almost
> died. I worked a bit smarter Wednesday but came home too beat to cook
> again.
>
> Also on Wednesday we had some helpers in the form of convicts from the
> county lockup to help out, courtesy of the county commissioner for our
> precinct. The convicts were very polite and happy to be outside in
> the sunshine, as you might imagine. They did some heavy lifting for
> us with the 2 x 12 raised bed frames, and they dug some smaller
> trenches where the power machine wasn't an appropriate tool -- not to
> say I consider it an appropriate tool for any of the job. They
> brought a few county-owned shovels for the job and collected them at
> the end of their shift.
>
> They also took my shovel. When I told the commissioner that the
> convicts stole my shovel, he said "What do expect? They ARE
> convicts."
>
> We went out to eat that night, as we had on Tuesday.
>
> Thursday, I acted as a gopher for the guys who'd done irrigation jobs
> like this before. (My work gloves were the newest out there, and that
> signifies) Well, I dug a few ditches, too. The convicts apparently
> lost interest towards the end of the day.
>
> Friday, I toasted coriander seeds and black pepper corns, ground them
> up and rubbed the grind onto a bargain corned beef I'd picked up after
> St. Patrick's Day. I smoked the spiced beef for about four hours and
> got a sort of cheater's pastrami out of it. That evening I took a few
> slices to the bar to meet my friends. They liked my pastrami-like
> substance. D and I had rubenesque sandwiches for dinner that night.
>
> Also Friday, I shoveled a few yards of amended soil into some of the
> raised beds, but that probably wasn't necessary because of the big
> work party on Saturday.
>
> The big work party involved volunteer workers from college
> fraternities, the football team, area churches, the junior master
> gardeners, and the garden association. We also had an ag professor
> with a small tractor and a county guy with a big front-end loader.
> Together we got the raised beds filled with amended soil and spread
> 130 cubic yards of mulch around them.
>
> Lunch was something called "taco soup" a volunteer cooked at the city
> park. It was surprisingly good, but then I was really hungry.
>
> While the shoveling and mulching were going on at the garden D and
> another woman set up a table at city park to sign up gardeners.
> Business was light, but a number of people adopted plots for people
> who can't afford the fee. Dinner was Mexican food one county north of
> here at sweet little place called Jalapeno's. Excellent sopes.
>
> As of this afternoon about 15 people have signed gardener contracts.
> Almost all are going to work it organically, which surprises me a
> little. We have a little over half the garden yet to let, but it
> looks like we've filled a need.
>
> Dinner tonight will be another round of rubenesque sandwiches. Then
> maybe I'll watch some TV.
>
> I'm not getting those bags of composted cotton bur out of the car,
> though.

Oh my! What a lot of hard work! Kudos to you!

I was interested to see that a decent rogan josh can be made just
from Penzey's spice mix, since I would tend to want to start with
the individual spices. Since I have a Penzey's quite near here, I
will try to keep that in mind. Thanks for the review!

--
Jean B.