Tag Archives: Food

My Out of Control Garden

Posted on August 11, 2014 by AnnieRie

To go along with the out of control kitchen. I should have known. Doubling the size of my garden, and doubling the amount of sunlight daily would result in a quadrupling of the amount of tomatoes we harvest.

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The ten pounds of tomatoes harvested yesterday. To join that ten pounds from Friday. All told, more than 76 pounds of tomatoes so far this year.

The zucchinis are still producing. So are the cucumbers.

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And I really should have entered that big one in the fair. At 1 3/4 pounds I think it would have gotten second place. The winner, I believe, was 1.9 pounds.

We have tomatoes for at least two meals a day. The oven roasting, oven drying, tomato sauce, salad making, gifts, etc. are hardly making a dent in it. I had more plants last year with less than half this harvest.

Note to self. Do NOT plant this many tomatoes next year.

I have been busy. Pickling. Canning. Cooking. I even slow cooked a dozen onions to make caramelized onions to freeze.

Since I am doing the event at the Howard County Conservancy next week, I am creating a page to use as my “handout”, for participants to use for referral after coming to the event.

The page, which you can see above the posts, will include recipes and technique posts. The focus of my blog posts for the next ten days will be the advice I am providing relative to the “Putting Food Away” event.

After all, when your garden goes nuts, you need to find something to do with all this food.

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Anniversary Weekend

Posted on August 9, 2014 by AnnieRie

Yes, 34 years have passed since that Saturday, in stifling heat and humidity, not conducive to wearing wedding finery, when we got married. No, I am not posting pictures of the wedding.

I will post at least about the celebration dinner we had this evening.

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I slow cooked two tuna filets covered in my latest home made tomato sauce. It happily sat in the oven while I made all sorts of other goodies. Like this one.

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My first ajvar (Serbian roasted red pepper, eggplant and garlic spread) of the season. This was served with crostini as an appetizer. There are also two jars of it. One will be going to an amateur radio club picnic later this month. The other one. On a day trip picnic to some new winery we haven’t visited yet.

For the wine.

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We pulled out a Turley 2004 Petite Syrah from the stash in the basement. Absolutely lovely with the tuna.

For dessert.

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Berry peachy frozen yogurt. The pops aren’t ready yet, but we did have two little containers that were a perfect size for dessert while finishing the wine. This mixture was made with the final package of last year’s frozen peaches, blended with three or four cubes of blackberry simple syrup. A cup of vanilla yogurt. Using up what was left in the freezer from Larriland picking in 2013.

Not a bad way to celebrate over a third of a century together. A leisurely meal on the patio. Savored after another big Orioles win. Now, while I type, I am slow roasting peppers to freeze. Up tomorrow night. Slow cooked caramelized onions.

Harvest, the fair, and our anniversary. All in the same week. I need a vacation.

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Food Processing Friday …

Posted on August 8, 2014 by AnnieRie

… and Saturday and Sunday.

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As shown we are drowning in tomatoes. And, other things. Which are “pickle-able”.

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I pickled shallots, cucumbers and peppers today. Did Peter Pecker pick those peppers? No, and neither did I. They were in the CSA share this week.

I made a simple pickling spice mix. Added it to a mix of four to one, vinegar to water. Got it boiling. Blanched the veggies first. Sterilized the lids and seals. Came up with a few jars of “refrigerator’ pickles. These are easy to do. No canning techniques necessary. Just consume them in a week or two.

As for tomatoes. I did two pints of sauce today.

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This is a chunky tomato sauce. A number of blanched tomatoes stood by while I sweated onions, carrots, minced garlic, basil, thyme and oregano. Oh yeah. Salt and pepper.

I ended up with two pints ready to go into the freezer, to make those cold winter nights remind me of summer.

More tomorrow, when I blanch and fill green peppers with a sausage mixture. A feast that makes Stouffer’s look pathetic.

The freezer is filling up. That’s for sure.

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Putting Food Away

Posted on August 6, 2014 by AnnieRie

As in “What Do I Do With All These Tomatoes?”

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My preserving food program is under construction. Due to be presented at the Howard County Conservancy Mt Pleasant, on August 23rd. Details here.

I have been dealing with excess CSA veggies and fruit for a number of years. Plus, I do a number of pick your own excursions, looking for those staples, like tomatoes, berries, apples. I do many techniques, other than canning, that are simple to use to prolong the local goodness well into the winter.

I have been creating a new page for my site. It will be the go-to page for recipes and tips and places to find affordable fruits, veggies and herbs to put away for the winter.

