what are you eating from your garden today 2017

[applestar]

Today I dried lots of herbs (purple basil, tarragon, oregano, thyme, lavender, sage, lemon balm), made pesto from fresh garden (green) basil and garden garlic. I made homemade strawberry mint ice cream with fresh picked mint.

What kind of mint did you use for your ice cream?

[jeff84]

used some carrots, onions, zucchini, bell peppers, and chicken to make stir fry. the chicken came from the store but the rest was straight from the garden.

[rainbowgardener]

Today I dried lots of herbs (purple basil, tarragon, oregano, thyme, lavender, sage, lemon balm), made pesto from fresh garden (green) basil and garden garlic. I made homemade strawberry mint ice cream with fresh picked mint.

What kind of mint did you use for your ice cream?

What I have growing, which is the Kentucky Colonel spearmint.

You actually have to work pretty hard to get the mint flavor to come through. I used three times as much mint as the recipe calls for and it is still fairly subtle. I think next time I will infuse the mint into hot milk and let it sit for a good while...

[digitS']

Snacking on cucumbers, now. The vines have just begun to grow so the 6 they have produced so far is surprising!

In fact, additional cucumber starts began as seeds a couple of weeks ago and have been squeezed into the onion bed primarily as room was made by harvesting some of the scallions. The onions are forming bulbs now and harvesting them will continue -- sliced sweet onions and cucumbers, splashed with vinegar and sprinkled with salt & black pepper ... That's certainly in the foreseeable future!

Several zucchini were harvested on Tuesday. Already today, there was one about 10" that must have doubled in size in 2 days. Oh, and some additional summer squash starts went in between the early cabbage about a week ago and we brought several of the cabbage home, today!

Steve

[imafan26]

Cucumber (Shiyo Kyuri) with mayo and shoyu. Crisp and sweet. Japanese cucumbers have few seeds when they are young and are not bitter. This one was 16 inches long and about an inch in diameter. I gave one to one of my co workers, they did not know that fresh cukes had spines.

[digitS']

...they did not know that fresh cukes had spines.

Next time, you should rub your cucumber with your gloves on before giving it to them. I could say, toss it in a box and carry it for a thousand miles .

Our give them a Beit Alpha type cucumber and have them think that you picked the wrinkled thing a week ago.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Company dinner tomorrow night will be a big pot of vegetarian chili, with lots of garden ingredients. The tomatoes of course, but also green peppers, corn, onions, garlic.... I will make a very big pot of it and then the left overs can go to church potluck Sunday AM.

[Gary350]

I love to cook. I made this for dinner last night, I often change the recipe to suit US. I used baked potatoes as the bowl instead of the green pepper body. I scooped out the inside of each potato and mixed it with, sour cream, butter, Cheddar cheese, then put it back into the empty potato body. I remove the meat from the casing of 2 German Bratsworth and fried it in the skillet with, 1 onion chopped, 5 garlic cloves chopped, 2 tomatoes chopped, 1 large bell pepper chopped, 1/2 cup red wine, 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce, cook and stir until onions are soft and liquid boils away then dump it over the potatoes. WOW it was GOOD.



Our Garden is loaded with vegetables we are in heaven, too bad we can't have fresh garden vegetables year round.

[PaulF]

The Black Cherry and Ambrosia Red Cherry are ripe and the Marianna's Peace will be ripe today. Several peppers have been picked. Golden and dark green zucchini have been fried and eaten and blackberries are loaded, have been picked and frozen so when they are done I can make blackberry jelly.

The harvest has begun in Nebraska.

[xtron]

put up 6 pints of peaches flast Friday, and will have that many more by tomorrow. yesterday I made 4 pints of blackberry jelly and blackberry ice cream YUMM. there's 2 head of cabbage ready to be harvested and processed later this week, and we are eating red potatoes every day or two.

[applestar]

Oh! oh! How do you make blackberry ice cream?

[applestar]

Harvested -- Not quite ripe tomatoes that split from overnight rain, runty onions that "matured" and dried up behind some weeds, overgrown Lettuce that are still good but not for very long, some lemon yellow fully ripe Aji Pineapple hot peppers ....

Had leftover brown rice and a hard boiled egg so -- chopped everything but the lettuce and mixed with a little mayo, then added rice until it seemed like a good ratio. Considered adding something more bit really didn't need anything else. Wrapped the egg-tomato-rice "salad" in freshly harvested/rinsed Lettuce leaves for lovely breakfast -- yum

[Gary350]

Oh! oh! How do you make blackberry ice cream?

Electric ice cream maker usually comes with several recipes. Did you get recipes with yours? Some recipes are cold mix recipes and some are cook recipes. I like the cold easy to make recipes. Milk, sugar, and flavor it about all it is. The addition of cream makes a nice ice cream, I sometimes mix in a container of half & half with the milk. Add sugar and other things recipe calls for then turn on the ice cream maker and let it run. If you put Blackberries in the ice cream maker at the beginning 30 minutes later after it becomes ice cream it will be blue color ice cream with black berry seeds. If you freeze the black berries hard and rocks you can stir them into the ice cream at the very end of mixing. Let them mix about 1 minute. Frozen berries stay together and ice cream does not turn blue. Frozen berries soften by the time you dump the ice cream out of the machine and get it in bowls.

[imafan26]

Ice cream sounds good now. I just had a neopolitan bar for breakfast. It came from the store though. I like my cucumbers prickly. That is how I know it is fresh. The prickles will fall off in 24 hours. I just found another cucumber. It was hiding between two pots. It is going to be more than one meal. I got some calamondin but I gave it to my friend. She uses it for bathing.

