Quintessential Summer Supper

 Cherokee Purple, Sungold and Pink Bumblebee tomatoes with some summer friends

I can't get through July without posting about this most summery of plates.  We've been eating some combo of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and snap beans once and sometimes twice a day for the past couple of weeks.  I do not tire of this grouping as I know it will never taste quite the same at any other time of year as it does when it comes fresh from the garden.

Some S&P, O&V and a smattering of feta or cottage cheese with some purple onion for bite and fresh basil for pizazz, its just hard to go wrong.

On the left up there is a zucchini stuffed with a custard made of fresh corn, egg, milk and cheese.  It's topped with fresh tomato sauce made of nothing but onions and garlic sauteed in olive oil with peeled chopped plum tomatoes.  It is so sweet and simple.

I added a pile of lentils last night for some more protein.  French lentils are great eaten cold, worth a try if you haven't and they cook up quickly too.

Best news of all.  It's raining.  Rained last night too.  A half an inch and I'm feeling maybe we'll have another half inch or more tonight.  Everyone, even non-gardeners, are breathing a sigh of relief.

 Corn Stuffed Zucchini (Calabacitas rellenas con elote)

           Adapted from Diana Kennedy's The Cuisines of Mexico 

3 large zucchini- wash, trim the ends and cut in half lengthwise.  Scoop out the flesh and save for another dish, leaving a 1/4-1/2 inch thick "boat" to hold the custard.

Put in a blender:

   Scraped kernels from 3 ears of corn

   1 egg

   1-2 T milk (enough to free the blades of the blender)

   1/4 t salt and some fresh pepper

Puree

Add 1/2 cup of grated cheese, and give another zip in blender

(I like muenster but you could use jack or cheddar)

Put zucchini boats in a baking dish, pour the custard into the boats, top with more grated cheese.

Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes-one hour.

Serve with fresh tomato sauce and some chopped fresh parsley or basil.

Where's Jack?

The rain just won't quit.

Another 7 tenths last night, after 7 tenths the night before, after.... I can't keep track anymore, it seems its rained almost everyday.  As a result things are growing very tall, I guess they are trying to reach for the sun?

Standing in front of the pole bean trellis

David added  3 feet to the top of this trellis and still the beans have grown another three feet beyond that, winding and wrapping around themselves in an attempt to grow higher.  They are finally setting flowers and beans, I may have to get a ladder to pick them though.  In addition to Jack in the Beanstalk references I keep hearing Aretha singing The House That Jack Built "But I ain't got Jack, and I want my Jack back".

The extension David made for the cucumber trellis was so heavy with vine and fruit that it snapped and folded over on itself.  So now picking cucumbers is more like an excavation.  But they keep putting on, with all the rain they are watery, crisp and sweet.  I am glad we will be leaving for a vacation in another 10 days and when we get back, hopefully all the cucurbits and tomatoes will be dead.

After making 4 gallons of tomato sauce, half in the freezer, half in jars and tucked safely away for winter, I am happy to see the tomatoes coming to an end.   But not quite, so last night we took advantage of the first 3 fat eggplants and the squash surplus and made a big pot of ratatouille.  So tasty.

 Vat of Rat + Today's Harvest

Back in my restaurant days we would make 5 gallon buckets of ratatouille and put it in everything from omelets to crepes or serve it as a side dish along side cold roasted lamb.  There, we actually flash fried each vegetable in oil and added it to the cooked tomato sauce.  At home, I sauté batches of each veggie in olive oil and then simmer it all together with tomatoes, onions, garlic and a healthy handful of fresh basil.  Yum.  Some of this is headed for the freezer too.

In fact, we are slated to go out and buy a new larger freezer today as our 25 year old 10 cubic foot freezer is stuffed and we need more space. It's making this groaning sound that gets me nervous, I would hate for the old thing to die right now as its filled to the brim with cherries, blueberries, tomato sauce and more.  I hate shopping but sometimes you just gotta do it.  25 years for an appliance is not bad, and I fear the new one won't last half that long.

Between Rain Showers

I just dashed out between the rain showers to snap a few photos and cut some lilacs to bring in before they got all smashed and ruined in the rain.  I can't believe that it is already the 6th of May and 3 weeks since my last post.  Apologies faithful readers, it's been a busy patch.  This Gold Flame lonicera (honeysuckle) has been spectacular over the past week and continues to delight, especially nice that it can be seen from the kitchen window.  Last season it bloomed 4 times over the course of the season, a real winner.

What have I been up to since last I wrote?  Learning more about bird banding over at Prairie Ridge and taking a few bird walks around here in search of spring migrants, they seem a bit late due to the cool weather.  I've organized work days and planting at the community garden. I went to a two-day writing workshop on "Those who shape us - character portraits"  with my long time teacher Carol which was really good, now I need to put the learning into practice as I continue to work on a long piece about "my life in food" and my early days in Austin, Texas.

