What did you eat from the garden for dinner today.

[digitS']

For dinner last night, I made stuffed winter squash. We've had that before just with bread stuffing mix and sausage. This time, I used a vegetarian version from here: [url=https://www.westerngardeners.com/stuffed-pumpkin-perfect-for-thanksgiving.html]WesternGardeners.com[/url]

I used Uncle Ben's wild rice mix.

Honestly, I think that it would be a little better if I'd used some of that homemade chili mentioned above . . . . . . instead of the red kidney beans. I was also searching around for a can of black-eyed peas to substitute but didn't find them.

Anyway, the beans weren't from my garden but the winter squash and carrots were and I even found some scallions out there to mince up and put in.

Tonight . . . potatoes with onions and carrots in a curry sauce!

Steve

[bwhite829]

I had more greens. today I harvested more mustard kale early collard turnip greens and my first harvest of spinach. My mother took the spinach, I cooked the collards, turnips, and some of the mustards w/ onion and bacon, and I'm saving the rest of the mustards and the kale for tomorrow.

[TZ -OH6]

My first ever home made pumpkin pie using my only lumina white pumpkin. I'm conflicted because it was raised as a pet.

[DoubleDogFarm]

I'm conflicted because it was raised as a pet.

Yes, but what a good life it had. Organic, grass fed pumpkins. Not from one of those Concentrated Vegetable Feeding Operations. CVFO


Thanksgiving meal

Roast duck, mashed potatoes, salad, stuffing, delicata squash, and store bought rolls. Dessert was Medlar cake with fresh whipped cream.

Yum yum yummy!

It was about 90% home grown.

Eric

[ACW]

I am envious of those with big gardens , mine is tiny even with the balcony ,and my produce all gets eaten on the day of harvest ,with the odd small excess shared with neighbourhood friends .
one day will have a bigger garden and have some stores of the summers bounty .
Just had the first big frost and snow is sweeping down the country toward London ,none yet ,but its coming and very early for England.

[rainbowgardener]

I was out putting flower beds away for the winter... weeding, cutting off dead stuff, mulching with leaves. Pulled up the jerusalem artichokes (a variety of sunflower) and harvested 2.5 pounds of the tubers from a little 3' x 2' patch, while still leaving some in the ground for next year.

Cooked up 1 pound of them as mashed jerusalem artichokes and potatoes. It was yummy! I will post the recipe in the recipes section.

So cool! I have had the JA's in my garden for years and never got it together to actually eat the tubers before, just not quite knowing what to do with them.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Slice them and dip in ranch dressing. Just like carrots and celery, etc.

Dice and add to soup.

Grate some into your tossed salad.

Roast them with your other root vegetables.

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

finished off the jerusalem artichokes with a big pot of cream of JA soup.....

[DoubleDogFarm]

Now that's what I'm taking about. !! Soup, it's good for you.


Eric

[tedln]

Still eating tomatoes from my frozen garden with onions and lettuce salads. I also have a few cucumbers I rescued from the freeze.

I have a lot of really nice turnips I planted in late fall. I'm trying to think of a good way to cook them for everyone in my family to eat. The thing about turnips is they are an acquired taste. I love them, but many in my family don't. I'm thinking about slicing them and sauteing them in bacon renderings. Maybe prepare a light Bechamel sauce with cheese. Add the bacon crumbles and bake the dish. I'm just looking for a way to prepare them that everyone will enjoy. I debating using or not using some of the turnip greens in the dish.

Ted

[applestar]

I like turnips in stews and think they go well with pork (evidently you do too since you're thinking bacon ) or lamb. Fish stews too. I've had them in Japanese style Indian curry as well. In "western" (Osaka and south) parts of Japan, they make sweet/sour pickles out of thinly sliced turnips, but it's a regional specialty in a specific prefecture -- that I can't remember at the moment -- where they grow salad plate sized turnips in volcanic soil.

[tedln]

I'm really surprised at how large my turnips got this year. I have some of those salad plate sized ones. They may be to woody to eat, but maybe not. Most years, they only get to the size of tennis balls. I planted them as a cover crop in my squash beds when my fall squash was about 1/2 grown. They stayed small while they were competing with the squash. When I pulled the squash plants, the turnips took off and grew like crazy. I planted another bed of them last week, most of them germinated and we had a freeze a couple of days after they germinated. The freeze didn't hurt the seedlings, so I will have another crop of turnips later in the winter. The turnip greens are as tall as my knees, but I don't know how good they will be to eat. I once read that turnip greens for eating require a different seed than the purple top seed I planted. I also planted some collard greens to harvest with the turnip greens. In the south, lots of people eat turnip greens, but they usually mix them with collard greens to cook in order to mellow the strong taste of the turnip greens.

In England, people eat a lot of parsnip by roasting them with lamb, beef, or pork roasts. They use them similar to the manner we use potatoes in roasted vegetable dishes. I'm wondering how well turnips would work in the same manner.

Ted

[applestar]

Ooh! I'm getting hungry!

