what are you eating from your garden today 2017

[rainbowgardener]

I know we've had a what are you eating from the garden thread, but I couldn't find it, so I thought I'd start a new one for this year.

Dinner tonight was home made minestrone soup. It had swiss chard in it for the green element (you can also use spinach, kale, etc) fresh picked from the garden. It also had my herbs (basil and oregano) dried from last year's garden. AND it had green beans from last summer's garden that I froze.

I just a week or so ago used up the last of the butternut squash from last year's garden.

I don't know why it makes me so happy to be eating from my garden, but it does!!

[angiecis]

I don't have any veggies ready yet for eating from my garden but I made toast last night with a mixture of butter and fresh rosemary from my garden and it was amazing!!

[Allyn]

Today? Lettuce and peppers -- both green bell and Thai. Yesterday, I used some of my fresh parsley in a batch of tomato sauce. Tomorrow, I'm making pizza with some of the tomato sauce. I'll use more green bell peppers on the pizza and more lettuce for a side salad.

[rainbowgardener]

One thing I have in my garden right now besides chard and lettuce is parsley! Last year's parsley plants are getting huge.

So I am looking for (vegetarian) recipes that use a lot of parsley, not just a little garnish. So far I have:

tabbouleh http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tabbouleh/
parsley-mint-pistachio pesto http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/parsley ... chio-pesto
parsley ravioli in brown butter sauce: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/parsley ... tter-sauce
green goddess mac and cheese http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/gr ... nd_cheese/

I am going to start trying some of these!

[Allyn]

The Mac & Cheese looks wonderful.

There's always Parsley Potatoes. That's an old favorite.

Lemon-Parsley Green Beans: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/146100/lem ... reen-beans
Olive and Parsley Pesto: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/242128/oli ... sley-pesto

[rainbowgardener]

I did make the Green Goddess mac & cheese. It is a nice concept, but too timidly executed. If I make it again I will double the amount of greens in it. If you are going to call something Green Goddess, it seems like it ought to be ... well... green. This had more like little flecks of green in it. But the seasonings are good. I will do it again with more greens and see how it turns out.

[OliverWonderland]

Hmmp! My veggies on the garden just started, but can't wait to eat it soon.

Oliver

[applestar]

Basil, parsley and microgreens from the Winter Indoor Garden

[PaulF]

Dust...it's so dry here that when I put the tomato cages out to plan for May the wind picked up and I ate dirt for a while.

[applestar]

I made anko (sweet red bean paste) with some of last summer's adzuki beans. Then I made some tapioca to eat with the anko, and also made anko and hazelnut meal filled rolls in a muffin pan using brown-rice flour-based gluten-free flour, substituting almond-hazelnut-coconut milk kefir for the liquid. I had a small portion of the dough and larger portion of anko-hazelnut meal mixture left over, so I used a mini-muffin pan and layered the dough, anko mixture, then tapioca. Both the rolls and the layered mini-treats turned out great.

[rainbowgardener]

Still just chard, parsley, lettuce, but the spinach is almost ready to start taking a few leaves from.

And my herbs have come back to life and greened up, so I've been using thyme, oregano, tarragon, mint, and sage from my deck containers. Yay!!

Love spring salads! I've been giving our chickens handfuls of chickweed every day and they love it, so I've started putting some in our salads. Very nutritious. I've been feeding some to Penelope, the pig that lives behind our back fence, too.

(I don't know if I ever mentioned: the horse ranch behind us changed management. There's still lots of horses and dogs, but the peacocks went away. Instead there is the pig [she's an indoor pig and asks to be let out to potty, the way dogs do], four goats, and chickens. )

[applestar]

It was a miserable morning -- dark, raining, thundering.... I found a bag of fresh shelled mix of PPP, Kentucky Wonder, and Purple Hulled Pinkeye in the freezer and a hunk of Polish bacon in the meat bin, left over coleslaw, opened jar of my roasted pepper salsa.... red onions, celery, carrots, beef broth, my own garlic, oregano and coriander.... leftover brown rice... yep. Oh and peppadew and Brazilian starfish peppers from the winter indoor garden. Molasses, vanilla sugar.... oh yum.

[rainbowgardener]

For dinner last night we had curried butternut squash soup. It is the last of last year's garden squash. In fact the squash was used up awhile ago. But when I used up the last of it, I made a huge pot. Brought a whole bunch to a potluck supper and then froze the rest. So I got it out of the freezer. Now it's all gone!

[rainbowgardener]

And we recently had the last of the frozen minestrone soup made with last year's garden veggies.

Rather than just freezing peas, beans, canning tomatoes or whatever, I like to make them into recipes. When I'm cooking something with my garden veggies, I just make a double batch and freeze half. Really not much harder than just making enough for now. And then there's a nice soup or lasagna or whatever, that I just have to take out of the freezer and stick in the bottom of the frig to thaw and there's a meal! Most of last year's frozen stuff is used up now, except I still have about six bags of pesto frozen... I suppose we need to start using it up, since I now have this year's basil planted.

