Archive for the 'Harvest' Category
August is the season for figs in Vancouver. I know this because on a bi-daily basis, my neighbour comes over with a huge bowl of figs for me to turn into something delicious. He has 5 trees that bare 2 kinds of figs of which I don’t know the name, but each one has green skin, one variety is large with sweet, mild white flesh that turns golden as it gets really ripe, and a smaller variety that has red flesh and is a bit tangier.
Two years ago I used the white-fleshed figs when they were really ripe to make fig ginger jam. I skinned every fig and just used the flesh for this jam with lots of texture from the seeds and chunks of candied ginger. It turned out so well that I saved and savoured the jars knowing they would have to last. One sad, sad day my last two jars hit the tile floor on the laundry room and smashed in a glassy figgy mess. As I was contemplating licking it off the floor (and picking the glass off my tongue from the splatter that hit my leg), I decided I better make some more to avoid this sort of desperate craziness.
In 2009, I used both kinds of figs together to make jam, again making Fig Ginger Jam , but this time I left on the skins. This changed the colour and texture of the jam as I needed to pulse the jam with an immersion blender to chop up the skins this time making it thicker. And because I had added the candied ginger in the jam before blending, there were no yummy candied ginger chunks. The colour was not nearly as nice as the 2008 jam (which was a rich, shiny, golden colour) but it tasted just as good.
I made a second Jam in 2009 as well, Fig, Brandy and Honey Mandarine. This had a lot more citrus and some richness from the brandy both of which went very well with the figs.
Then came August 2010:
I don’t know if it is a love for figs, the daily harvest delivery from my neighbour, or the squirrel in me but I made 7 recipes from the figs this year:
Oh, and I froze some halved figs too. Whew. I actually went out yesterday to see if the trees had any more ripe figs (um, crazy) and thankfully, that’s it for the year. I can put this figgy month to bed enjoying a pantry full of riches, of the fig persuasion.
August 31 2010 | Baking and Canning and Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest and Projects | 22 Comments »
The other day I read about elderberry cordial, which is essentially a non-alcoholic fruit syrup that is delicious when added to sparkling water. Since there are tons of wild blackberries available around the area (as previously mentioned when I made my blackberry jam), I thought “Hey, I bet blackberry cordial would make great soda.”
It does.
Ingredients:
- 4 cups blackberries
- 2 cups sugar
- Water as needed
Directions:
In a large stock pot add berries one layer at a time and crush with a potato masher or whatever you have handy (I used a ladle but all the while I was imagining how much easier it would have been with a potato masher). Add the sugar once all berries are in and mashed, and set on high heat until mixture boils. If it’s not very soupy, then add some water. Reduce heat to low and simmer for a few hours until seeds start to separate from the fruit. Keep adding water if the mixture reduces and add sugar if you like it sweeter. When you have the flavour / consistency you desire, start straining it. Using a fine meshed sieve, strain out the seeds and discard. This will take a bit of time, but the end product is worth it.
Ladle finished cordial into canning jars and store in the fridge.
August 28 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest and Recipes | 10 Comments »
Once again I have pulled out the Original Plum Torte Recipe and added a new fruit. I’ve tried strawberry coconut, blueberry lime, and now caramelized figs.
Follow the original torte recipe but top torte with quartered figs and brown sugar. To make this torte with whole wheat flour, start with 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 regular and some add moisture (milk or caramel syrup will do very well) ensuring that the batter still pours into the pan like cake batter.
This recipe also seemed to call out for Amaretto caramel drizzled over it so I made some of that too.
Amaretto Caramel Syrup:
- 2 cups sugar
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 cup Amaretto
Directions:
In a small sauce pan, mix water and sugar until mixture feels like wet sand. Boil on high until it reaches a dark amber colour. Stir frequently and keep an eye on it to prevent burning. When colour is achieved, move pot to a deep stainless steel sink and very carefully but quickly pour in the amaretto. Wear long sleeves and get your arm out of there fast – the caramel will sputter and jump as soon as the liquid is added. Bring the pot back to the stove and whisk over medium heat until it reduces slightly. It’s ready when it feels sticky between your fingers.
Mmmm – plate lickin’ good!
August 26 2010 | Baking and Growing Food and Harvest and Recipes | 9 Comments »
When I went to de-blight the tomatoes at the community garden plot this morning, I noticed a carrot top & greens of what was most likely one of my prized multicoloured carrots (pulled and eaten by a yet another vegetable thief) which made me think, “Hey, my carrots are ready!” While the greens sure didn’t look like much, I decided to pull them anyway and to my delight, beautiful red, purple, white, and orange carrot with no sign of carrot rust fly damage. Booya!
Back in April I pulled up my winter carrots and sadly, I lost the battle to that wily carrot rust fly. This year I planted a summer crop, planted each seed individually spaced (painstakingly), mixed lots of sand in the soil and watered well. Oh, and the most important thing: full sun. My home garden is so crowded and lush that there just isn’t the sun there is at my new garden plot. This, I’ve noticed, had made all the difference in the world to my vegetable gardening. 6-8 hours of direct sun just isn’t enough.