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was a Moroccan vegetable stew with almost all garden vegetables, mixed with rice and lentils. Dinner tonight included green salad with lots of garden ingredients and potato salad made with garden potatoes and green peppers and eggs from our chickens! Came out wonderful!

[applestar]

I cut open my Thai Kang Kob cross squash from November 12.



I put the piece I cut off in a stew with pork, daikon, Korean glutinous corn off the cob, immature Enterprise apples, and mushrooms, onions, elephant garlic, and aji pineapple peppers (Rosemary, bayleaf, sea salt) in home made chicken stock. I sautéed the meat in Sunflower oil first, then added the onions, apples, garlic and deseeded peppers, and the mushrooms -- medium-low heat until everything was caramelized while adding chunks of daikon and squash, then deglazed with brewed Japanese cooking wine (I think this is some kind of sake, but not the artificially flavored one). Added the chicken stock and ...oh! To get the gelatinous stock and fat out of the container, I needed hot water, so I ran a 6 oz Keurig cycle into it, but I forgot I had my used eco-brew coffee pod in there, so "weakly" coffee flavored water... Stew tastes wonderful -- so rich and full of flavor.

...I just had a second serving. I can still taste the squash in the tender chunks and a lingering mild spiciness that could be either from the peppers or from the squash.

[xtron]

rib eye steak...from the store.... with fresh picked corn on the cob...both grilled on the bar-b-que, and cole slaw from the cabbage picked the other day. the rest of the cabbage were canned into 8 pints. and that was just the first of the cabbage.
more corn will b e picked tomorrow and frozen/canned/dehydrated.

[applestar]

I had several cocktail size tomatoes -- Maskotka -- split from last night's downpour, and I harvested some garlic chives, so I made a spicy garlic chives omelet with fried not- quite full-ripe tomatoes.

Heat a pat of butter and sunflower oil enough to coat the 6 in. personal sautéed pan. Start by covering the bottom with chopped garlic chives, add one minced Aji Pineapple pepper (no seeds/membrain), sea salt, 2 beaten eggs, 2 deli thin slices of provolone. Fold over and let runny eggs run out and puff in the oil. Remove omelet, arrange halved stem end trimmed tomatoes cut side down and let sizzle. Put omelet back on top and press down to crush the tomatoes into the hot pan. Remove as soon as tomatoes soften and liquid runs out. Yum!

[lakngulf]

Still enjoying lots of tomatoes....Cherokee Purple, Better Boy and Brandywine.....and okra loves this time of the year down south. Lots of okra.

[lakngulf]

My second crop of tomatoes had to deal with some tough, HOT july weather but are hanging in there!



Picked these this morning. Better Boy and Cherokee Purple. These flats make about 8 we have picked off about 20 plants. We consider that pretty good for this time of the year.

[Gary350]

Tomatoes, cantaloupe, corn, beans, squash, potatoes, onions, garlic. .

[rainbowgardener]

Made an "extra vegetable fried rice" recipe with brown rice, with cabbage, tomatoes, green beans, green peppers from my garden.

[benshawlerd]

Pulling out some lettuce today...woohoo!

Got my instructions and planting dates from www.growmigo.com, very accurate recommendations.

Waiting for tomatoes to ripen...

[digitS']

The cherry tomatoes are nice and becoming plentiful. The larger varieties have the "weird ones," down in the center of the plants. Only one or two good enough to slice and use the whole tomato.

The very first ears of corn ... and a little jumping the gun on those . Maybe, there will be some more mature, this morning.

Buckets of potatoes carried out and washed. Probably not a good idea to wash but they have to be carried across carpet and down to the basement ... where it isn't especially cool with near record heat!

The turnip greens are coming out of recovery from the spring flea beetle attacks. I hadn't really anticipated them as a summer green but haven't grown turnips since the seventies! They are good .

Green Beans, Snap Beans, String Beans, Haricot Beans, Phaseolus vulgaris ...!

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Made an "extra vegetable fried rice" recipe with brown rice, with cabbage, tomatoes, green beans, green peppers from my garden.

Nothing new since then, but I am busy processing stuff. Canned salsa and tomato sauce. Dried a whole bunch of herbs (oregano, tarragon, spearmint, rosemary, lemon balm, sage, etc). Made purple basil pesto and purple basil simple syrup. Usually I make basil jelly (green and purple), but I got so carried away making jelly last year, that I still have plenty left, even after giving a bunch away.

[applestar]

-- Dwarf Blazing Beauty (orange), The Witz (yellow), Korean Cucumber, one of the red leaf lettuces, Polish bacon and rye bread. Safflower mayo.... yum.

[ElizabethB]

You all make me HUNGRY



Beautiful harvest one and all

[ElizabethB]

My favorite end of season feast was fried green tomatoes. I had not eaten good fried green tomatoes in years.

[Gary350]

I made a pot of garden chili yesterday evening for dinner. Garlic, onion, dices with the meat with herbs & spices. Enough tomatoes in the blender for 3 pints of liquid. Bring beans & tomatoes to a boil with meat and spices it is ready to eat. Everything is from the garden except for meat and green beans. Sometimes we put corn in chili but not this time. We usually use red beans but not this time. I think I got a little to much oregano in there fresh picked herbs have a lot more flavor than dried herbs.

I am getting ready to make dinner rolls for dinner.

[applestar]

I made pumpkin-coconut cream custard with some of that roasted TKK cross pumpkin. Sooo yummy!

[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