Using up last year's harvest...

One thing we always grow in our garden is sweet potatoes.  This time of year they are starting to sprout and I am trying hard to use them up so they won't go to waste!

Here is a nice recipe for a lovely pudding that I make with them.  The original recipe calls for cocoa and vanilla extract, but I cannot eat very much chocolate because I am sensitive to the caffeine and theobromine in it, so I use carob powder and almond extract, instead of cocoa and vanilla extract. Carob, of course, does not taste like chocolate, but it is very good in its own right and is also a very healthy food.  

SWEET POTATO PUDDING

In a high-speed blender, combine the following:

2 cups cooked sweet potato, boiled, peeled and mashed

1 1/4 cups plain plant milk (I use homemade soy milk)

8 pitted deglet noir dates (or maybe 4 or 5 medjool dates)

1 teaspoon pure almond extract

1/4 cup carob powder

Blend until very smooth and then refrigerate until cold, covered.

Winter bits from the garden...

We recently had a fairly severe cold snap with below zero temperatures that lasted for several days. When I went outside this morning I went to the garden to see if there was anything at all that could be salvaged.  I actually found some kale and pulled up a clump of onions. I used some of the onions in potato salad today and will be using the rest of them and the kale in some vegetable soup soon. I know there are lots of Jerusalem artichokes out there that could be harvested. It is so nice to realize that even though winter is upon us, there are still fresh things to enjoy.

 

Swiss Chard

 

Have you ever grown Swiss Chard?  It is a variety of beet that I grow.  You don't eat the root.  You eat the leaves.  They are very similar to spinach in flavor, and the nice thing is that they do not "bolt" when the weather warms up.  You can eat them all season and into the fall.  With some protection, they can even stand through the winter and you can eat them next year!  Of course, next year they will go to seed, but if you don't want that to happen, just keep cutting off the seed stalks. Like spinach, they have oxalates, so you don't want to eat these greens in large amounts every day.  Here is an excellent article all about them: Swiss Chard: Nutrition, Health Benefits, and How to Cook It (healthline.com) 

In the picture above you, can see our row of Swiss chard.  It will get much bigger than this, too, as the summer advances. To the right you see turnip greens, which are wonderful, also.

My favorite way to cook Swiss chard, other than just putting it in soup, chop it up with some sliced green onion, a few sliced mushrooms and some cubed tofu.  I sauté all of this in a little fat-free vegetable broth and then serve it on it's own next to some sort of starch... rice, lentil loaf, potatoes, whatever I have.  I put Bragg's Liquid Aminos on mine.  

Garlic Havest 2023

 

I harvested the garlic today. In this condition, it all weighs 20 pounds! I was particularly pleased because in October I planted 60 cloves and today I dug up exactly 60 bulbs.  In case you are not familiar with growing garlic, here is how I do it.  I plant individual cloves a few inches apart sometime in October, cover them with soil and a light mulch.  Then, the following year, when the bottom two leaves are brown, I dig it all up, let it dry on a covered porch, then I will cut off the leaves and keep the garlic bulbs in a bowl or basket in the kitchen.  Some of it I will ferment, so it will keep indefinitely in the refrigerator.

And so it begins....

 

In about a month it will officially be Spring!  I put sweet potatoes in jars of water this morning to grow slips for this year's garden.  It did my gardening soul good.  Happy Gardening 2021!!!  That is one thing the pandemic did not affect.  I was still able to grow food. I enjoyed it very much last year. 

It's like having a tomato vine in my kitchen!

As the weather has gotten colder this fall, I've been bringing our green tomatoes from the garden into the house.  When frost threatened, I brought them all in.  This project has been wildly successful!  We set up a little card table and covered it with newspaper, then placed the tomatoes on there, slightly spaced apart and as they ripen, I use them in cooking or for fresh eating. Very few have gone bad.  I love how it looks.  I am sure I'll still have some at Thanksgiving.

I know that some people wrap each tomato in newspaper and lay them in boxes, but at least for me this is much better.  I don't have to keep unwrapping and checking them for ripeness.  It does take up some space in our small house, but it's worth it!

Here are the ones I "harvested" today.  I used them in spaghetti sauce. 

Garden report 2020

 This season, we weighed all of the fresh vegetables that we harvested in our garden.  I've never done that before, but I'm so glad I did!  The total came to 1,027 pounds of produce!  And that doesn't include the 57 pounds of luffa gourds!  Here are a few pictures from this year.  We had plenty to eat, still have plenty to eat and I was able to can and freeze many things to carry us over until next spring.

