What are You Eating from the Garden?

[flowerbug]

i've yet to meet a bean i did not like cooked as a dry bean. by now that's several hundred varieties and probably a few hundred more selections and discards.

some are certainly not as good as others for hummus, but i'm pretty happy with chickpeas, i don't even bother grinding them up any more as i like more texture and lumps anyways. just mix the ingredients right in the beans after pouring them over the chickpeas and eat up. there is usually lemon juice in the fridge and olive oil on hand, plus garlic. i consider tahini and sesame seeds as optional if we have them, but by now i'm so used to doing without i don't miss them. it's just different. at times a dollop of peanut butter is close enough. other times a shot of hot sauce...

 

[Branching Out]

i've yet to meet a bean i did not like cooked as a dry bean. by now that's several hundred varieties and probably a few hundred more selections and discards.

some are certainly not as good as others for hummus, but i'm pretty happy with chickpeas, i don't even bother grinding them up any more as i like more texture and lumps anyways. just mix the ingredients right in the beans after pouring them over the chickpeas and eat up. there is usually lemon juice in the fridge and olive oil on hand, plus garlic. i consider tahini and sesame seeds as optional if we have them, but by now i'm so used to doing without i don't miss them. it's just different. at times a dollop of peanut butter is close enough. other times a shot of hot sauce...

This is helpful information, because yesterday I was suggesting to a girlfriend that almost any snap bean that gets too big and produces seed seems to be able to be cooked and enjoyed as a dry bean. I tried cooking dried Scarlet Runner beans for the first time recently, and they were really delicious too.

My beany hummus is still tasting great after a few days. And I know a guy like you who doesn't blend his chickpeas either. He cooks them and then uses a potato masher to mash them right in the pot. Good stuff!

 

[Branching Out]

A refreshing breakfast of watermelon Winter King and Queen. The conditions were far too wet for them in October and I think the flavour was diluted as a result-- but it's still a treat to have homegrown melon in December. I set aside some of the seeds for replanting next year.

 

[Dahlia]

A refreshing breakfast of watermelon Winter King and Queen. The conditions were far too wet for them in October and I think the flavour was diluted as a result-- but it's still a treat to have homegrown melon in December. I set aside some of the seeds for replanting next year.

That's really lucky!

 

[Branching Out]

We grilled up bacon cheeseburgers tonight with Gustav's Salad lettuce, as well as a salad of mixed greens out of the garden (the tomatoes and cucumbers were from the grocery store). A very tasty supper.

 

[SPedigrees]

A bowl of spaghetti for a modest lunch (with a glass of milk and some carrot and celery sticks, not shown) made me suddenly realize that now, months after dealing with my over-abundant harvest, there is something enjoyable about eating something in winter that came from one's own garden. With the discomfort of coring and peeling an infinite number of frozen fruits, together with babysitting vats of simmering sauce on the stove for hours and hours, finally in the rear view mirror, it's kind of cool to think that this spaghetti sauce is made of tomatoes from plants that I grew from seeds. They weren't the best tomatoes, but they served this purpose.

 

[digitS']

Paste tomatoes have their place in a kitchen garden. We always have so many beefsteak and cherries by the end of the season that they aren't terrible missed. I have probably not grown them a dozen times.

Perspective. We like fresh tomatoes and I am especially appreciative of what some might think of as "hot tomato juice." I call it "soup" but cook it for less than 60 minutes on the stovetop. DW makes much appreciated salsa sauce from cherry tomatoes, using the toaster oven. Limitations. This isn't a very suitable climate for tomatoes that have many days to maturity. Official DTM listed by seed catalogs are far from accurate for a location with wide swings in temperature between day and night times. Cool nights slooooww tomato maturity. So, I have to be careful not to fill garden rows with varieties that won't mature a crop until all-at-once in September ... and then, have frost take out the plants a few days later.

Determinate varieties might do that heavy late September production. Long DTM indeterminates might produce 4 or 5 ripe tomatoes and our harvest would be whatever green ones we think might be okay ... Paste are nearly all determinates and, especially, do not like our chilly, Summer nights. The variety that I had the most success with, albeit nearly all ripening within the final 2 weeks of the season, was Heinz 2653 from your near-neighbor Fedco Seeds in Maine, @SPedigrees . They aren't a big and beefy paste but have that small seed cavity and limited juiciness. I am very tempted to grow them each year but then get caught up in all the salad types with short DTM but a longer season to enjoy. If our pasta sauce making wasn't quite as casual as it is, paste tomatoes would have an important role in our garden.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

green peppers, onions and tomatoes via chili from the freezer. dang it is some great chili. i wish i'd made six gallons of it.

 

[Branching Out]

We are sauteing the filling for beef and Bean burritos, with homegrown garlic, Siracha peppers, and a ragtag mix of dry beans. Once the filling cools we'll stir in grated cheese, and then fold up bundles of yumminess in large tortillas. The burritos freeze really well, for homemade fast food.

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday i finished off some sort of baked beans, i think it was the tail end of the several gallons i'd made and Mom ran out of some things but we decided to freeze them anyways. tasted fine to me. they had beans, tomatoes and onions from the gardens and bbq sauce added (the bbq sauce we make is very simple, ketchup, a squirt of mustard and some brown sugar, then cooked a bit). Mom is not into spices much at all these days and she's never been into hot chili sauces or hot peppers and green peppers don't agree with her either. so i tend to use all those things in chili that i add things too after she's take some out before i've ruint it.