We've had two more meetings of the garden club mob, one at a new garden and one at Spanish for Fun Academy child care center.  This was our "community service" effort of the group as one of our members works at SFF and has no garden space at home.  I have been working with them for 2 years on their naturalized play space, adding more bit by bit. Click here for photos of the play space over time, I was just looking at them and its kind of amazing how it has changed, going from having nothing growing there to adding 16 trees, many shrubs, blueberries, apples, strawberries and a fig tree, veggie and flower beds- remarkable! 

Yesterday I  worked like a maniac all day trying to get the rest of our summer veggies planted before the next long rainy period which started just about the time I could no longer stand up straight last evening and is to continue through Wednesday!  I was a success, planted 16 assorted pepper plants that I started from seed back in March; red, yellow and orange bells, Carmen Italian stuffing, Hungarian round pimentos, one Serrano, one new Mex Joe Parker and one Marconi Gold yellow Italian.  I also prepped beds and sowed 3 kinds of cukes; Tasty Jade, Diva and Suyo Long, 3 kinds of squash; sunburst patty pan, romanesco costato zucchini, and yellow crook neck- the seed viability test of the year with seeds from 2000!  I sowed 3 kinds of beans, are we picking up a theme here?  Roc d'or yellow wax, Tavera haricot verts and Pension Italian flat. I also set out some basil and parsley plants.

I had managed to get most of the tomatoes in back around April 15th, but yesterday I added 4 cherry tomato plants to round out the tomato planting to a total of 28 plants.  This years goal was to have more plum tomatoes for sauce and canning and fewer slicers, but because we like so many kinds and want a variety, I still planted more than we probably need.  Seven Mariana hybrid romas and 7 Red Agate romas, and a couple of each; Cherokee purple, Georgia streak, Celebrity, Bolseno, Mosckvich and beef steak, and the four cherries; Sungold, Sundrop, Bi-color and Sweetie.  I think we won't see a shortage of mates this season!

I will leave you with a couple of photos of clematis that have started to bloom in the past couple of weeks, they're very happy with all the rain.  Here is Niobe, transplanted last year to this sunnier spot, it grew and grew but never flowered, this year it is covered with buds.

 This is Nelly Moser below, very happy on the fence between the veggie garden and the lawn.

and up close

I'm glad for all the rain, but am looking forward to warmer weather, it is May after all, seems weird to have the heater running.  I'll try to write more this month, there is certainly plenty to write about!

Finally

The thermometer read 24 this morning, a hard freeze at last.  I cut this vase of roses yesterday knowing what was to come, they bring great cheer to chores at the kitchen sink.  I cleaned out my neighbors chicken coop and brought a wheelbarrow brimming with poop down to add to the compost pile. Anticipating the freeze, I pulled out the last of the beans, zinnias, nasturtiums and peppers and layered them all into a big hoop of fence wire about four feet across and three feet high. Along with the garden refuse I layered the chicken poop and freshly raked leaves.  Greens, poop, browns, water.  Greens, poop, browns, water... until I had filled the entire bin. It should get nice and hot and cook up some excellent compost for next summers planting.

Jackson Wonder Lima Beans

We enjoyed a first freeze harvest dinner that included a pot of lima beans and the last of the green beans all simmered up together, roasted long island cheese squash with lots of chopped peppers and a little pork tenderloin cooked up with a mustard cream sauce.  mmmm, mmm. We've now got a bushel of mixed peppers in 4 paper grocery sacks ripening up in the kitchen!

A Favorite Spot

It being the week of Thanksgiving, I gotta say I've got loads to be thankful for, not the least of which is plenty to eat and a roof over my head that's paid for.  I've enjoyed being home the past week, not working at the outside job, just focusing on the home place.  I cleaned the house and did tons of laundry, worked in the yard for many hours, took lots of long walks through the cold sunshiny woods and down along the creek.  It's been a very pleasant week.  Tomorrow- back to the real world, well, as real as my world gets anymore.

Grey Speckled Cow Peas

So I'm home with a cold, not so sick that I have to take to my bed, sometimes I think I would prefer that- well I say I would- but really?  All the same, I'm feeling crummy enough to not have energy for much of anything.  I hate this- I'm a terrible patient, there are so many things that I need and want to be doing.  You know- house cleaning would be kind of a good idea, its been weeks, or working out in the garden.  It's a spectacular fall day, clear and sunny, just under 70 degrees, there are fall veggies to weed and mulch, summer veggies to pull out, weeds and mulching over the whole place actually would be very useful.  But instead, I'm doing light duty things like shelling peas.