So here they are, some lovely purple carrot sticks, without a rusty track to be seen. Take that, carrot rust fly.
Me: 1 ; Carrot Rust Fly: 1
August 14 2010 | Community Garden and Growing Food and Harvest | 12 Comments »
This month my neighbours and I have more growing than we can harvest and eat so there is quite a bit of food sharing going around. Almost daily I get a delivery of somthing, like a giant bowl of fresh figs, that I turn into some lucious creation. I have also now organized a farm fresh egg delivery in my city neighbourhood and been out picking wild berries – all making for a crazy first few weeks in August.
I’m currently harvesting the following veg from my home garden and the community garden plot:
Beans: Purple Peacock, French Filet
Peas: MammothMelting Snow Peas
Tomatoes: Black Russian, Siletz, Sweetheart Grape, Gold Nugget Cherry, Sungold Cherry, Isis Candy Cherry, Red Zebra, Tumbler
Sema Fino Florence Fennel
Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden
Chard: Rainbow, Fordhook Giant, Rhubarb
Peppers: Filius Blue, Garden Salsa
Basil: Organic Sweet Basil, Thai Basil
Squash: one Gold Nugget was ready at the community garden
Potatoes: Red Chief, French Fingerlings
All this has made for some interesting recipes like carmelized figs, fig ginger jam, walnut pesto, and mixed veggies ragu. I’ll be sure to share very soon. If I can get out of the kitchen long enough. help.
August 09 2010 | Community Garden and Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 8 Comments »
Today, on the annual organic blueberry run to Richmond, I stopped to walk the pooch by the Fraser River and found some huge, ripe blackberries that practically leaped into a little beach pail that I picked up for the occasion. I always snicker a bit when I see blackberries on sale around here as they are pretty easy to get a hold of here in BC. But I guess many folks are too busy to get out and pick blackberries if they want them.
The Himalayan Blackberry (Rubus laciniatus) is an invasive intruder that can be found by the side of the roads nearly everywhere there is still green space. There are brambles of the arm-stabbing, leg-slicing, nasty ass blackberries all around my community garden, but I’m fairly cautious about what I get from there given the transient nature of the neighbourhood (I’m putting it lightly – there is quite a bit of prostitution and drug use at night). I’d much prefer to get out in the woods somewhere as I did today and for my efforts I went home with a pail and a half. Plus I had a great walk, very much enjoying the first rainy weekend we have had in about 5 weeks, even if I did have to pick around the local wildlife.
Once home, the blackberries were so ripe that really, the only way to keep a large amount is to preserve them. I call this Stupendously Simple Wild Blackberry Jam because it only has 3 ingredients. The whole experince was very entertaining so even though it took a whole day, it was a day well spent.
Stupendously Simple Wild Blackberry Jam
- 8 cups fresh wild blackberries
- 4 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Directions:
Lightly rinse the berries and put into a large pot. Mash them up a bit with a potato masher or fork. Add sugar and lemon and bring to a boil. Reduce to medium low and keep it bubbling lightly until the liquid cooks down to the thickness you desire. I cooked mine for 3 hours, stirring occasionally, to get a really thick final product. This jam will sit piled up on a cracker if I want it too.
Ladle finished jam into 12 clean, sterilized 125ml canning jars or 6 x 250ml (I think these are called 1/2 pints across the border). Process in a boiling water canner for 10 minutes for the small jars and 15 minutes for the large jars. Store for up to a year in a cool, dark place.
August 08 2010 | Canning and Harvest and Vancouver | 16 Comments »
This week the first slicer tomatoes ripened suddenly. I grow these Siletz organic seeds because they are dependably early on the coast and will withstand cooler temperatures so they can be set out in April. They are nice tidy shrubs with about 8-12 large tomatoes each ripening right now, and hopefully a long and productive season ahead. I have 3 plants at the house and one at the community garden plot.
The toms were amazing with fresh basil and some olive sourdough I made from my starter.
There are many peppers ready to be eaten green (or purple as with the Filius Blue peppers), some are picked to encourage more flowers, and the others will get left to allow the peppers to turn red and spicy.
There are still lots of blueberries on the shrubs out front, and now that I have divided my yellow alpine strawberries into a lot more room, I’m getting heaps of those as well (thanks for the advice, Laura!) And with all the kale growing at the community garden, I just had to have more kale chips.
I thinned out a bunch of small beets this week for both the sauteed greens and the roots. I’m growing at least 4 types this year: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden.
It has also been a big week for flower harvests. With so many cutting blooms growing, my house is filled with colour both inside and out. The crocosmia below is one of my favourites – both the firey orange crocosmia and the larger upright lucifer crocosmia look just a good indoors as outside from my hammock.
