Saturday 15 August 2009

The veggies are growing, the veggies are growing!

I've been working on growing a small vegetable & herb garden in our tiny backyard this year. I'm growing five kinds of heritage tomatoes, two kinds of eggplants, zucchinis, two types of peppers, parsley root, broccoli, etc.

It's been such a soggy year here this summer. Almost nothing has actually ripened and what started as an amazing growing season is turning into a late harvest. I've taken one zucchini out of my garden so far, although plenty of herbs.

We've had a bout of hot weather, finally. Suddenly it looks like everything wants to grow again. I have tomatoes on at least three plants, and am hoping the sun and heat will get them to start to ripen. I finally have a cayenne pepper growing, and plenty of flowers on both pepper plants. And an eggplant is growing! I'm very much looking forward to harvesting some more food from my garden soon.

The zucchinis are struggling, although still growing like mad. I have a mildew problem that I am attempting to beat with a chamomile infusion. One of the zucchini plants is also displaying blossom rot, so we've recent ground up some egg shells and added to the soil. *fingers crossed*

In better news, my small ground cherry seedling has bloomed into a strong plant with a lot of fruit on it. It gets plenty of sun, so I am sure we'll get a decent yield from it. And, I have cucumbers growing! One is quite large now and I am sure we'll be eating it this week.

Still, with all the work that's been involved with the garden this year, it's been completely fulfilling. The one zucchini we ate tasted amazing. Something about the taste of something you've worked hard and grown yourself. Also, the view out our patio doors is fantastic, all lush and green and symbolic of all the work I've done out there. Working in the garden is hard, but I always feel refreshed and accomplished.

It's been great slowly turning my thumb from black to green.

Thursday 13 August 2009

Whole Carrot Soup

We've gotten a few big bunches of colourful carrots in our CSA recently - orange, white and red - with their bright greens attached.

Did you know you can eat carrot greens? I didn't.

I decided I wanted to find a dish where I could use both the root and greens in one dish, and opted for a made-on-a-whim soup...

Whole-Carrot Soup

I used three bunches of carrots in total, and approximately two bunches worth of greens.

For the soup base I used an organic vegetable broth and added all of the orange carrots (diced) along with some caramelized onions and sautéed garlic. I made an herb bundle out of thyme and rosemary from my garden (tied with a carrot green stalk!) and seasoned with salt and pepper. When it had cooked well, I took out the herb bundle and used a hand blender to puree the soup. I would have liked a bit more carrots in the base to thicken it, but I needed the liquid content to cover all the food I was about to add!

After this I added some freshly chopped garlic, along with chopped red and white carrots (the red ones are anything from a red to a purple, and have an orange center). I removed the thicker stalks from the carrot greens, chopped it up and threw it in. Seasoned to taste, cooked it until it looked done. Serve and eat.

What I would change next time - I would probably roast both the carrots and the garlic to add an extra richness and deeper taste to it, but it was a fabulous soup!

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Crunchy Kale for the win

Sitting back, thinking about a crunchy snack...

Kale.

Yep, you might not think of this curly, leafy grean as a crunchy snack. Trust me, you'd be missing out on a stellar incarnation of this summer vegetable.

I took a big bunch of Kale and washed it all, de-stemmed them, then ripped it up into bite-size pieces then stored it for later use. When we need a crunch snack, I pull out a few handfuls, throw them into a bowl and toss with a little oil (of choice, I used a local peanut oil), and season with salt.

You can choose to season it either before or after you've baked it. I choose before, and used a salt mill, so I have a subtle slightly salty taste (I'm not much of a salt eater). For a more powerful salty flavour, salt after with your favourite salt.

Spread the kale out on a cookie sheet (don't overlap) and bake at 325*F for 7 minutes. Flip the kale over, then cook for another 5 minutes or so. Should be crunchy, but be careful not to overcook.

I'd have take a picture for you all, but I literally just ate them all ;)

Lemon-Cilantro salad dressing

Since we've joined the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture - we get weekly veggie baskets) we've had a lot of vegetables to get through. That means, lots of salad!

About a year or so ago we stopped buying salad dressings entirely, and started making our own. Vinegrettes are fairly straight forward, and as a kid we usually made our own. But we get tired of the same old vinegrette, so I tend to play around with ingredients. Some are hit, some are miss.

Tonight, a hit.

Lemon-Cilantro salad dressing
1/3 cup of your oil of choice
1 large lemon
generous handful of freshly cut cilantro
1 teaspoon minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste

I minced the garlic a few days ahead of time. I minced a lot of garlic one night, used what I needed to, and stored the rest in a local peanut oil, in the fridge. Homemade minced garlic has a great flavour and was an excellent boost to the dressing.

As for oils, I used a local peanut, with a not-so-local olive oil. And yes, the lemon wasn't local either. My mother had brought a couple by recently when we had dinner and drinks. This was literally a salad dressing made out of things in the fridge and fresh herbs from the garden.

I finely chopped the cilantro and had a huge pile of it. Trying to find an easy way to handle the lemon, first I peeled it, then through it into my handy Tupperware "Quick chef", then strained out the seeds and (most of) the pulp.