Harvest 2008

Just some examples of things I've harvested in the past month or so. The potatoes were from a while back, the tomatoes and basil were probably early August, the melon was last week and the corn/squash/tomatoes are from tonight. Potatoes:Yukon Gold, squash: Yellow Straightneck, tomatoes: Green Zebra, Roma, Brandywine, Rutgers, and Better Boy (I think), basil: Genovese, corn: Golden Bantam, and the melon, 'Arizona', is an heirloom variety of canteloupe that doesn't seem to be too well known. It is SO sweet and flavorful...everything was great! This is my first year of serious gardening and I am definitely hooked...

Corn

I lived in Illinois for four years and I am fairly certain that the closest I got to an actual corn plant was helping to set up the 'Children of the Corn' room in the theatre department's annual haunted house one year. I remember driving to work every day in the summer of 1995 past acre after acre of corn and you could practically watch it growing if you were stopped at a stoplight. There's a lot in the news about corn right now and most of it isn't very optimistic.

I think it's pretty.

another veggie pie/tortiere

This time I sauteed some thinly sliced onions and celery with herbs, then thinly sliced potatoes and sunchokes. I layered those in the pan, added a can each of kidneys, pintos, and corn, then covered it in baked squash and baked it all for 30 minutes. I've made this kind of thing lots of times, but this is definitely the best.

CSA, curry, salsa

Haven't posted in a long time... Did anyone notice? A lot has happened in the time since I was posting more frequently. I have been riding my bike a lot and have lost a pretty good amount of weight... About 25 pounds so far, give or take. I bid farewell to my 6 wisdom teeth, and so far I am happy that they are gone. We just ditched Planet Organics and are trying out a CSA called Two Small Farms. They sent us corn, beautiful heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, sweet red peppers (HOT), strawberrys, red onions, and spinach. Possibly some other stuff but that's what I remember.

The problem with PO was that most of the time, the food (supposedly picked less than 24 hours before delivery) was already spoiling, and the stuff that wasn't was going to soon. We couldn't just eat all the food in one day, so our interest in PO kinda waned and we ended up wasting food every week, which made us unhappy. It looks like the weekly portion from TSF will be a better size, and so far I am more impressed with the quantity. Also, we like the idea that we're supporting a few local farms. With PO, it was supposedly all local, but, well, that proved to be the case much less of the time than we'd hoped. Oh well. They're a good business and they try hard, I think, but perhaps they have moved in a direction that is not in line with our interest.

Anyway, tonight I made a curry with corn and potatoes. Boiled those both first. I sauteed onions, garam masala, star anise, and a cinnamon stick for a while cutting the corn off the cobs, occasionally adding water to the pot to soften and meld it all together. I used ghee, btw, mostly because I've got some I want to use up. I do like it's flavor, but I'm happy enough to just use olive oil, even when most people say its flavor is too distinct for a given recipe.

Anyway, I added the potatoes and corn to the pot and a few cups of water, and put it on about medium heat. I added a chopped red pepper (which is currently burning my thumb), some peanut butter, and some almond milk, and then let it simmer for about 20 minutes. It was pretty liquidy at that point, but after letting it sit for a while, whilst I made the salsa and assembled burritos from preexisting parts, it had thickened up to a nice consistency. I'm looking forward to eating it, although sadly I haven't been very hungry today and still am not*.

For the salsa, I just chopped and blended all the tomatillos, one onion, one heirloom tomato, and two chili peppers, which may have turned out to be too much. I added a bit of water to help with the blending but I think that was the wrong thing to do. It could be that simmering this whole mixture would be good, but I'm not planning to try it now... Just an idea for next time. Although I may try it, given that I can barely eat it as it is, due to its heat.

*Note: there is, however, a root beer float in my near future.