I have this handy little sheller that I inherited from my mother, shoots the shells out one end and the peas back at you.  It's the kind of task that would be good to have small children around for so they could run after the peas that fly across the room.  But there are none of those here, so I instead, put on my spectacles and rove around picking up all that I can find that have been flung to the far corners of the house.

These grey speckled cow peas are a new variety for me.  You know, if you're a regular reader, about my zaniness for beans.  These are an heirloom variety, in the same family as the purple hull black-eyed peas that I've grown for many years, but entirely different in nature.  For one- they are impossible to shell when fresh but need to be picked as they are starting to dry out and then allowed to dry out completely before attempting to shell them.  The purple hulls are quite easy to shell by hand when fresh and pop into the freezer for later use as "fresh" peas.  I've yet to cook any of these speckled peas, though they are very beautiful with their mauve mottled coloration and white eyes.  I think this would make an excellent Formica pattern for a kitchen counter.  Or maybe a screen saver background.

I'll let you know how they taste when I get around to cooking some, I'm guessing I might get about a quart of dried beans off my tiny experimental patch. I planted an area about 5x6, that has reached to more like 10x10, they're a bit rambling and very prolific.  I like that in a bean.

So I'm off for another cup of ginger lemon tea with honey accept I'm out of honey so thinking of trying sorghum, I've got lots of that, I wonder if it will have the same soothing properties?  Will see.

In the Bean Patch

You know I'm a beanaholic.  Since we were away for most of August, I timed the second planting of beans for mid-July with hopes they would be fruiting now, when we returned.  Bingo.

This patch includes a jumble of zinnias, falling into the paths but they give such cheer its worth climbing around them to get to the beans.  Grey-speckled cow peas in the foreground, an heirloom variety new to me that I'm hopeful about.  Haricot verts next- Taverna- reliable and a heavy producer of small, tender, sweet beans.  On the trellis at the back is Vortex, a new pole bean I'm trying, they are very long yet string-less and tender.  I think they would be the perfect bean for dilly beans with their long-straight habit making them easy to pack and pretty in jars.

 

Furthest out on the trellis, another heirloom bean, Garden of Eden, long, flat yet tender, cooks in 3 minutes!.  either side of the trellis I also planted lima beans, they are a bit shaded by everything else but coming along.

Bean flowers promising many more to come 

  While picking I almost grabbed this guy who was prowling around in the leaves looking a lot like a bean.

The end products; Vortex on left, Garden of Eden in center, haricot vert-Taverna on right.  And flowers to brighten the table.  Think there will be beans on the menu tonight- possibly with some home grown red potatoes and chanterelles picked in the woods this humid warm week.

A Week of Delicious Food

Kneading the sour dough 

You may wonder how my efforts with the sourdough have been going since I procured some starter a couple of weeks ago.  The rye I remembered so fondly was a bit heavy, but the flavor was nice, caraway is so distinctive.  I tried pancakes and thought they were a little thin, we normally make a multi-grain buttermilk pancake and they are hard to top.  The sourdough pancakes did have a stretchy texture that was interesting and the flavor was nice, we were thinking they would be good as crepes, or probably similar to the injera bread that they serve with Ethiopian food.  Today I tried the french bread recipe in the Tassajara Bread Book and the loaves turned out enormous and lighter than I would expect french bread to be.  I think in future I will make the loaves smaller and not let them rise quite so long.   They did have a crisp crust and good sourdough flavor.

Seems we have been cooking and eating up a storm.  Last week we made butternut squash ravioli and served them with garlic-herb butter, topped with pecans and fresh Parmesan.  They were stupendous and not that hard to make.  And bonus- half the batch went into the freezer for a super easy dinner sometime soon.  We are still eating all kinds of fresh things from the garden, loads of salads, spinach, the last of the green beans, red peppers, sweet potatoes and herbs.  The shitake logs are sprouting again, the food just keeps coming.

This was also our week to receive our Community Supported Fishery share from Core Sound Seafood.  Here David is basting the scored flounder with hot oil.  Not a diet dish, but WOW! this fried flounder topped with a Thai garlic sauce was spectacular.  Beautiful and tasty too.  We served it with a side of shitake mushrooms sauteed with red peppers, purple onion scallions and green beans over udon noodles.

Tomorrow starts another week that promises more glorious weather and hopefully the first head of fall broccoli from our patch.  The woods have gone all golden brown and the leaves are coming down.  Soon it will be time to break out the rakes and tidy up.  I'm trying to get in as many bike rides as I can before the weather turns to winter.  I hope autumn can hang on for a little while longer.

Last of the Beans

You'll probably be glad to hear this should be my last bean post, at least for this growing season.  These are Borlottos, they have the most gorgeous red and green pods, I normally pick them when they are turning a bit pale and start to feel like a kid glove but I pulled these to make way for that clover the other day.

