Archive for the 'Harvest' Category
It’s been a year now that I have taken on the new adventure of growing purple cauliflower. I started the seeds indoors in March 2009 and tenderly cared for them until they could be hardened off. I grew a bunch, maybe twelve, so I put two in my back garden beds, took six more to the community garden and gave the final ones away. The ones in my back garden grew and grew and grew into monstrous proportions and finally started to rot and stink over winter so I composted them. That was hard to do after ten months of anticipation for a purple crown of deliciousness but the backyard patio area smelling like rotten cabbage was a strong motivator.
The ones at the community garden were basically in shade because my plot—unbeknownst to me when we took the plot in the late winter of 2009—was totally shaded by a huge tree until 2PM every day. Not the best spot for growing veg. Nonetheless, four of those plants seemed to be staying healthy albeit quite small so I potted them up and brought them home and forgot about them. One day I had a bare spot in the front garden so I put four of them in the ground and a year later to my great surprise I have purple cauliflower!
Each plant is looking a little different today. Two have golf-ball sized crowns, one has melon sized crown and one, in this photo, has started to set a bunch of florets instead of a crown.
Cauliflower Gardeners out there: what should I now do with my purple cauliflower? I couldn’t imagine after the treacherous life these plants have had that they would provide me with something edible, but they have, and now I wonder if I should harvest them or let them grow larger. Could it be that each one could become it’s own crown?
This certainly is no ordinary tale of planting a growing cauliflower, and I would not recommend it, but this sort of chaos is to be expected as I try new things and stray from the traditional ways of doing things (like gardening in rows – for shame!) I’m sorry to those experienced gardeners with dedicated vegetable plots that are carefully organized and planned that I am making cringe with my tale but for me any experiment that ends with a tasty meal is a success. And I’m hoping for a tasty meal soon.
March 04 2010 | Community Garden and Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest | 4 Comments »
I call this orzotto because it’s a creamy risotto-type dish. It’s as fast and easy as it is delicious.
Ingredients:
- 4 fresh Italian sausages
- 2 cups dry orzo (I use kamut but whole wheat would be great too)
- 3 cloves garlic – crushed
- 4 cups cherry tomatoes
- 1 cup sliced pitted green olives
- 1 cup green beans
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Fresh parmesan
Directions: Put a large pot of water on the stove for the orzo and set to high.
Add garlic and olive oil into a heavy bottomed skillet and set on medium high until sizzling. Add whole cherry tomatoes (I used the frozen ones from my summer harvest and put them right in frozen), chopped green beans and the sliced olives. Simmer until the juices release and ‘pop’ the cherry tomatoes with a wooden spoon. Score sausage casings and add sausages whole to the pan. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and let simmer.
When the orzo water is boiling, make orzo according to package directions. Cook until el dente—do not overcook. When sausages are cooked through, remove from pan and set aside to rest. Drain orzo and ladle into the skillet. Stir over low heat until the liquid gets absorbed into the pasta. Add salt, pepper and olive oil to taste.
To serve, ladle orzotto into a pasta bowl and grate fresh parmesan over top. Slice the sausage and serve over the orzotto. Serves 4.
Summer's Tomato Bounty
January 08 2010 | Harvest and Recipes | 2 Comments »
On the weekend a few of the neighbourhood gals got together to make some evergreen wreaths. It’s an easy and rewarding project that really dresses up your front door, and puts to good use those prunings. Here’s how to make one:
Step 1: gather a variety of foliage, berries, twigs, pinecones, ribbons, and anything else you want to add to a wreath. My lovely neighbour is a gardener so when she put on the workshop for us this past weekend, she had many different types of cuttings for us: holly, cedar, yew, pine, pieris, boxwood, laurel, camellia, fir, cypress, magnolia and a bunch more. The point is not to go out hunting for such a wide variety of cuttings but to use what you have available. You will also need a grapevine wreath, pruners, gloves and twine – that’s it!
Step 2: use a grapevine wreath as your base. Start by choosing a firm branch with some nice base foliage on it. I started with camellia for each bunch as it has lovely glossy green leaves on a strong stem. Add other cuttings of different foliage on top and gather the bunch of foliage in your hand. Snip off any long stems.
Step 3: using the twine, wrap the bunch and the grapevine wreath together a few times until secured. For the first bunch tie off the twine to hold it in place but do not cut the twine.
Step 4: gather another bunch of foliage. Lay this bunch overlapping the twine securing the first bunch to the wreath. Wrap twine around the base of the new bunch a few times and set down. Continue adding foliage to the wreath by overlapping the previous bunch and securing with twine until there are no more gaps to fill.
Step 5: secure the final bunch by gently lift the foliage from the first bunch and tuck the stems under it. Secure with twine and tie off the final bunch with a few knots.