All this is taking time. Time I have being retired. But, simple techniques like ice cube trays used to make individual fruit or pesto portions, or maybe my blanch and freeze technique for tomatoes and peaches, will inspire people to keep a few special favorites on hand. To make peach pops in the winter. Or add strawberry ice cubes to a glass of wine to make sangria. Or defrost a pesto cube to make summer tasting pasta.

Keep checking here to see when my new page goes live. And, come see what fun we can have with the fruits of our labor (for all us gardeners out there). August 23rd, 10AM at the Conservancy Mt Pleasant. Free program.

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Last Week’s CSA Basket

Posted on August 4, 2014 by AnnieRie

I didn’t forget about my CSA basket last week. I just have been so busy with other things I haven’t recorded it.

Lancaster Farm Fresh delivered another large varied basket of goodies to our pick up site. This is what we got, and what I have done with some of it.

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The fruit share. An add on. Peaches and blueberries this week. They are destined to become popsicles later this week. I am waiting for the peaches to ripen just a bit more. And, making blueberry syrup out of these berries. A blueberry swirl in the peach and yogurt pops.

As for veggies.

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Four green peppers
Two lemon cucumbers
A bag of red potatoes
A bag of fairy tale eggplants
Five orange carrots
Two yellow onions
Two large heirloom tomatoes
Six ears of sweet corn (I swapped zucchini for this)

Heaven knows, I don’t need more zucchini around here.

The tomatoes are gone. Sliced and covered with chicken salad, made using this week’s chicken breasts. Two days worth of lunches.

The corn has been boiled and eaten for Sunday night dinner, plus the extra ears will be part of a salsa later this week.

A few of the potatoes made it to Sunday’s dinner as well.

Tomorrow I will be grilling those cute baby eggplants with a few steaks and potatoes, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the day I met my husband. Opening some old wine that pairs well with steaks.

I am considering blanching, dicing and freezing the “trinity”. To use this winter. Peppers, onions and carrots. A good mix for soups, stews and other one pot dishes.

All in all, the summer bounty this year is being put to good use. Not a bad week’s half share. I am crossing my fingers though, and hoping we get a watermelon this Thursday. It’s that time of year again.

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Blue Ribbon Herbs

Posted on August 3, 2014 by AnnieRie

My second blue ribbon ever.

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Again for my herbs.

I have lots more from the fair, but this year again my herbs were the star of my entries. Again, my heirlooms fell short, but I did get three more fourth place ribbons and a fifth place ribbon.

My favorite:

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Fifth place for my ornamental vegetable display. This is the first time I did an ornamental display. I am learning from the other participants how to arrange what I submit. I was pleased to get the ribbon though.

As for the fourth places, they included:

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My yellow plum tomatoes.

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My yellow onions.

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And for most unusual vegetable. My cardoons.

I’m happy. I did twelve entries and won five ribbons. Not a bad return on investment, so to speak.

I love participating in the county fair. It’s small enough to not be intimidating, but large enough to have some serious competition. The people are really nice and help us newer entrants.

If I could only get my heirloom tomatoes to ripen in time, I would be ecstatic.

We will be at the fair at least four days, maybe five. We love to watch the 4-H’ers show their animals.

We visited our friends in the barn, and checked out some of their daughter’s animals. Like her lambs.

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All decked out to keep nice and clean before they are shown.

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And, some of their goats.

Tomorrow we will go and visit, seeing how their pigs are doing. They weren’t there yet, yesterday. I am so impressed with the dedication of the 4-H’ers to their animals.

To us. the fair isn’t about the midway and the rides, it’s about the community.

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Home Grown Goodness

Posted on August 1, 2014 by AnnieRie

Tonight’s dinner traveled less than 100 miles, for the most part, to our table.

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I realized as I was cooking that most of the ingredients, except for oil and spices, were from our CSA, our Friends and Farms basket, my garden, or England Acres.

We got a few medallion steaks from England Acres. These were the last ones. I pan seared, then oven finished the steaks. Each was petite. Just the right size. About 4/10 of a pound each.

The vegetable mix was easily made, as well.

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It is so simple to pan fry a mix of fresh vegetables. Start with a good light olive oil. Get it really hot, but not smoking. Add the onions first. Then I added the specialty squash. Then the baby eggplant. Then the tomatoes. I sprinkled these with fresh thyme from the garden. A little salt and pepper. The best part. A small slab of unsalted butter.

The other component of this dinner was a microwaved potato. Covered in pan juices after taking the steak out of the pan.

You can eat locally all the time. Not just during the Buy Local Challenge. Oh, I forgot. The wine was local, too. But I didn’t remember to take pictures. It was a Glen Manor Petit Verdot. From Virginia.

