what are you eating from your garden today 2017

[rainbowgardener]

Mixed green salad with cranberries, almonds, feta cheese AND apples from our own tree! They are wonderful!

[digitS']

Now I've got it! Fresh corn, ripe tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, and sweet melons!

There are potatoes and onions and shallots and 3 types of kale to choose from for today's soup. Green beans and chard and turnip greens continue. The peppers and eggplants have just begun. But, we enjoyed the first Goddess cantaloupe & Diplomat galia melons, Friday. There won't be any shortage of these and the others for weeks.

Did I tell you that it looks like it will be an okay melon year?. Yay!

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner tonight was a rice and veggie casserole that had tomatoes, onions, carrots, green and hot peppers, dill seed and herbs from the garden and the green salad with apples from our own tree (the one mentioned above, I made it again because it is really good and we have lots of apples)!

[applestar]

Subject: Applestar's 2016 Garden

- I harvested a nearly mature regular lambs quarters from the HBR -- I should have taken a photo... It was towering OVER the tallest indeterminate tomatoes so approximately 7-8 feet tall? I only cut off the shoots with immature seedheads, then left the remaining stalk in the path to be trampled. I also harvested some from Tree Spinach in the SF&H. These are good when washed well and then allowed to dry, then pulled off and mixed into pot of cooked rice or soup so that the hot food will 'cook" them a bit. Nutty. If left too late, chaff will be too hard and inedible or too much fiber, though may work still in hot cooked whole grain cereal or baked goods where the texture still works with the expected mouthfeel. (They will also start to scatter gazillions of seeds. I want them to re-seed but in manageable amounts. I do leave some stalks growing to mature the remaining seeds for the birds -- finches LOVE these, and I love seeing the Goldfinches along with the more drab house finches, and the rare visits from kinglets and redpolls.)

I did this again -- big bunches of top 2 feet or so with immature seedheads cut from 5 foot plants.

Easiest to process outside, with a heavy pot on the patio table, I pulled the washed lambsquarters through my closed fist/between fingers and collected as much of the tender immature seeds and seedhead sprigs as I was willing to bother with, then took the pot inside and added some butter, salt and leftover brown rice. Then a bit of fresh tomatoes cut in chunks and diced, still-green Korean Melon -- you could sub overgrown cucumber, bottled Yuzu juice (sub lemon or lime juice), diced fresh mushrooms. Was going to just add water, some packaged turkey gravy, and beaten eggs, but discovered polish bacon in the meatbin, so added diced bacon and put on heat to render the bacon a bit, then added water. This makes soft porridge rice kind of like risotto.

So, yummy.

[xtron]

welcome to SeptembeR....I can start harvesting horseradish!!!!

[rainbowgardener]

Thai vegetable stirfry with tomatoes, hot banana pepper, bell pepper, garlic and onion from our garden AND my own lemon grass, ginger leaf, and thai basil. Came out good! At least an approximation of actual Thai food....

[applestar]

I like to brighten up leftovers. I had left-over pasta-tuna salad, so I harvested some immature garlic chive seedpods and flowers and plucked them to mix in the salad, and garnished with nasturtium flowers. Oh yum!

[rainbowgardener]

Company coming for dinner tomorrow night. Menu is a green salad with tomatoes and herbs from the garden (fall greens are too tiny yet!), pasta pesto tossed with garden veggies, which will be carrots, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot banana peppers, onion, garlic, green beans, and some kind of fruit dessert featuring the last of our apples. (Or maybe put the apples in the salad since there will be tomatoes with the pasta and do some other kind of light dessert, like poached pears)

[colcol]

Zucchini and cucumbers -- every day, again and again.... I planted too many! I give them away at work, give to relatives, give to neighbors, still have too many. But at least there's tons of zucchini recipes out there! I was afraid of not having enough if some got wiped out by hail so I planted extra. But fortunately I didn't get hailed out this year.

[digitS']

In somewhat of the same situation here, colcol.

It's okay. This is now too late for both cucumbers and squash. Even the plants that followed the early cabbage and scallions have fairly well played out. I've been running sprinklers this morning trying to mitigate a frost but I'm likely to be only marginally successful. The forecast of warmer temperatures made me feel that it was worth a try.