[pepperhead212]

Last night I made a dish to which I added 3 c of okra, frozen last season. And, as usual. garlic from last season. I have some more things that I need to use up, before this year's harvest starts!

[PaulF]

Six spears of asparagus have poked up through the cool ground. It will be ready in a few days if the rain stops and the soil dries out a little.

[rainbowgardener]

Tonight's dinner - pesto potato salad, made with garden pesto made and frozen last year and fresh picked parsley. Last night was the bean cheesy chard recipe, made with a whole big bowl full of chard. The chard out there is getting huge! That was served with a green salad that was mostly from the garden.

[imafan26]

All I used was some green onions for my cheese omelette.

[rainbowgardener]

My contribution to the Easter potluck at our Quaker meeting will be a torta pasqualina (Italian Easter pie). https://www.thebakingfairy.net/2016/03/ ... asqualina/

It calls for spinach, but although we have lately been eating spinach from the garden, I would be hard pressed to come up with a pound of it. But I can easily harvest a pound of swiss chard (which is huge and vibrant) without denting the supply too much, so that's what it will be.

Maybe next year I can do it with our own fresh eggs!

[imafan26]

Right now I have eggplant, lemons and limes for a quick and easy dish. Slit the eggplant in half and nuke it for about two minutes. Cheese is optional. I like soy sauce and lemon or lime juice. The rest of the lime makes flavored water.

[rainbowgardener]

So I did make the torta pasqualina. Came out beautiful looking, though it won't get cut into until tomorrow.

A pound of swiss chard turns out to be about 30 big leaves (weighed after being peeled from the heavy mid-ribs). Two big serving bowls piled full. It does cook down a LOT though. And there's still more chard out there than I know what to do with. The recipe also called for 5 oz of baby kale. I was able to harvest that from the garden also - the first time this season I have harvested kale. a

Chard is amazing. I always tell people if you could only grow one thing, grow chard! The chard that is out there was planted more than a year ago. It made it through extreme heat and drought (though it did look pretty sad there for awhile) and through winter frosts (wilted for awhile but popped right back up) and then started thriving again. One 5' wide row when it is thriving is more chard than the two of us can use!

[digitS']

I had thought to post this in the weather thread but it hardly makes sense to follow RainbowGardener's post on being almost uniquely in US drought with a lament on a lingering, almost-winter coolness.

So, I'll post here following RG's wonderful Torta Pasqualina information .

Quiche isn't too unusual in this home in the spring. I decided as a teenager, that since I learned to make pumpkin pie as a child, I should be able to make a quiche. The problem is I have no spring greens in 2017! Undeterred, we have had scrambled eggs with chives . And, that seems like always where we start off on the garden harvesting.

Not a very auspicious start but I don't even have as much as a spinach seed in the ground. I'm sure that if I did - that seed would be doing nothing in the way of growing. Officially, we have only had 2 days above 60°f this year! As usual, the local area is running neck and neck with communities in North Dakota for growing degree days. Yeah, that's a weather link and not a recipe .

The Weather Service says that today, should be day #3 in the 60's. I will be busy with family today but expect to finally be sowing seed for the cool season crops this week! Maybe I will have made a spinach quiche by this time in another month.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

We had company over the weekend and for brunch I made a spinach omelet for five people with my garden spinach. Still mainly eating greens, but lots of them in abundance. We are giving lettuce away, since it will be bolting soon. Eating spinach, chard, kale.

We are not far away from broccoli season and there are pods on the pea plants! Soon the garden will be giving more than greens and herbs! And by summer the omelet will have fresh eggs!

[rainbowgardener]

Oh and tonight's dinner, along with green salad completely from the garden, had stir fried veggies, including a red onion I pulled from the garden. It would have gotten bigger if I left it longer, but was already like three times golf ball size and beautiful with a purple-red skin. Yay! First thing from my garden that wasn't greens or herbs.

[rainbowgardener]

Gave away a bunch of lettuce to my neighbors, since it will be bolting soon anyway.

Dinner tonight was a big pan of swiss chard lasagna. Ate some, save some for left overs, and froze half. It used another pound of swiss chard and still there is tons of it out there.

[Taiji]

Been eating on this all week. Smallest of the 4 Blue Hubbards I grew. Only 3 more to go. It's been sitting around since last Sept. 15, when I harvested it, the day of the first fall frost. The rind was so hard I had to cut it open with a handsaw, then cut into smaller pieces with a handsaw too. Amazing how moist it still is inside after over 7 months.

The blemished area is where the squash sat on the ground. Next year will put fruits on some layers of cardboard or straw or something as they grow.