The last of the season have been the very biggest of the year, look at those fatties in the foreground!  I'll add these to the 2 gallons I already have shelled in the freezer.  I've seen similar beans in catalogues and markets also called Tongue of Fire or horticultural beans.  They are easy to shell and excellent in soups, I especially like to put them in my minestrone and they are also lovely just simmered up with some onion, garlic and herbs, a little pork product never hurts either, they are very meaty and delicious.  A good brown pone of buttermilk skillet cornbread is the ticket for dipping into the beany broth.

More About Beans!

I can't recommend highly enough the idea of multiple plantings of beans. I planted my first beans in May and then did a second planting of haricots verts and Garden of Eden in early July. The first planting is about finished now, the second one is still going strong and should give beans right up until frost.

In this bowl are haricots verts, Garden of Eden and yard long beans. The yard longs are really a pea, a few go a long way, they are delicious quickly blanched and then thrown into a stir-fry. My favorite combo of late; Japanese eggplant, red bell pepper, shitake mushrooms and the yard longs with some onion, garlic and a little sauce made of sambal, hoisin, and soy. Serve over soba noodles or rice, you can add, chicken, pork or tofu for protein. Quick and yummy.

Also the Swiss chard has been phenomenal as usual, this was planted in March and we have cut about 50 bunches off of it and it's still looking remarkably good. I planted more for the fall that is still small but should go easily until December with a little protection. The variety is Bright Lights- a wonderful rainbow of colors.

In the foreground are the first planting of haricots verts, I'm leaving the few beans left to make seed, behind them are the second planting from early July, still green and producing.

Turkey Craw

It's the first of September and the weather has really gotten with the program for fall. Yesterday was 69 and rainy, today upper 70's dry and breezy. We usually don't get this sort of break from the heat and humidity until mid-month- but I'm happy to have the windows open again and hear the sounds of the night, was wishing for a blanket on the bed in the wee hours this morning.

YES!

These are the next in my bean-a-thon for the week. Green beans next to ready to harvest and shell ones on the vine. (Sweet potatoes in the background all lush and green.) This is the Turkey Craw, someone gave David the seeds some years back, legend stating that they had been found in the craw of a turkey. They need the whole season to make and are another Jack in the beanstalk sort of bean that will get to the top of the trellis and then make a big ole' mess of vine up on top like some crazy hairdo before they start to flower and make their beans.

We are just now harvesting them, aren't they perty? They cook up much like a pinto but a little firmer and smaller.

Beans, Beans, Beans

A 6 foot high fence is not enough

I'm crazy for beans and grew 7 kinds this summer, 2 varieties for shelling and 5 for eating as snap beans or to freeze. I thought I would feature a few varieties on the blog this week. The ones pictured above are Garden of Eden, I've written about them before, they have vigourous vines that keep going after they hit the top of the trellis just reaching for more. The beans are grown to a large size and cook quickly to yield a tender, scrumptious bean. I like eating them as an appetizer, dipped in good oil or hummus, or tossed with oil and vinegar and S&P.

Plain and simple.

I wish you could smell these ginger lilies, the fragrance is like that of a magnolia or gardenia, lemon and ginger, fresh and crisp. Walking past this fence right now is olfactory heaven.

Very Small Scale Community Supported Agriculture

I planted more beans today, If you read my blog last summer you'll know I'm a little wacky about beans, but they are a great source of nutrition, can be stored frozen or dried, and they help build the soil up by fixing nitrogen so whenever I see a small spot of bare dirt in the garden, I think of putting in a few more beans. Their seed is really easy to save too.

Today I planted three, 30 foot rows of purple hull black eyed peas, and about 15 feet of pole beans; turkey craw which are for shelling and supposedly were found in the craw of a turkey, they are brown with one end a little lighter in color and cook up like a super meaty pinto, yard longs, great for stir fry and freezing, and the new favorite from last summer, Garden of Eden, huge luscious flat beans, tender and tasty. The top new variety of anything we grew last year.

I'm also trying an experiment of planting a one foot square parcel in mixed lettuce and arugula in a spot that gets afternoon shade and just see if I can't grow salad greens all summer if I pick them when they are small. I'm going to try successive plantings every week or two and see what happens. If you live in the south, tell me, have you ever tried this or heard of it? How did it go?

I also embarked yesterday on an experiment in Community Supported Agriculture, you might call it a boutique CSA, I am going to see if I don't have enough to make a share for two of my friends over the next couple of months.

Here's what they got on their first week. One big head of bok choy, a nice size bunch of chard, another of baby beets, about 6 leeks, a bag of peas, radish sampler and a bag of arugula. I thought it was a pretty good mix of stuff and my friends seemed happy.