It's been an amazing year and I'm so grateful!

"Bloody Butcher Dent Corn"

This is a picture of me standing in front of our "Boody Butcher Dent Corn."  It is an heirloom variety and I plan to use it to make cornmeal.  We measured it at 12 feet tall!  I bought the seed from www.rareseeds.com

Monster radishes!

Two years ago my daughter came and helped me make a hugelkultur in the vegetable garden. You can read about that here:  

http://simplyhomemaking60.blogspot.com/2017/10/hugelkultur.html

This morning I went out to check on some radishes that I had planted in the hugelkultur in March and neglected to pull up.  Here is what I found!

Surprisingly, they are good flavored and not stringy.  In fact, they are very good!  So, I cut them up and have started a ferment.  :)

Then I cleaned and blanched the greens and ended up with 4 nice little packages for the freezer.

The Sweet Potatoes did MUCH better than I expected!

My husband and I dug up the sweet potatoes this afternoon.  With the overall dismal results from this year's garden, I was very surprised at what a good harvest we got - and very grateful! Here they all are in our wheelbarrow.

Look at this one!

I can't help but wonder just how that happened!

When you harvest sweet potatoes, you need to let them "cure" for at least a month.  If you eat them right away, they are rather bland.

After we did all this and got them into the house, I cooked one of the two that I had left from last year and made a sweet potato pie!  We'll have that for lunch tomorrow.  I make my crust with whole wheat pastry flour, NON -hydrogenated lard, salt and milk.  The pie filling is sweetened with just 1/2 cup of honey.  It makes a very nice, wholesome pie.

Sweet potatoes don't like being cold.  I just store them in baskets in my kitchen, and they last for a long long time.  

Forgive me, I had written "hydrogenated lard" yesterday.  I've corrected that now!  Yikes!!!

What I am doing with our wonderful Purple Sweet Potatoes....

Here is a purple sweet potato that we grew in our garden this year.  I think we ended up with about 2/3 of a bushel of them from FIVE plants.  They did amazingly well. As I've told you before, sweet potatoes (orange or purple) are very easy to grow, and, at least where we live, are very productive.  All I have to do is dig them up, let them cure (I do it on the garage floor) for a week or two, and then place them in baskets or paper bags or cardboard boxes and set them in the house.  They will easily stay nice until the next harvest.  They are not sensitive to light like Irish potatoes, but they don't like to get cold, so don't keep them in a cold cellar or in your refrigerator.

These potatoes are much dryer than the orange variety. They also are sweet, but not as much as the orange ones.  However, what they might lack in taste (on their own) pales in comparison to the nutritional benefits. I assume you are familiar with the fact that blueberries are very rich in certain antioxidants? This purple color reflects a rich concentration of those same phytonutrients that we find in blueberries.  If you garden, then this is an easy and very inexpensive way to be able to eat those on a regular basis.

One morning, recently, I was laying in bed pondering what I might do to use more of the Purple sweet potatoes.  I do like to boil them, peel and mash with a little lime juice, some butter and sour cream and maybe some sort of sweetener.  I have also made very nice Purple sweet potato pie a few times. On the  morning in question, I decided to try making powdered Purple sweet potatoes.  It worked out perfectly.  If you have a dehydrator and a good blender, you can do this too.

I cut the Purple sweet potatoes into large slices, covered them with water and boiled them until they were tender when pierced with a sharp knife.  Then, I drained them, let them cool and removed the skins.  Next, I put them in my mixer and used the "paddle" attachment and added a bit of water and mashed them thoroughly.  Next, I spread them on fruit roll trays in the dehydrator, not very thinly, actually, and dehydrated them at 135 F. It only took a few hours.  When they were nice and crisp, I put them in the blender and turned them into powder.

Next, I put them in a glass jar and covered it tightly.

Here is a picture of a little bit of it in a spoon so you can see what the powder looks like:

So, you may ask, what do I do with this powder?  You can add it to anything you wish!  I've been adding some to bread, I sprinkle it on yogurt, or in a sandwich on top of something else. I'm sure it will be lovely in smoothies.  It is mild in flavor and packed with nutrients.

That pint jar was filled by just 3 of the potatoes.  Like I mentioned, they are quite dry, so they yield a lot in comparison with other vegetables and fruits.

https://simplyhomemaking60.blogspot.com/search?q=sweet+potato

Gardening does pay off... even if there are problems.

This year we have a terrible raccoon invasion.  They ate ALL the sweet corn before it was even getting close to being ripe.  And now they are eating and knocking down tomatoes that are green.  Ugh!  Next year we will have an electric fence to keep them out.

