One of our May goals with the garden was to to have everything in it settled by Memorial Day weekend, so that we could enjoy the holiday in peace. We almost managed that, with spending some of Saturday outside doing some replanting (squash seed cause of those darn squirrels) and general maintenance. But other than that, it was truly a lovely weekend. One with lots of sunshine and early summer warmth.
Category: Food
A taste of fall (in September, no less!)
With the remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon washing out our weekend, our couple days off were all about simply enjoying the cool, if damp and rainy, temperatures. And how nice it was! Much like that first warm day after winter where one finally gets out of the house and into some sunshine, there’s nothing like that first “airing” out of the house after a supremely hot and humid summer. Granted, it’s warmed back up a bit since the weekend, but at least the house doesn’t feel so very stuffy.
So…let’s talk carrots! Continue reading “A taste of fall (in September, no less!)”
Is it really the “end” of the season?
Because looking outside, you’d hardly know it. Granted, there are leaves on the ground, but, frankly, everything still looks pretty darn green! Okay, maybe not everything. Some plants, even the flowers, are starting to look a tad less green than they were even a month ago. And even though we’re still getting tomatoes, especially the bright orange Sun Sugar hybrid cherry tomatoes, they aren’t nearly as sweet as the ones from the height of the summer, which is to be expected.
You’ll see in the picture above the additional of some rather remarkable peppers! We’re pretty sure that the larger ones top right are Sweet Chocolate peppers, which are supposed to turn a rich, dark brown. However, seeing as the outside temperatures are due to drop later on in the week, and sunshine will likely be in short supply, we decided to pick them before it was too late. The other peppers are Rellenos. All of them will be quite tasty in a few cozy meals of fajitas and quesadillas!
Inasmuch as the Sun Sugars won’t quit, this latest harvest was the smallest one since they first started ripening. But the hardy plant has plenty more fruit on it. We’re pretty sure that even in the event of cool rain and cool temps, the plant will keep going for awhile. And even if the tomatoes aren’t super sweet, they’ll still be great to have around…for sauce!
Okay, okay. So cherry tomatoes aren’t sauce tomatoes. But, roast enough of them, and they work just fine! In fact, these tomatoes probably make up the bulk of the four bags of sauce we’ve made so far this year.
With our latest batch of tomatoes, we got to sauce making again. From roasting (with spices) and cooling…
…to pureeing…
…to straining…
…to the final product, ready to be bagged!
The resulting sauce, which is mild and sweet, is such a wonderful thing, as it’s great on it’s own, or it can be easily used as a base for soup or a more complex sauce (with the addition of vegetables, meat, cream, and such). We’re really looking forward to utilizing it over the winter months.
Rounding out this post, we’d be remiss if we didn’t at least mention the pole beans, which show no signs of quitting either. 🙂
Looks like it’s time for another shelling party!
The Amazing Technicolor Harvest
This was a good week in the garden.
After surviving another heat spell (okay, okay, it was only one day…haha), the weather turned almost fall-like. Not only has it been a joy to be outside lately, but the tomatoes in the garden seem to be okay with the temperature change as well. At least, our most recent harvests said so, as evidenced by the picture above! It looks a little like fall, right? This represents about half a week’s-worth of tomatoes. Let’s see…here we have the yellow-orange Sunpeach Hybrids (some of which might be Yellow Gooseberries, but we’re not sure), red and green streaked Chocolate Sprinkles, little red Baby Boomers, a number of Yellow Pears , at least one almost-ready Rutgers Hybrid, and a few medium-sized purplish Gypsy tomatoes. And no, you’re not imagining things if you think you see peppers – there are a almost-ripe mini orange bell peppers, as well as a handful of green (and one red) chilies. It’s a veritable rainbow of goodness!
As you can see, we’ve had the best success this year with small tomatoes. We’re sure that if we had gotten the plants on the ground sooner that we’d have had a good harvest of larger tomatoes by now. As it stands, most of the larger tomatoes that are growing are still quite green. But we certainly don’t mind the smaller ones, as they are incredibly versatile.
This past weekend, we roasted the larger tomatoes (which included a few others that had split and were being stored in the fridge), and made a delicious sauce. We then split a ton of the smaller ones and dehydrated them.
This grouping of dried tomatoes represents five trays-worth of split cherry tomatoes! It’s rather incredible that that many tomatoes are little more than a small pile right now, but they sure are. If all these tomatoes weren’t already varying degrees of sweet, now they are super intense! Sweet and super tomato-y. They’re wonderful in salads or thrown on top of hot pasta drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with parmesan cheese. And as long as we keep them cool and dry, they should last for several weeks. Well…if we don’t eat them all first!
Judging on how things look outside, we should be in for some pole bean harvesting soon. And hopefully we’ll have more tomatoes to come!
More beans than you can shake a stick at
Over the past few weeks, warmish temperatures and a steady dose of rain have helped our beans — bush beans, pole beans, and string beans — proliferate like mad! The beans have been growing far faster than we could ever eat them, and this past weekend, we found ourselves with a definite surplus.
We also made our first harvest of shelling beans!
These turned out to be Tiger Eye beans (a bush variety) and Fort Portal Jade (a pole variety).
While there are more Fort Portal beans to come, it looks like the Tiger Eye plants have had their say. As with beans, they might be done, or they might re-blossom later in the summer.
But, back to the busload of string beans. A much as we’ve been enjoying them simply steamed with dinner, we decided to do something a little different this past weekend, and make them into a light and delicious salad. We regularly make a Three-Bean Salad, but we wanted something a little different, so we turned to our trust Betty Crocker recipe book and found a little inspiration in the form of a “Tangy Vegetable Salad.” But we didn’t have everything on hand for that particular recipe, so we improvised. Here’s our version, which we’ll call “Simple Vegetable Salad (That’s Mostly String Beans).”
Simple Vegetable Salad (That’s Mostly String Beans)
Ingredients
- 2-3 cups of coarsely chopped fresh string beans
- approximately 1/2 cup (or so) each of chopped onion, carrots, peppers, and squash (we used a red pepper and summer squash, but any varieties could work)
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup oil
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
Instructions
1. Gather all vegetables together; gather together ingredients for dressing.
2. Boil a little water (about 1/2 cup or so) in a large saucepan, and dump in the vegetables. Cook in boiling water for five minutes.
3. After five minutes, drain the vegetable and rinse with cool water. Set aside.
4. Place dressing ingredients into a small screw-top jar and shake vigorously to combine.
5. Place drained vegetables in a large bowl and pour over dressing. Stir gently, cover bowl, then place bowl in the fridge to chill for at least 4 hours before serving.
5. While salad is chilling, stir occasionally until ready to serve. When serving, use a slotted spoon.
This is an excellent summer salad – light, filling, and refreshing. And it’s super quick to make! (Who wants to turn on the oven in 100 degree heat, anyway?!) One thing to note is that you could also used white wine or red wine vinegar for the dressing. And really, you could use just about any combination of vegetables. The original recipe called for cauliflower and the addition of sliced olives at the end. But our results turned out to be simply delicious. And that’s what’s important. 🙂
Garden State-ments 