Mildew on either of those vines encourages me to plant more in early July but mildew didn't become a problem on the older plants this year.

The green beans didn't go down to pests and disease, either. The early bush beans came right back with another crop ... joining the beans I planted in July. Those were just getting to peak rev but I think we got most of them off before these cold nights. So!! Beans, Beans, Beans!

Steve

[applestar]

Tomatoes are still my top harvest. Late planting, even later planting of left over late started seedlings that survived in better shape than usual, unseasonably cool early summer/June and sudden dip in temperature in mid-late August all contributed to the tomatoes surviving better and continuing to produce, with the late-comers starting to present large beefsteaks that normally would be over and done with by now.

With the seed-saving frenzy mostly over, I can casually toss unlabeled, unseeded fruits in the blender to make tomato-base for sauces and soups.

Tons of parsley and leaf celery as well as myoga and shiso... peppers -- Jalapeños, Brazilian Starfish, Aji Pineapple, Sun Thai, Shishito, and Peppadew are good contributors.

[digitS']

We brought home a ton of green tomatoes, yesterday. They joined another ton ... no room for the newest haul, they are in the garage. DW was just saying that we didn't need any more sauce but I think we can fit a little more in the freezer .

Now begins my usual habit of using the green tomatoes as either sauce or soup as they ripen. This lasts until the final tasteless fruit is used - weeks from now. My culinary efforts are focused on trying to do my best with them. It's so much easier with the bowl of summer soup which needs so very little to make it a flavorful addition to a meal.

Anyway, myoga and shiso ... I will harvest my ginger for stir-fries before the unheated greenhouse becomes unsuitable for it. Don't have myoga but shiso volunteers as a few plants every year in my garden since I first grew it about 10 years ago. Such a pretty plant but I have never come up with a use for it! A soup ingredient???

Steve
Who successfully saved his basil from this morning's frost!

[applestar]

Red shiso is used to add color to salty fermented and sun-dried plums -- umeboshi. It's also used to make sweet red "cordial" light or simple syrup -- adding some kind of acid -- lemon juice or citric acid -- turn it bright red. But it has a distinct flavor that is an acquired taste, though there are quite a bit of touted health benefits. Over ice, on the rocks with sake, or mixed with sparkling water.

I also like flowers and immature seedpods and leaves salted down with a bit of mirin, then dehydrated and crumbled. Great sprinkled over hot rice with nori, or as ochazuke ingredient. I think it's called "yukari", but I might be wrong. Immature seeds are crunchy.

You can do the same with green shiso for different sort of flavor.

[Gary350]

We have Kale & Bell Peppers in the garden. We have, corn, beans, tomatoes in the pantry. We ate the last of the, potatoes, onions, garlic.

[applestar]

Turned this squash into a "pumpkin" bread with cranberries and oatmeal. Actually half of the squash. The other half is destined to become a pumpkin coconut cream custard.

[digitS']

AppleStar, I think I should have used the shiso the last time we had salmon. We often use leftover fish for a New England type chowder, although using salmon seems like a bit of an extravagant choice. Using shiso and rice with salmon will seem exotic .

Acquired taste? I'll have to be careful with it since I have never tasted shiso ... except that it might be in some of the sushi that we sometimes have ... never actually made sushi, either .

I have some advice for using pumpkins. These are rather ordinary Jack o'lantern pumpkins, not the "table" varieties. I'm gonna have to practice what I preach because ... I don't think that the varieties I grew this year will make it to Halloween! This is a new problem because I have grown varieties that don't turn orange before frost. Not ordering the Rock Star seed, which has a maturity date just about right for my garden, I went too far with a couple of 90-day choices. They turned orange in August!!

Anyway, I have used Jack o'lantern pumpkins in the kitchen for several years. Rock Star has lasted well into winter on a basement shelf. I explore zucchini recipes! Yes. I don't care for summer squash and actually think that pumpkin tastes better in zucchini bread and zucchini soup. Both "need something" but I have been pleased with the pumpkin, so far! Need to get them into the basement and keep my fingers crossed that they just don't begin to deteriorate immediately.

It wasn't really much of a winter squash harvest and the potatoes need some company down there .