Nevertheless, in spite of the raccoons and weeds, there is lots of food out there.  I went out and picked things today and cut up 7 different vegetables and one herb to make a stir-fry for supper. It was very good, by the way, served over rice with some soy sauce.  Here is what I put in the stir fry. The big white blob is some frozen onions.  My garden onions were starting to rot in the ground, so I pulled them all and sliced them and froze them in little packages.  Clockwise from the onions are sugar snap peas, sweet banana peppers, tomato, parsley, leek, and okra. I also added some fresh garlic from the garden. I feel, well, privileged. There are so many of our brothers and sisters in the world that have so little to eat. 

Tiny Tip - about onions

Today I am making cucumber relish to can.  It calls for cucumbers, sweet peppers and onions - all ground up.  You know how it is... if you deal with a lot of onions, pretty soon your eyes will be burning and tears will be coming out enthusiastically... very uncomfortable!

I am here to tell you I have discovered a solution!  At least it works for me. I used a hand powered food grinder to prepare the vegetables.  While I ground the onions, I kept munching on cucumbers.  For some reason, then the onions did not bother my eyes.  Voila!  I hope it helps you too!

Broccoli cheddar soup with zucchini and carrot...

My neighbor gave me a zucchini squash the other day.  It's been sitting on the counter looking at me ever since. I considered sauteing it with some onion and butter, but didn't.  I decided to incorporate it into some broccoli cheddar soup. I ran into a similar recipe online and tweaked it for what I had on hand. I used a food processor to grate the vegetables, but of course you can use a hand grater just as well.  This is a winner.  

SOUP

2 Tablespoons butter

Small to medium zucchini squash, grated

1 carrot, peeled and grated

2 cloves (or more) garlic, minced

1/2 onion, grated

1 pound frozen broccoli florets (or you can use fresh, of course)

3 cups chicken stock (or some bone broth - whatever you like)

2 more Tablespoons of butter

1/4 cup white flour

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1 cup whole milk

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

In a large pot, melt the butter.  Add the onion, carrot and zucchini and saute until tender, stirring constantly.  Then add the garlic and cook just a little longer.

Pour in the broth and add the broccoli florets.  Simmer just until the broccoli is tender.

While it is simmering, in a skillet, melt the butter, add the flour and stir that around well and then gradually add the milk and cream, whisking smooth.  When it thickens, add the cheese and stir until the cheese is melted and incorporated.

Pour the cheese sauce into the other pot and stir well.  Salt to taste.  Add some pepper if you like.

This  may be frozen. 

Purple Sweet Potato Pie

This past summer, we grew some Purple Sweet Potatoes in our garden. Here is a link to where we got the original plants:

https://www.rareseeds.com/sweet-potato-molokai-purple-3-plants-ships-march-june-/

We bought the original plants 2 years ago and planted them, but then had a terrible, horrible, very bad gardening year and ended up with, literally, one little tuber about the size of a walnut.  One of my garden fairies (I have TWO now) told me to plant it in a pot to keep it alive.  I did, placing it on the windowsill in the kitchen.  It grew, at last and I started taking "slips" off of it and rooted them in a little jar of water.  I ended up planting just 3 of them in the sweet potato bed and they did very well!
Here is a photo from the website to show you what they look like:

I find them to be relatively dry, and not as sweet as the usual orange sweet potatoes, but they make up for that in their nutritional punch! That deep purple color tells you that they have LOTS more of the wonderful phytonutrients that are in blueberries.

Yesterday, I steamed some of them and then made a pie.  Here is my pie.  As it bakes it puffs up and that is what you see here, but after it begins to cool, it sinks back down.

Sweet Potato Pie 

(I used purple sweet potatoes.  You can use the orange ones, of course.)

1 pound steamed sweet potato (I put mine through a ricer, you don’t have to do that – mine was purple, but the orange kind would work just fine.

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup honey
½ cup milk
2 eggs
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust

Steam the sweet potatoes,cool a little, take off the skins and break them up into a bowl. Add the butter and mix well with mixer. Stir in honey, milk, eggs, nutmeg, cinnamon and vanilla. Beat until nice and smooth. Pour into unbaked pie shell.

Bake at 350 F for 55 – 60 minutes until knife inserted in center comes out clean. It will puff up and then will sink down as it cools.

CRUST – use a pastry cutter to work in the lard.
About ¾ cup whole wheat flour and ½ cup all purpose flour
1/3 cup cold lard
½ teaspoon salt
Ice water

I did not give you the method for making the crust here, just the ingredients.  If you have a question about the method, please comment and ask!