If you have a deli meat slicer, you might be able to slice up your giant turnips into thin slices The slices are carefully stacked up back into the shape of the turnip and (I think) tied together with a twine before being pickled... or else put in tubs sized to hold one turnip each. I think those turnip pickles taste similar to the Chinese vegetable medley pickles that some restaurants serve with the meals. You can also add heat by including one or two (or more) whole hot peppers.

[Francis Barnswallow]

I picked 2 beefmaster tomatoes and a crapload of grape tomatoes. I also picked around 5 servings of red lettuce and 2 orange bell peppers. I would have had cucumbers but vine borers destroyed them, as well as my squash.

[applestar]

Enough micro-greens, chives, and celery for salad! ...and ripe volunteer cherry, Sugar Plum grape, Yellow Bell, and Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes out of the cardboard box. With shredded cooked chicken and store bought cukes, grapes, and pecans and home made raspberry kefir, lemon juice and olive oil dressing to complete the yummy-ness.

[applestar]

I got peckish and had some left over braised chicken embellished with plain yogurt. Generously pinched the growing tips of Purple Basil (cinnamon/anise flavor) in my Winter Window Garden and scattered them finely chopped on top.
(I was bored with rosemary tips in everything -- I just had them with butter and sour cream on baked potato the other day )

[Halfway]

mmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm. A batch of canned tomatoes/salsa/chili base in a large pot of hot chili on a cold winter's day!

mmmm mmmm mmmmm.

[Farmer Bob]

Hi Folks,

It's summer here in South Africa and I harvested some immature loofah and made a wonderful stir fry just with garlic, shrimp and shitake mushrooms Delicious.! Also had some stirfried water spinach . made a quick stirfried meatless stew with purslane ( an edible weed ), chopped onion, chopped tomato and beaten egg. Yummy.! All nice and healthy.!

Waiting for my papaya to ripen so that we can have some fresh desert some day.!

All the best for 2011

Bob

[tedln]

Hi Bob,

Good to see your still kicking and gardening. I thought you were considering moving to the Republic of Congo or Ruwanda or some other country to pursue some of your Christian activities. I wish you and your family the best and the happiest new year. Happy gardening!

Ted

[cherishedtiger]

OMG for the first time in forever I can reply to this!!! After its sat dormant for a while...
Over the weekend I picked my first spinach after almost losing most of it to snails and slugs.
What I did manage to get though was sweet and so yummy!! I had a full gallon size bag after going through it and weeding out all the snail ridden leaves. Which made just enough for us to eat with dinner last night. (and yes I washed every single leaf by hand to ensure it was clean)
I am hoping that now that I have cut it back some and rid the garden of most the snails it will grow back nice and full and be just a sweet and yummy!

[tedln]

OMG for the first time in forever I can reply to this!!! After its sat dormant for a while...
Over the weekend I picked my first spinach after almost losing most of it to snails and slugs.
What I did manage to get though was sweet and so yummy!! I had a full gallon size bag after going through it and weeding out all the snail ridden leaves. Which made just enough for us to eat with dinner last night. (and yes I washed every single leaf by hand to ensure it was clean)
I am hoping that now that I have cut it back some and rid the garden of most the snails it will grow back nice and full and be just a sweet and yummy!

Your making me hungry. Escargot with garlic and spinach. Don't let the snails go to waste.

Ted

[TWC015]

I had some Brussels Sprouts with dinner. The snow finally melted so I could get to the sprouts easily. The Brussels Sprouts plants are about the only plants left growing besides garlic and onions, which are not ready.

[Farmer Bob]

Hey Guys.! If u're into escargots, check out ' Garden snail as escargots-recipes/Sunset/Find articles at BNET ' on Google.

findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1216/is_n5/ai_6547821/

It tells u how to purge garden snails as escargots.

It's summer in full swing in Cape Town and my tomatoes are doing wonderfully well. My Rosa cocktail tomatoes, sweet basil and wild rocket have been major components to our salad bowls and hoorah, we finally had the papaya for desert. ( wasn't very sweet as we had hoped).

We've had some delicious stir fried Loofah and cannot wait for this years crop of bitter gourd which have just started fruiting.

Tried some stir fried chayote tendrils, but found them a bit stringy.!

I'll probably have some some watercress in soup and do a stir fry using water spinach tonight.!

And be brave. Try the escargots instead of squashing them.!

[tedln]

Hey Bob,

Check out this thread and tell us how your family cooked rice when you were a youngster.

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=177681#177681

Ted

[Farmer Bob]

Hi Ted,
I've posted a reply to u privately, but have since sent it to the non-Gardening Related Hoo-ha and Foo forum.
Enjoy.!
Regds,
Bob

[rainbowgardener]

Haven't posted here in forever, because my garden has been under snow almost continuously for 6 weeks now (and more coming).

I have a little bit of frozen stuff, including lots of frozen pesto, left from the season. The only thing fresh from my garden (if you include indoors as part of my garden ) is herbs. My Aerogarden has oregano, parsley, and basil that are big enough to snip from, and my potted rosemary is doing well enough now that I felt ok snipping from it too.