Steve

[applestar]

Fresh pasta sauce -- Today I gathered up all the fully ripened yellow paste-type Roman Candle tomatoes, one big Amana Orange tomato, a few Jaloro (very mild white jalapeño - ripens to orange, but I used the immature pale cream-colored ones), leaf celery... hm what else? oh yes, a very small Korean melon that was harvested immature, but ripened yellow on the counter. Ground them all up in the blender, then added to olive-oil gently cooked until starting to caramelize store bought onions, smashed garlic cloves harvested from the garden, a couple of sliced okra pods (planted very late, they are tiny but trying to produce so I'm harvesting them at barely 2 inches), one tiny 3" Orient Express eggplant diced, and diced Polish bacon. A little sea salt and then cooked down and reduced, then freshly squeezed lemon juice to finish. Cooked Fettuccini directly out of the pasta pot into the sauce pot to meld flavors because the sauce was so rich. YUM!

[xtron]

horseradish!!
dug and processed enough for 6 half pints on Saturday.
they weren't kidding when they advised having the windows open. that stuff can get strong.
had some on burgers yesterday and mixed some in the hot dog chili today...yummie. can't wait to make some deviled eggs and use it in the filling.

[applestar]

We had a nice Dwarf Orange Cream tomato to slice up and eat with our thick hamburgers made with ground beef. DH sighed with contentment and said proper condiments make all the difference.

[rainbowgardener]

I made a big pot of butternut squash stew to take to church potluck. Besides the squash, it had a pound of fresh picked garden green beans in it, plus banana peppers and herbs from the garden. Had left overs to bring home, because I made so much.

[gumbo2176]

Not much out of my garden right now except lots of cukes and some green beans. I've put up about 12 quarts of Bread & Butter pickles from the cukes and have eaten some almost every day in salads or by themselves.

I'm getting enough green beans every 4-5 days to have enough to cook down with some ham or sausage, onion, garlic and a bit of chicken stock to become a few days worth of side dishes to accompany dinner.

If oxalis was a food crop I could feed the neighborhood as it is going nuts in my garden right now. I can't wait until cooler weather takes it out.

[digitS']

I had Apple Upside Down Pumpkin Cake for breakfast.



There were two baked a few days ago and conventional cake-eating time should broaden in the interests of economy after something like that has been around awhile.

The apples are local but the Sweet Meat squash that I used in place of pumpkin, came from the garden a few weeks ago. Sweet Meat is also known as Oregon Heritage. I grew up in Oregon but just discovered this squash a few years ago. Glad I did!

Steve

[ElizabethB]

I am actually getting some production from my very late fall garden. I have 4 cucumbers on the counter and 2 more to pick today, Fruit on all 8 tomato plants, This evening I will harvest my second batch of mustard greens and enough Kale to make Kale chips for George.

I am monitoring the weather closely. There may be frost later in the week. If so I will drape my boxes with visqueen over night.

Cauliflower and broccoli are growing like crazy but not yet showing any sign of fruiting.

I had a hell of a time getting spinach to germinate. I finally have a crop on the horizon.

I have had difficulty with most of my seeds this fall - multiple plantings required. Because I was so late planting I just grabbed some seed packs from Lowe's. Not doing that again. I have a list of seeds to order for spring. No more store bought seeds.

I am concerned that my tomatoes will not have time to ripen. If they do not I will have to force myself to eat fried green tomatoes and salsa Verde

I also had a very low germination rate on my lettuce and herb seeds.



This is the first time I planted cucumbers in the fall. DUHHH! Cucumbers are now on my list for fall planting.

Whether I get a harvest or not I am just happy to have pretty green stuff growing in my boxes.

[gumbo2176]

ElizabethB, I'm with you on lack of success with my earlier planting of seeds. They came up sparingly, at best, in some crops and not at all in others. I planted several different leaf lettuces and only 2 of them came up in any numbers. My kale, Swiss Chard, bunching onion seeds, and beets hardly sprouted, and the ones that did sprout didn't survive for long. I will be planting more seeds by the weekend.

Oh, and as far as spinach goes, I've never had it do well for me in this part of the world. It seems even if it sprouts, it doesn't grow well and get any size to it. That is why I'm a big chard fan.

