It feels good to finally start incorporating home-grown vegetables and fruit into our meals again. Tonight we had a caramelized leek tart with a simple side salad. I tweaked this recipe, using Gruyere instead of Blue cheese. First time I made this. So good!
For dessert, it was a simple strawberry-rhubarb compote over vanilla ice cream.
This morning, I harvested the spinach on my back porch. We have had a couple of warm days (in the eighties), and it was starting to bolt. Tomorrow, it will be in the nineties, so time to harvest. In total, my two 12-inch containers yielded 190 grams (6.75 oz.). Not bad. It will be a nice addition to our dinner tonight.
One of the two containers has a parsley plant in the center, and I am adding nasturtium around it. In the other, I planted some tiny Iceland Mix poppy seedlings. It is my first time growing poppies. They are supposed to be difficult to transplant as their roots do not like to be disturbed. Fingers crossed.
Forgot to post my first real harvest of the year (May 11). A handful of rhubarb, which I turned into a strawberry-rhubarb compote served over vanilla ice cream for dessert. So good!
Every year, I strive to prolong the season by preserving vegetables (cucumbers, tomatoes, hot peppers, winter squash, garlic) and herbs (Italian basil, Thai basil) from the garden. I do not can my vegetables in a way that makes them shelf-stable. The methods I use are quick-pickling, curing/drying, slow-roasting and freezing. This year, I had a decent harvest of pickling cucumbers, and I quick-pickled several batches, one to two jars each. I also pickled green cherry tomatoes at the end of the season.
I cured my garlic and my three (!) shallots, as well as my pathetic squash harvest (two small butternut and three small Delicata squash). For the first time, I oven-dried garlic scapes and turned them into a very fragrant and delicious garlic scape powder, which I am using in my cooking instead of garlic powder. I also slow-dried my super hot Thai peppers in the oven (at 175 F for several hours, checking first every 60 then every 30 minutes until they start to become brittle).
I slow-roasted several batches of tomatoes and made one big batch of garlic scape pesto, two batches of regular pesto and tree of Thai pesto. The tomatoes are topped with olive oil and frozen for future use. If not used immediately after making it, the Italian pesto is frozen in ice cube trays, covered with olive oil. This makes it easy to use. I just thaw a few cubes to use as pizza topping or for pasta. I freeze the Thai basil pesto straight in the jar (covered with sesame oil), as each batch makes one recipe for the crispy pork noodle bowls that we all love so much.
Yesterday, I made pickled green tomatoes. After the community garden fall cleanup day on Saturday, I brought home a few handfuls of green cherry tomatoes. I used a different recipe this time, which called for lemongrass and Thai peppers – both from my homegrown (and frozen) reserve. I am excited to see how the pickles turn out.
I moved my son back to college yesterday, and we made one of his favorite dinners the night before – crispy pork noodle bowl with Thai basil pesto. I had made the Thai basil pesto a few days before (using a different recipe), covered it with sesame oil and stored it in the fridge. So, so good!
I made one batch earlier this month and froze it for use in the future. I had experimented with freezing it last year and found it to freeze very well.
I harvested the first tomatoes (Stupice) on July 23 and then a few more Stupice, Scotia and Ailsa Craig the following weeks. Things started to really get rolling by August 10. On August 17, I picked my first Green Zebra and Dr. Wyche’s Yellow (two of my favorite varieties). Since then, I have been harvesting about two to three pounds every other day.
There have been a lot of Caprese (and other tomato) sandwiches and tomato salads on lunch and dinner rotation, like this tomato and peach salad with whipped goat cheese, for which I like to use Dr. Wyche’s Yellow.
I also made two batches of slow-roasted tomatoes, which I packed in olive oil and froze. For this, I used mainly smaller red tomatoes.
My daughter made an amazing tomato galette the other day (using red tomatoes only), with home-grown garlic and basil. It has been an exceptional tomato season so far!
Notes for next year: The Ailsa Craig tomatoes were prone to cracking; Dr. Wyche’s Yellow, Ananas Noire and Black Krim to catfacing (not a big problem and also unavoidable with the strange weather earlier this summer); and Ananas Noire and Black Krim were prone to rotten spots. Brimmer was a bit crowded out by the other tomatoes and stayed small as a plant (but did produce a few very tasty tomatoes, like the large pink-red one in the picture of August 31). Same growth issue for Stupice, which was crowded out by the calendula flowers.
Produce has started rolling in from the garden plot. Yesterday, I made quick refrigerator pickles with my first harvested pickling cucumbers. I also made a batch of Thai basil pesto (no pictures), which I froze. I will have enough Thai basil to make two or more batches in the coming weeks. Yum!
Made my first batch of “pesto” yesterday. I forgot to take pictures of the actual product (which is just basil, olive oil and salt for more versatility). I pureed everything and scooped it into an ice cube tray and covered it with more olive oil. This morning, I moved the frozen cubes to a ziplock bag. There will be several more batches, and I will make one that is an actual pesto with garlic, nuts (likely sunflower seeds), and cheese. Nothing better than to pull a couple of cubes from the freezer in the middle of winter to add to pasta or use as pizza base, focaccia topping or over chicken or fish.