Step 6: now take a last look at the wreath. You can tuck in a few more greens to even out the design or add a few embellishments such as pinecones (using florist wire to attach them), berries, ribbons, or even ornaments. I liked the wreath natural and found that the foliage was really the star of the design.
Step 7: hang and enjoy!
The final word on making a perfect wreath: just have fun with it. Experimenting with different foliage will allow the wreath to become tradional or modern, contained or wild, themed or everyday. I loved the look of the magnolia leaves with their velvety bronze undersides. There wasn’t much else this wreath needed to make it perfectly stunning and completely different from my holiday wreath.
Magnolia Wreath
A special thanks to my wonderful neighbour who provided all the foliage and taught me wreath-making, so I could pass it on. Thanks, Aymey!
December 11 2009 | Gardening and Harvest and Photography | 8 Comments »
Tonight after many, many months of this beautiful decorative cabbage growing in my front flower beds it was time to up root it, wash off the bloom, and dig in.
Half was chopped and sauteed with red onion, olive oil and a bay leaf to accompany tonight’s pork. Tomorrow, the other half will be thinly sliced for a cold cabbage and apple salad.
Now I just need a decorative kale to fill up the hole in the flower bed.
November 05 2009 | Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | No Comments »
For a brief moment in time I rented a house with a huge Italian Prune Plum tree in the backyard. When the plums were ready, they would fall off the tree and knock me on the head as if to say, “Hey, pay attention to me!” And when I finally obliged, I was pleasantly surprised that the tart but sweet egg-shaped beauts are not the messy drippy plums, but neat and organized, offering fabulousness and no muss. So we climbed up the tree and shook the branches to get a bounty to eat and we left the rest to the birds.
So when I bought my own house, the first thing we bought for the yard was a prune plum tree. It is now a member of the family. Sitting right by the compost heap, it gets regular organic feedings and enjoys a yearly pruning (snicker). Then the question begs, what to do with hundreds of plums? Last year I made preserves with vanilla and orange. This year it was, Plum Apple Bran Muffins, Chinese Plum Sauce and the most amazing torte. All were delicous but the torte was such a hit the first time I made it (on Thursday) that I remade it for the harvest party (Sunday) at the community garden. The recipe is here: The Original Plum Torte.
It’s easy and tasty, and if you have some extra prune plums, give it a try. I’m glad I was encouraged to!
September 28 2009 | Canning and Growing Food and Harvest and Photography | 2 Comments »
This was originally printed in the New York Times, Wednesday September 9, 1992 in an article called Eating Well by Marian Burros.
Ingredients:
-
3/4 c sugar
- 1/2 c unsalted butter
- 1 c flour, sifted
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Pinch salt, optional
- 2 eggs
- 12 Italian prune plums
- Sugar and lemon juice for topping
- 1 tsp cinnamon, or to taste
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter and sugar in a bowl. Add flour, baking powder, salt and eggs and beat well. Spoon the batter into an 8”, 9”, or 10” spring form pan. Split and pit the plums and place the halves, skin side up, on top of the batter. Sprinkle lightly with sugar and lemon, depending o the sweetness of the fruit. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake about an hour. Remove and cool; refrigerate or freeze if desired. Or cool to lukewarm and then serve plain or with whipped cream. Yield: 8 servings. Note: to freeze, double wrap torte in aluminum foil place in plastic bag, and seal. To serve, defrost and reheat briefly at 300 degrees.
September 28 2009 | Baking and Harvest and Recipes | No Comments »
At the end of June I posted a summary of my 2008 Topsy Turvy failure and my 2009 outline for success in Topsy Turvy: Ugly as Stink But Good Tomatoes.
And a sucess it was! In August and September, I have had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with. It’s mid- September, and they are still going strong. I walk by and pick a few off for snacks, cook some, freeze some, dry some, and give them away and still I have tons leftover.
So now I spend my rockin’ weekends putting them by in various ways. These Sweet Heart Grape Heirlooms are so sweet and meaty that I just couldn’t bear freezing them. So the lucky fellas got oven-dried overnight and will be preserved in olive oil for pizzas and pasta.
September 19 2009 | Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest | No Comments »
Ingredients:
- grape or cherry tomatoes
- coarse salt
- olive oil
- fresh herbs
Directions:
Wash, dry and half the tomatoes. Arrange tomatoes cut-side up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt. Dry in the oven at 175 degrees F for 6-8 hours. After you have done it a few times, you’ll know how long it takes and you may be able to leave them overnight safely. I find mine take about 8-hours. Pack into a jar with some fresh herbs & olive oil. Refridgerate and start enjoying. Note: these aren’t meant for long term storage, so eat ‘em up (like that will be hard).
September 19 2009 | Growing Food and Harvest and Recipes | No Comments »
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