I may have jumped the gun a bit planting seeds when I did since we still had a few more weeks of less than ideal conditions as far as heat and humidity, but it has cooled off nicely the past few days and it looks like the real heat is now finished until late spring on 2018-----------at least I hope so.

[Gary350]

We put 4 cube steaks in the crock pot before lunch, add 1 quart of garden tomatoes form the pantry, 1 large onion sliced, 6 cloves or garlic, 1 package of dry french onion soup mix, cook until about 4 pm. We also had, potatoes, peas, carrots for dinner. It was all good.

[rainbowgardener]

For breakfast we made an omelet, with eggs from our chickens and green peppers, chives, spinach and chard from the garden!!

[imafan26]

Cucumber and lemons. Ginger is ready, I just have to get it out of the pots.

[applestar]

This is the last of the 2016 squashes. ...that’s funny Applestar made a typo and wrote 2016... Nope. This was harvested Oct 21 2016. One of Thai Kang Kob crosses.

I lost another one that was fully ripe and completely buff colored last week. It had turned to mush INSIDE the rind, which was intact and let me pick up the squash-turned-water balloon without mishap, and put it in the compost. That one was over one year old from harvest.

[ElizabethB]

For dinner last night I took some mixed pepper chili out of the freezer. From the garden we had smothered mustard greens and a salad - the lettuce and cucumbers were from the garden. The cucumbers are producing wildly so we have cucumbers with both lunch and dinner and for snacks. Still more than we can eat. I made cucumber/ginger infused water.

I know - I could make pickles or chutney but that will not happen. I really have to be "in the mood" to can.

Too busy with cooking challenges from the cooking forum I belong to, making dishes for the holidays that can be frozen and have to do house cleaning.

[applestar]

Went grocery shopping yesterday, bought soy-free organic mayo… only to find out the lid was loosened under the “tamperproof” film seal and weirdness was floating on top, oozing grease. (puke)

Well I bought a bunch of expensive high-end deli meats too and I can’t have ham sandwich without mayo…. so I made my own —- using a hand blender in re-purposed peanut butter jar … organic egg yolks, bottled yuzu citrus juice, and organic Dijon mustard; emulsified with with heated to simmering mixture of organic sunflower oil, organic evoo, organic virgin coconut oil, rice wine vinegar, Apple cider vinegar, cowboy candy syrup, my own chili powder, dehydrated onions from this summer’s harvest, slivered Russian marble garlic clove, dried thyme from summer harvest, dill stems from earlier in the week still drying sprigs (removed), Pink Himalayan sea salt, Mediterranean Sea salt, freshly ground organic black peppercorns., and kefir whey added at the end.

Delicious.

[gumbo2176]

I picked the last of the cucumbers off the dying vines a couple days ago and decided to put up more Bread & Butter pickles and wound up with 4 quarts worth. I sent a quart I put up a couple weeks ago with the wife to her office 2 days ago and she told me her coworkers have just about cleaned out the jar, so it looks like they are a hit over there.

We're having meatballs/Italian sausage with red gravy over pasta tonight and I fixed a nice salad with kale, chard, mixed leaf lettuces and a couple cucumbers I kept for salads. I did have to use store bought tomatoes, but that is all that came from the market.

[rainbowgardener]

We had company for dinner which was green salad including chard and spinach from the garden and curried butternut soup with garden grown squash. Very yum!!

And I made a huge pot of the soup, so there is some for leftovers and a bunch to freeze.

[applestar]

Haven’t been feeling too well and need to kick this cold. Opened a bottle of elderberry syrup made from this summer’s harvest — about 1 part mixed with 4 parts hot water, then a splash of summer harvested blackberry-spirytus cordial. Yum.

[applestar]

This was a couple of days ago, but At MIL’s House, we had ham for Christmas. This year, the middle BIL was the chef, with MIL supervising. The ham and the rest of the meal was overall excellently done, except — as My DH put it, he was a bit “ham-fisted” with salt on the spinach and on the corn, while the broccoli had been left unsalted....