July 26 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 14 Comments »
How could I have so quickly forgotten in my Harvest Monday post this week about my Green Globe artichoke?! Sorry old friend, you deserve much better.
And “old friend” is certainly appropriate. I started 6 plants from seed in January 2009 and this year just one of the 2 remaining plants gave me an artichoke. I watched it for weeks nervous that someone would take my prize from the community garden (theft is unfortunately a problem there) and just when I couldn’t stand the suspense for one more second, out came the clippers and I snatched it myself.
I brought my green gardening trophy and gave it a good rinse in the sink. Then I cooked it for about 45 minutes in a steam basket.
Then late on a summer evening, I enjoyed it with a Caper Mayo Dip. To make the dip, blend a 1/4 cup mayo with 1 tbsp drained capers, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp lemon zest and add olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste in a mini food processor. Serve immediately with prized steamed artichokes and, of course, enjoy! I did.
July 22 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 14 Comments »
This July I have been harvesting all sorts of things. I wish I had the time to post weekly like so many of the others that list at Daphne’s Dandelions but at least I’m getting something posted! In the beginning of July I pulled up my garlic from the community garden plot and it looked great despite the rust. I think there was definitely an effect on the size but there are still some fair sized heads there and it should last us for a few months at least.
Also in the beginning of July I harvested the rest of the peas and composted the vines. It’s good because I needed the room. But I did plant a bunch more Mammoth Melting Sugar snow peas at the community garden for fall.
I harvested some kale from the garden plot as well this month as it is doing fantabulous. I have many bunches of green onions ready to eat and I harvested a head of raddichio this evening. I also had some rainbow chard from my home vegetable beds tonight and expect that I will be eating that nightly for a week or so.
All month now I have been snacking on blueberries. I have 5 bushes located in the front potager / perennial garden and 4 of the 5 shrubs are new as of last year so really I’m only eating berries off of one. But so far it has produced more ripe berries than I can pick and eat fresh so it’s just right and I still have plenty to ripen still. I eat them in salad and of course on pound cake and whipped cream. mmmmm.
My yellow alpine strawberries are producing berries but I think that perhaps I put too many (5) plants in the small planter on my patio as they are small and turn brown and hard quickly. the leaves are yellowing a but to despite my regular watering, full sun, and fertilizing. I’d happily accept any advice on improving these plants as this is my first year growing them.
Here are 2 of the ripe ones with a red thrown in for comparison. They have a unique strawberry favour that I can only describe as strong strawberry with a hint of banana. They also have the texture of a cooked banana – some what starchy and mushy – but the texture is not off-putting, it’s more “melt in your mouth”.
Finally – lettuce lettuce lettuce! I have been eating Super Gourmet Salad blend since March from seeds I planted in January. The heads are just now starting to bolt but I’m hoping I’ll keep them going until at least August.
July 19 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest | 11 Comments »
Oh, the strawberries this year. While the cool wet weather this May and June kept many of the strawberries watery and bland, somewhere in California an organic grower got it right : the berries, just at the peak of ripeness, were deep red with a rich sweetness that reminded me of strawberry molasses. Given that my berries, as lovely as they were, were affected by the raincoast weather, I picked up a steal on 27 pints of those organic berries from Cali.
What does one do with 27 pints of strawberries? Well, first I made up the Strawberry Coconut Torte I just posted and served it with champagne and strawberries. I froze a bunch in freezer bags for future berry goodness and made some into Perfect No-Cook Strawberry Ice Cream and Strawberry Rhubarb Compote. And then I made jam two ways: Strawberry Jam and Strawberry Balsamic & Black Pepper Preserves.
Organic Strawberry Jam
I started with a basic recipe for light jam:
- 6 cups crushed strawberries
- 4 cups sugar
- 1 box Certo Light Pectin
Directions:
- Hull berries and process in a food processor – pulse only 3 times per batch so it is the consistency of fresh salsa not mush.
- In a large stock pot heat strawberries until they start to release juices – add water is you need some.
- Combine fruit pectin crystals with 1/4 cup (50 mL) of measured sugar and add pectin mixture into fruit on the stove.
- Stir over high heat until mixture comes to a full boil. Add remaining sugar (I know, it’s a lot of sugar but it does really need it to bring out the bright strawberry flavour). Continue to cook and stir over high heat until mixture comes to a full rolling boil. Boil hard 1 minute, stirring constantly. Wipe off hot spatters from boiling jam off your arms, the stove, the floor, etc. Prevent burns by keeping a wet cloth near you this is dangerous stuff, folks.
- Remove from heat and keep stirring. You can skim off the foam now as well.
- At this point I canned 2/3 of my batch as strawberry jam—ladle into warm, sterilized jars filling up to 1/4 inch (0.5 cm) from rim and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes / pint or as required for your altitude. Use the remaining 1/3 of the batch for Strawberry Balsamic & Black Pepper Preserves in Part 2.
July 13 2010 | Canning and Harvest | 4 Comments »
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