[cherishedtiger]

I finally got out there and cut back all my chives, I have just left them going and they have been growing like weeds! I cut them all back, and chopped them up and dried them. Managed to get an entire bottle of dried chives.
Now to wait for them to grow back again!

[tedln]

Hi Bob,

I read your comments and plan on trying the "old way" you described.

How did you like that stir fried Luffa? I could never find a way to cook it that didn't cause it to simply melt in the pan. I never tried stir fried. I may have to grow Luffa again if I can find something tall enough for it to grow up.

Thanks

Ted

[lorax]

I'm in full swing here, too. Yesterday I had a baked rice casserole filled with fresh zucchini, peas, bush beans, and radishes (all from the garden), and a nice big green salad.

I also put up 27 jars of kimchee using red and napa cabbages from the garden - I'm wondering if the smell is ever going to come out of my hands, but it's so worth it.

[!potatoes!]

these days it's mostly just hot sauce and sour cultured sunchokes.

[digitS']

!potatoes!, I thought you would say something about potatoes !

We had mashed potatoes with celery root last night and a curry with carrots, onions and potatoes, today. That was also what I reported on back in November .

And, that's just about the last of the potatoes. By the 1st week of August, I'd dug 93 pounds. The average American eats 124 pounds a year so, I guess, DW and I had a few too many store-bought French fries over the last 5 1/2 months !

This year, I'm growing at least one late-maturing variety of spud so that I can get a few more pounds out of the 100 square feet I allocate to them and so that I can expect a little longer storage life. Every one that was peeled today had some sprouts to break off.

A few more onions and a lot more carrots are still in storage but - down to just frozen produce from here on out, otherwise.

Steve

[Farmer Bob]

Hi Ted,

All u do is peel the rough skin off from the loofah, rinse and then slice the loofah diagonally ( increases the surface area for heat for quick cooking).

Stir fry ( preferably on gas - more intense heat) Heat sufficient cooking oil in a wok or large surface pan. Add freshly finely chopped garlic ( 1-2 cloves). Sprinkle some salt over the loofah and stir away til just limp. Remove from heat and serve as a side dish.

What I do is grow my loofah on trellises or even use nylon netting ( the kind used by couriers to keep parcels / cartons falling off open LDVs ( light delivery vehicles). That way I can control red spider mite which seems to just love loofah leaves . Harvest the immature loofahs before they get overmatured and stringy. ( Usually a week and a half to two after the flower has fallen off the fertilized female flower )

I recall pics of your trellises that you use for your beans. Those would do just fine, as these guys climb so fast and cling to whatever.! You may even have to guide them as I do as I have very limited space.

Give it a shot. You're a great enthusiast.!

Happy gardening.!

Bob

[rkunsaw]

Yesterday we had sauerkraut with smoked sausage,potatoes and squash.
Today we are having crowder peas and turnips with greens.We eat something from our garden almost every day.
Larry

[gumbo2176]

Steamed Brussels Sprouts and a nice pot of Broccoli Cheese Soup last night. Tonight we'll be eating some chicken/sausage jambalaya(not from the garden) along with a nice tossed salad consisting of many of the greens I am growing this fall.

[!potatoes!]

'!potatoes!, I thought you would say something about potatoes Wink !'

yeah, well...just moved into a new place this year, with a root cellar...which froze solid at least twice this winter. we are assured that it's not a normal occurance, but the poor blackened potatoes are not consoled. sunchokes, on the other hand, don't seem to mind a bit of hard freezing.

bit of work needed on the rootcellar before next winter, though.

[applestar]

Here's a thread with my attempt to grow loofah this past season. Not enough days to produce fruits even though I started them early in the house and the loofah vines did their best to swallow the house.
https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=169789#169789

I'm going to look for shorter season loofah, if there is such a variety....

[Farmer Bob]

Hi applestar,

Wow! Nice pics of that very healthy loofah vine/s.

I start my loofahs right at the beginning of Spring and sow directly into the soil. They haven't done very well as they did last year, as we had an extended winter here in South Africa. Once they start climbing, they just go crazy all over the show and very rapid growth takes place with flowering after about a month . Normally 2 weeks later you should have nice immature loofah to eat.

Apparently one can get a smooth skin loofah . these are from Taiwan. I have the ridged skin loofah.

Regds,
Farmer Bob[/img]

[Farmer Bob]

Had some basil and tomato with Mozzarella cheese as a starter. Oreganum and Marjoram in a chicken and pureed tomato sauce with penne pasta.

Also tried water melon soup. Yes, water melon soup. ( Not from the garden).We took the skin, peeled it and cubed it ( 1cmx 1cm cubes ).

Cooked some chicken bones to make some stock, removed the bones after half hour of boiling , added some salt to taste with the cubed water melon skin. Cooked it until soft and yummy! A lovely soup. try it sometime folks.

[mansgirl]

I made a Zucchini pasta bake. While I had to buy the zucchini, (I wish I could freeze whole zucchini!) I did use a frozen red bell from the garden last fall, and our dried pepper seasoning. It was soo yummy to have zucchini again! I'm really starting to get spring fever.. : )

[DoubleDogFarm]

Duck egg omelet. It's not just for breakfast anymore.


Eric