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Tabouleh Time

Posted on July 31, 2014 by AnnieRie

Sometimes one item in a CSA box or a Friends and Farms basket will inspire me. This week, in our Friends and Farms individual share, there was a huge bunch of parsley. All I need to make tabouleh, that I don’t have, is red onion.

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Tabouleh only requires parsley, bulgur, tomatoes, onion, lemon, mint, olive oil and cucumber. Salt and pepper. I actually have bulgur in the pantry. This weekend I will be making my version. We will see how it turns out.

As for the rest of the basket, a peak into the insulated bag.

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This week is my eggs and yogurt week. I chose vanilla yogurt, to use up some of the fruit around here to make popsicles. More on that later, too. We got one large pork chop (in an individual basket, there isn’t that much meat, which is a good thing). We also got a small package of “party wings”. Grilled wings next Monday or Tuesday, I think. The pork chop was seared, then finished in the oven, for dinner tonight. A little lemon pepper and olive oil. That’s all.

Two ears of corn.

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They were also served at dinner. Can’t get much fresher than this.

The rest of the basket.

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One Savoy cabbage. One container of Baby Bellas (which will become mushroom sauce for a special dinner with filets of beef). Two green peppers. Three potatoes. Three Lodi apples. Four yellow and four purple plums from Catoctin Mountain Orchards. One cucumber (for that tabouleh).

I like the size of this basket. I like the fact that we only get bread every other week. Three weeks of eggs for us, as we get eggs instead of milk. Cheese once a month. Breakfast meat once a month. Yogurt once a month. A good rotation, so you can use it up and not waste it.

And, the plums are delicious. Can’t decide my favorite. But I love Catoctin Mountain Orchards. We like to drive up there and find little treasures in their market. They are just north of Thurmont, off of US 15.

A good basket this week. A way to use up some of my tomatoes, that’s for sure.

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A Very Productive Day

Posted on July 29, 2014 by AnnieRie

At least in the gardening world that is the center of my days.

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Bright and early today I was out for my last week as food bank coordinator. Getting all the wheelbarrows ready for collecting the harvest. Additionally we were clearing out beds to ready for fall planting. Add to that the collection of vegetables for the lucky winner of the Wine in the Garden auction. They got a basket full of fresh vegetables again.

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We had a large group there today. Probably ten of us. Maybe even a dozen. We harvested all the beets, carrots, cabbage and leeks. Then pulled the plants from the beds and readied them for planting. Weeded quite a bit too.

Our donation today was 110 pounds. I think this entire month we had at least 100 pounds of vegetables each week to take to the Howard County Food Bank. Today’s volunteer driver met some of the people waiting for the food bank to open, who expressed their thanks for what we donate.

We heard that our vegetables are greatly appreciated, as they are fresh and pesticide free.

Hats off to our volunteers today. We put in two to three hours of work each today. The gardens are flourishing in this lovely weather.

After my time in the food bank plots, I headed off to bring home my last leeks and a boatload of tomatoes.

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This is part of it. My “audition” tray for my county fair decisions. Which cherry tomatoes do I choose? Will I get enough medium tomatoes to enter? What are my best plum tomatoes?

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And, hooray, I got my first ripe heirlooms today. Two each of two different varieties. With a half dozen more close to ripening on the vines. Friday I have to decide which ones to enter.

Now, off to process those other tomatoes. The ones not pretty enough to enter.

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Yes, there are that many tomatoes sitting in my kitchen today. That’s not all, though.

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A basket of goodies for my neighbor, who lets us borrow assorted items, like his ten foot ladder.

Just another Tuesday in west county.

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County Fair Prep

Posted on July 27, 2014 by AnnieRie

Come on heirlooms!! The last tomatoes to ripen every summer. Making me anxious about the fair. I need two ripe tomatoes of the same variety. The Howard County Fair starts Saturday, and I need to get my vegetables and herbs ready for entry.

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I currently am drowning in tomatoes, and getting ready to process some tomorrow. Unfortunately those heirloom tomatoes on the tray are from the CSA, and not my garden. I have at least five German Johnson that are close to ripe. I hope to pick them Tuesday or Wednesday. I have enough cherry tomatoes to enter, and enough plum tomatoes. Need a couple more medium early girls to get the minimum for submission.

Besides tomatoes, this year I have enough onions to enter.

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There were 24 onions left in the ground last week. I had to find the five best out of them. Fun job. Besides the onions, I harvested the rest of the leeks and the shallots.

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My onion/garlic/shallot bowl is overflowing. Time to do some roasting and get them ready for winter.

I have herbs for entry. Just can’t figure out which ones I want to pick.

And, finally, enough variety to make the vegetable display, which needs five different varieties of vegetables.

See you at the Fair!

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