But what I made was from the leftover ham — bones and fatty and stringy scraps which we brought home — a ham and great northern beans, carrots, and pea soup. I started with sunflower oil and butter caramelized onions and garlic in the bottom of the pot, then added the giant ham bone and the scraps. Instead of a bit of ginger which is my usual addition, I added about a cup of older home made kimchee that nobody wanted to eat out of the jar anymore, along with one of the fat daikon slices that was pressing the kimchee down. As soon as I added it, and the pungent kimchee aroma filled the pot, I wondered if I had made a mistake and nobody would want the soup now, but by the time it had cooked, the kimchee was completely melted into the soup and had added depth of flavor that was astounding.


Before that I made beef and barley soup which was made with demiglace made with winter-harvested celery from the garden, and added “it’s been opened and left in the fridge a little too long orange marmalade” that nobody wanted to eat from the jar any more and last slice of Swiss emmentarle cheese as well as about a cup of konbu (kelp) left over from making broth for tofu and potato miso soup.... oh yeah I added the water that was used to preserve the used konbu in the ham and bean soup. Oh! In both soups, I added 2 green Gochugaru yon Gochu Korean pepper pods harvested from the garage where they are hopefully overwintering.


So far nobody has noticed these oddball additions but have praised the soup.

...oh yes’m the garlic and herbs used for the soups also can from the garden.

[MoonShadows]

Just made a leftover turkey sandwich for breakfast topped with fresh lettuce from my indoor kitchen garden.

[Lindsaylew82]

Last night we had collard greens! There are two niiiiice heads of broccoli still on the plants out in the tiny garden I'm "tending". I didn't want to waste the stems and stalks of the collard greens, so I started a lactofermentation of them. I hope they turn out!

Apple,

Do you have a ginger bug? I bet some of that syrup would make a really nice soda!

[applestar]

Oooh Lindsay, I actually had not heard of a ginger bug. (how did I miss that all these years? )

I’ve looked it up and am going to get a culture started ASAP. Yes my potted ginger tub in in the house and I can dig some ginger up as I need them

Sooooo glad you came by to visit.

[applestar]

I heated up the last of the ham/bean soup broth/liquid, added diced carrots, onions, and diced up all of the good pieces of the leftover ham we still had left in the fridge... a good amount of fresh black oyster mushrooms, frozen peas... finished with a splash of Tanqueray gin, then used TJ’s frozen pie dough to make a pie. When I told DH we didn’t have any potatoes, he proposed adding leftover storebought potato salad that was a bit too vinegary for our taste (you see how I’m influencing him? ) I decided to layer the potato salad in the bottom of the pie rather than mixing in as he thought, then the cooled filling on top. While I was preparing the eggwash for the top crust, I decided at the last minute that I would add a kind of custard over the filling (without seasoning so as to tone down the intense flavors of the combined filling), so I beat 2 eggs with some kefir and used it as eggwash, then opened a hole in the middle of the top crust and carefully poured the rest in while lifting the top crust to allow the mixture to spread without overflowing from the hole.

Here it is




I forgot (again) that TJ’s frozen pie dough is a bit overly sweet, so there is a bit of objection to the sweetness that I can’t get over, but overall, it turned out yummy and I had two wedges in succession

(... nah none of the added ingredients for the pie was from the garden, not even the mushrooms unfortunately, but it’s a follow up to the post above so I put it here ... )

[Lindsaylew82]

I've had this particular bug for about 4 weeks! My first 3 were failures...

I have been bitten by the fermentation bug! and I have been trying recipes from Sandor Katz's Wild Fermentation. I'm in love! I think I'll try my Kimchi tonight. I made it with cabbage leaves, broccoli leaves, cauliflower leaves (all from my garden) and a massive head of Napa cabbage one of my organic chemistry professors gave me in exchange for some of the cilantro that is thriving in my itty bitty garden! It just hit the 3 week mark. It's a little funky (cabbage-y funky), and I'm honestly a bit intimidated by it!

Another friend of mine gifted me 4 cabbages! I've been looking for a recipe, but I think I'll just try sauerkraut!

Winter break, and I'm enjoying what freedom my research allows! I've missed y'all!

[Lindsaylew82]

It got down in the teens last night, so we cut the broccoli heads. We had the lightly steamed with salt and pepper. They were SO good... these were the largest broccoli I’ve ever grown!
We had some of the greens as well last night!

Tonight I tasted the Lactofermented collard green stems and carrots. Perfectly sour and salty! I put them in the fridge!