[gumbo2176]

I've been eating, and giving away Kale, Swiss Chard, Collards, green beans and cucumbers of late. My soybeans for edamame are almost ready to pull and pick, as is my garlic I planted last fall in early October. My few tomato plants do have quite a few green orbs that are nearing the ripening stage and my Japanese Yard Longs are finally producing beans that will be ready to pick about midweek.

I also have several bell pepper plants with good size peppers on them and my hot peppers are starting to bud like crazy. I even got to pick a couple Butch T peppers that overwintered and are coming in slowly but surely. Seems the hotter the pepper, the slower they grow and produce-----until it heats up in the summer months, then it's gangbusters.

[rainbowgardener]

I made minestrone soup again tonight. It had a ton of spinach and chard from the garden and basil, oregano and thyme, and onion stems chopped up for green onions. AND it had green beans and peas from last year's garden, which I had frozen. So I made a big pot of it and froze half for later. So I'm cleaning the freezer out the last of last year's frozen stuff and starting to fill it up again with this year's.

And I'm eating and giving away tons of lettuce.

[rainbowgardener]

Does it count if I am eating from my neighbor's garden? My neighbor a few doors down the street just gave me a gallon bag of carrots from her garden, because she had too many to use.

These are carrots she planted in the fall. Somehow it never occurred to me to fall plant carrots for over-wintering. I guess it's a Southern thing! Definitely will try it this fall!

Last night I made the bean cheesy swiss chard recipe for four of us.

So since April 16 I have made the torta pasqualini (enough to take to potluck), the swiss chard lasagna (enough for two of us to eat twice and then freeze the other half), the minestrone (likewise to eat twice and freeze) , and the cheesy chard (to serve four). That is total well over 100 LARGE chard leaves I have picked in that time, from my one five foot row of chard. And there is STILL lots out there. It is getting ready to bolt now, so I may just leave a couple plants to go to seed and pick and freeze all the rest.

If you can only grow one thing in your garden, grow chard!!

[rainbowgardener]

Strawberries!!! Sugar snap peas!!! Yay!

Also tonight I am making "chard utopia" which is basically spanakopita made with swiss chard instead of spinach. I often like the spinach recipes better with chard, which has a little more body and flavor.

Still using my bounty of chard!

[rainbowgardener]

And also carrots!!

I usually thin carrots by eating, so I don't start thinning until they are big enough to have tiny baby carrots. So I thought I would start thinning and was expecting the tiny babies. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out carrots 5" long and carrot shaped! That seed was planted in the ground Jan 19th!! (Yes January, the ground never freezes here. )

The chardokopita from above turned out yummy. We had a salad with it all from the garden and including the carrots.

[applestar]

Wow, you really ARE eating out of the garden already

...What variety carrots were these? Last year, I tried several different varieties in the same bed well labeled, and noted some were definitely much earlier and well formed. One was in a mixed color packet, but luckily was kind with different varieties listed -- and am pretty sure it was Bambino.

[digitS']

... Undeterred, we have had scrambled eggs with chives . And, that seems like always where we start off ...

bok choy from covered beds in the most protected part of my gardens

This location is still behind on spring warmth (but ahead of Devil's Lake, ND ), according to the Weather Service. More warm days, however ...

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was pesto pasta, using the last of last year's frozen pesto. (Thought I might as well use it up as we will soon be able to make fresh). With it we had a big green salad, all from the garden except I added some grape tomatoes. The salad was topped with fresh picked garden peas and carrots (sliced and lightly steamed). Wonderful dinner!

And I have started harvesting and drying herbs - lavender, thyme, tarragon, mint, lemon balm, oregano.

[rainbowgardener]

So I hit my all time personal best of amount of peas to harvest at one time-went out and picked a pound of peas! But peas are so transient. There may only be one more pea harvest, since some of the vines are starting to wither at the base. Dinner tonight will be curried garden peas and carrots served over rice, with a garden green salad. (And cut up fruit, not from the garden).

[digitS']

Enjoying Siberian kale and ..

. broccoli raab from the hoophouse the last few days.

The bok choy left in there wants to bolt. It's okay that way. After all, the broccoli raab is supposed to bolt.

Steve

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was baked potatoes (unfortunately NOT yet from the garden) with garden broccoli!!

Harvested the first two heads of broccoli, along with some carrots, peas, lots of greens, an onion, and the first ripe cherry tomato (which I have to confess didn't make it into dinner, I just ate it!! )

Along with the potatoes and broccoli, we had a veggie stirfry with all of the above and some grocery store zucchini and lots of fresh herbs.

[imafan26]

snow peas and beans.

[PaulF]

strawberry/rhubarb crumble, lettuce and the last of the radishes.

[rainbowgardener]

Dinner last night was a veggie stir-fry, almost entirely from the garden. The last of the garden peas, with carrots, broccoli, onion, swiss chard, tomatoes, with lemon grass and thai basil. Threw in one potato for substance and some garlic, but everything else was garden grown.

I froze up some swiss chard, which keeps stubbornly refusing to die!