In Season & Fresh from the Garden, the Fields, the Orchards & the Woods
Sometimes we forgot how good simple food is. Or at least can be, when one is eating pure fresh unadulterated food. Like what we pretty much did today. Delicious and hardly any cooking! We simply listened to the garden who told us what was for …
The kitchen garden is really coming into its own now.
We are eating lots of salad greens and cooked greens (kale, mustard, Swiss chard, escarole); peas (both mange-tout/sugar snap and shelling peas) have just started and should go through the end of the month. Still a few spears of asparagus, despite my resolve to let the bed go: since many of the spears are still as large as my thumbs… I am still picking. Spring Onions. A few Japanese turnips. Lots of herbs that I use by the handful: parsley, leaf celery (aka parcel), cilantro, dill, oregano, and sage (which I love, leaves fried in a tempura batter as an appetizer) and many others which I use with less abandon (mint, thyme, lemon verbena, anise hyssop etc). And the strawberries are lovely.
What’s next? Currants are just blushing and the early blueberries blu-ing. Continue reading One Local Summer
Or is it for Swiss chard? because my chard is doing quite well, thank you very much. I am now harvesting two big bunches a week, and with all that rain, and that nice temperature, it’s growing and growing and growing – as you can …
Today is Memorial Day in the United States. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short …
There is somebody in the house who’s not so fond of radishes, especially radish leaf soup or stir-fried radish pods, but I’ve just hit the jackpot!
I made something with radishes where the reaction was: “I can eat radish like that all day long!” I am sure that was an exaggeration, and I won’t serve this at every meal. But I must admit it was good.
In fact, the current crop of French Breakfast style radishes has peaked: they are gathering strengths to make seeds, and you can tell because the root is starting to a be little hollow. Still… I can’t throw them out.
Thanks to VeggieBelly, I’ve had fresh pickles on my mind – hers was mango, but hey, I don’t have mangoes, I have radishes – and what else do I have growing now? let’s see spring onions and cilantro – lots of cilantro as a matter of fact, and it’s starting to bolt because it did not like the few days above 90F (32C) that we had – so I need to use it.Voila, Quick Pickled Radish Salsa was born! We’ve tried it with several dishes, and we like it best with stir-fry beef, simple pork stew, hamburger steak and served with rice. Definitively need the rice to make up for the saltiness (and heat) of the pickle. And inspired by Marisa of Food In Jars who puts everything in jar, I jarred it. (if the radish salsa is not consumed right away, the radishes will start to turn pink throughout, continue to exude some juice and the texture will change somewhat – still very good – just not the same).
Quick Pickled Radish Salsa Continue reading Making Radishes Lovable
I treasure local seasonal produce, local farms, local farmers, local chefs and dinner parties that get us around the table for food, friends, conversation and laughter. You know that. So it should come as no surprise to anybody that I am helping to put together …
First Shirley poppy (Papaver rhoeas), one of my favorite flowers that I let seed all over the garden.
They come on the heel of the orange-y wispy field poppies, and they come in shade of pinks and reds, from the clearest vermilion to dark wine; some have black crosses as their center, other white blotches. They are so graceful and so luminous in the morning light. Last year they were beautiful with the asparagus ferns, peaking in June.
Now is also the last of the dogwood blossoms, the petals falling off with the rain. It’s been a good year for dogwoods.
First Swiss chard of the season, chopped and sautéed with garlic and some of the last freezer cherry tomatoes.
Last of the spinach: it was a mistake not to plant spinach last fall; the seeds planted in late winter never made plants big enough before bolting. We had a few nice salads, but that’s it. This fall: no excuse, spinach must be sown in September!
First peas… soon. The peas are blooming now, pods won’t be long. Meanwhile, I pinch the shoots off to force the plant to branch, and they go into salad (pea shoots are edible, you know).
And finally: first black bear sighting of the season. This morning around 6:30 as I was on my way to let the chickens out of their coop. I first was not sure what that big black mass was – I did not have my glasses on, but it moved, slowly, so I knew it was not a pool of shadows. He (she?) was where I was expecting him (her?) to show up anytime now: in the skunk cabbage patch. I was expecting him. It does not mean I am happy to see him. I yelled, he raised his big head, look and me, and slowly, slowly, very slowly, turned his back, and walked up the hill.
He is not always that accommodating.
My frugal peasant instincts won’t let me throw out (OK, compost) perfectly good to eat radish leaves. Of course, there is somebody in the house (who shall rename nameless) who does not think that radish leaves are perfectly good to eat. I still, sometime, manage …