Cole Slaw - that I like - AT LAST !!!

My whole life, until the last few weeks, I've hated had an uncertain relationship with "Cole Slaw." Everyone else in the entire world seems to like it.  I've tried numerous recipes through the years and either they tasted awful to me or just so - so.  But now!  I've conquered it, at last! I realize, Gentle Readers, that many among you are not adverse to the taste of Cole Slaw.  This has been a personal quest.  I mean, what am I supposed to do with all of that cabbage that I grow other than just cook it with corned beef and potatoes, or make it into sauerkraut?

Voila!

Here is a picture of the new version of Cole Slaw:

I will show you how this came about, and share my Recipe (more a method, really.)  Here is the temperature this morning; a lovely 70.1 F inside and 24.4 F outside: 

Come with me, we are going to the garden...

See that?

That is a simple Hoop House that my husband constructed over the bed of kale that I planted last spring.  Here we are, closer:

Now I will open up the end and give you a look inside.

Since the light is so bright, you can't see how the hoop house really looks inside, but you can see that there is a lot of perfectly happy Curly Scotch Kale in there.  It will stand all winter, and when it is a little warmer, it will even continue to grow.  If we have a warmish day, or one that is very sunny, I open up the ends of the structure so it won't overheat.

Here is how I am making the Cole Slaw that I love:

I use a food processor to thinly shred the following:  (A very sharp knife could be used as well, of course.)

Some fresh cabbage

1/3 as much fresh kale leaves, stems removed

Then I use the processor, again, and grate these ingredients:

Some carrot

A small amount of onion

Some celery (from freezer)

Some sweet pepper (from freezer)

Mix all of the vegetables together and then I add homemade mayonnaise until it's as moist as I like, then a nice squirt of prepared yellow mustard, some salt, and a big dollop of home canned sweet pickle relish.

Stir all of that well, taste and see if it needs anything.

That's it!  Now, of course, you can use the basic ingredients and tweek this for what you have on hand, etc...  

I am so happy to have a way to eat the kale raw that tastes good to me.  The only other way that I really like kale is in soup or Colcannon. Kale chips are very popular, but I am not a fan as it takes a lot of trouble for only a small amount of food.

I have to mention, though, that I actually canned some kale this year, early on, and I DO like it that way.  I only put up 3 pints, as an experiment, but I think I will try to do more next year.

Oh, yes... here is my mayonnaise recipe:

MAYONNAISE

In a medium-sized bowl combine:

3 egg yolks (if you are not worried about the safety of raw eggs)

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1.5 Tablespoons (one and one-half) raw apple cider vinegar

1 cup extra-virgin olive oil (or 1/2 EVOO and 1/2 Avocado oil)

sea salt, to taste (about 8 pinches)

I use an immersion blender to blend this all together and it takes only moments to do.  I used to do it in a stand blender, drizzling in the olive oil very slowly and that works fine, but takes a lot more time.

According to Gnowfglins, if you add a Tablespoon of live whey to this and let it sit out on the counter for 7 hours before putting it in the fridge, it will keep much longer, but if you are going to use it within a week, I wouldn't worry about that.

We dug the Sweet Potatoes yesterday!

First harvest of 2017!!!

Are you tired of tips yet? - Saving salad....

When I make a tossed salad of raw vegetables, I usually make quite a bit, and it lasts for a few days for us.  Then, once in a while, it doesn't get eaten before it starts to oxidize and look rather pathetic. It would not be a bad thing to eat it, but it just doesn't look very nice, if you understand...

This morning, I chopped up some oyster mushrooms that I had gathered and part of a red onion that was in the refrigerator and mixed it together with the salad (leaf lettuce, onion, radish, sweet peppers, celery, carrots) and I stir fried it all in extra-virgin olive oil.  I cooked some brown rice in my Instant Pot and served it with Soy Sauce.

It was very good.  :)

(Almost) Perpetual "green onions" (a.k.a. "scallions")

If you like to use green onions in your cooking and as a garnish, here is an easy and inexpensive way to grow your own.  I set an onion in a mug with some water in the bottom, and you can see what is growing there. When I need some, I just snip off a leaf or two and cut them up.  The onion will last for quite a while and when it gets looking pathetic, I will replace it with another one.

Where I live, this time of year, the onions I have grown or purchased are sprouting enthusiastically, so that makes them grow in a mug even faster.

 Here is what the roots look like:

I change the water every other day.