The Harvest Continues

Vegetables from Mid-August 2015

Sadly, it seems like the harvest has slowed down, and the end of August will also herald the end of the garden season for us. We still have some tomatoes, melons, and corn growing; however, most of our corn, and our second plantings of peas and beans have been eaten by the local wildlife. The above picture represents the diversity of crop varieties we grew this year. We also have small, white eggplants, which are not pictured. The yellow-striped squashes, we are using as fall decor on our porch. I used the cucumbers and tomatoes in a fantastic marinated salad with pickled pepperoncini peppers from a jar- it was delicious!

What A Variety!

Unloading Fresh Picked Vegetbles

Today's harvest brought with it a great variety of differing types of vegetables from our garden. We have 2 types of peppers, 3 different tomatoes, yellow cucumbers, mini cantaloupe, zucchini, and a decorative gourd, I chopped up the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers into a marinated salad with some garlic salt and the brine from pepperoncini peppers. The orange gourd is out on our porch as part of our fall decor. The zucchini will be tonites dinner. ,

Enjoying the Harvest

Grilled Eggplant Sandwiches

For lunch, I cooked these awesome garden fresh sandwiches above. They are made with veggies fresh from the harvest. The sandwiches are made of grilled eggplant slices, parmesan, mozzarella, tomatoes, and grilled french bread with garlic. I garnished them with lemon cucumber slices (yellow heirloom cucumbers from my garden) and homemade guacamole dip. The guacamole is 1/2 avocado and 1/2 french onion dip, with a dash of garlic salt and cayenne. I also gave veggies to all the neighbors. I plan to pick more of the yellow cucumbers next week and make pickles. They taste just like normal cucumbers.

Popcorn

Crimson Sweet Melons

Today's Veggie Harvest Aug. 8, 2015

The Great Fermentation

Sauerkraut and Pickled Hot Green Beans

 Today, I headed out to the garden and got a great harvest, including onions, beans, squash, and tomatoes. I cooked the green beans in the crock pot, chopped the onions for a mushroom and rice dish, used the tomatoes and zucchini in a meatball recipe, and also worked on starting some fermented foods in mason jars. The first jar is purple cabbage, green cabbage, and carrots, with dill weed, garlic, and fennel. In the second jar are green beans, garlic, and cayenne pepper. Each jar also has 2 tbs of pickling salt added to it. This is important to use pickling salt, because it does not have iodine, which interacts poorly with the fermenting process. In order to ferment the vegetables, they need to be in a sealed, airtight container for 4-6 weeks, so the natural bacteria can multiply and produce the natural sour acids that preserve the product. I am fermenting mine in the mason jars, but you can use fermenting pails from homebrew stores, or order specialty crocks.

Today's Harvest Aug 4, 2014

Let's Cook!

Yogurt Dill Dressing and Medium Garden Salsa

This week, we have had an abundance of zucchini, tomatoes, jalapenos, and green beans, so I decided to do some cooking and make a treat for a friend of mine, who is a chef and a foodie. I made medium spiced garden salsa with tomatoes, red onion, cilantro, garlic, a dash of vinegar, and a pinch of salt. Then, I made homemade yogurt, from organic whole milk, combined with live active yogurt starter culture from The Better Health store in Lansing, MI. This yogurt did not turn out as thick as I wanted, but is extremely tasty, so I added powdered onion, garlic, and dill weed to make a yogurt sauce and salad dressing. I have made this sauce before. It is superb on lentils, lamb, or a fresh green salad. Finally, I added a handmade Patchouli Oud Wood scented drawer sachet that I made. This earthy scent is made with real patchouli essential oil and is balanced with the dry scent of exotic, Asian wood.

The scented sachets are available for sale in my Etsy shop, Tundra And Taiga: My Etsy Shop

Gift Box

Homegrown Veggies 

Patchouli Oud Wood Sachets I made