Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Stocking Up...Literally

This week has started my mad dash to preserve as much as summer as possible.  Although it may be 90 degrees out, to me it was the perfect time to make some chicken stock.  This is invaluable for us in the winter for soups and curries.  And the stock is best with fresh produce and herbs.  This can be pressure canned or frozen.
Another big deal that happened last week was that we finally purchased a chest freezer!  I can't explain how excited I am about this since our normal freezer was jammed.  Now I just need to finish filling it up.

So today I went to town blanching and freezing some of the local veggies. 

Corn and Red Peppers

Broccoli

Roasted Red Peppers.  I got this recipe from Happy Valley Locavore.

And miscellaneous other preserving projects.
Oregano, Sage and Parsley

10 lbs of local onions (can never have enough)

And this is what our cabinet looks like right now.  We are looking pretty good for this winter, and we are charging away at the Harvest Keeper Challenge!  Check out the sidebar for our current preservation tallies.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Punjab Eggplant

This has been a great summer for eggplant, and here in our garden we have had a plethora of these black beauties.  And since I am going to miss them this winter, I made a big batch of Punjab Eggplant to freeze.

We came about this recipe from a Tasty Bite and really enjoyed the unique barbecue flavor.  I have tweaked the recipe slightly to be a little more filling for a dinner.  Enjoy!

Punjab Eggplant
2 medium eggplants
2 medium onions
1 large tomato (approximately 1.5 cups chopped)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup re-hydrated beans of your choice
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
1 tbsp dried cilantro or 2 tbsp fresh chopped
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp garam masala

1) Slice eggplant and place center down on a greased baking pan.  Cook in oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes or until eggplants are soft to the touch.  When cool enough, scrape out eggplant flesh, mash and set aside.  (You can do this step a day ahead of time and just put eggplant flesh in the fridge)


You can also chop up 1 of the eggplants and place it in a greased oven dish.  Then roast it at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and have a more broiled eggplant.  This way will make the overall dish a little chunkier, but YOU HAVE TO HAVE AT LEAST ONE OF THE EGGPLANTS ROASTED IN THE MANNER MENTIONED ABOVE in order to have a good sauce.  

2) In a large sauce pot, heat oil and saute the garlic and onion until tender, approximately 7 minutes.
3) Add all the spiced except the Garam Masala and continue to saute another minute until fragrant.

4) Add eggplant flesh, tomatoes and 1 cup of water and mix well.  Bring mixture to a boil and reduce heat to a simmer.  Cover and simmer 30 minutes or until eggplant and tomatoes have made a thick paste.
5) Remove cover, add beans and Garam Masala and continue to cook 5 more minutes.


6) Serve over rice or with Naan, or with both!  If you have a lot of eggplant, double the recipe and then freeze the rest for a later time.  The flavors will be even better the longer you wait.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

Every summer I find myself with zucchini the size of baseball bats.  And every year I tell myself I won't let them get to this point next year...but inevitably it always seems to happen and then the question is: what do you do with it?
Well this recipe has answered that question for us.  Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies are delicious and you can use as many of those giant zukes as you have because you just get more cookies!  Who can complain about that!  I got the recipe from the great book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and made some adaptions because we are lucky enough to have local whole wheat flour from Four Star Farm, and local honey from Shelburne Honey Co.  

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 fresh eggs beaten
1 cup butter softened or olive oil
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup honey
2 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups whole wheat flour (not local only because it is a finer texture)
2 cups Four Star Farms Whole Wheat Flour (be sure to pack it into measuring cup)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups finely shredded zucchini
12 oz chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)


1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Finely shred zucchini in food processor and set aside.

3) Combine all wet ingredients except zucchini in a large bowl.  Mix well.

4) Add flour and dry ingredients to wet mixture.

5) Slowly fold in zucchini and mix well.  Continue mixing and add chocolate chips and walnuts.
6) Drop tablespoons of batter on greased cookie sheet.  Flatten with back of spoon.

7) Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes until browned on edges.  Cool on wire rack.

Mmmm


And don't forget it's the Loving Local Blogathon week, along with the Massachusetts Farmers Market Week!  If you are interested in seeing other blogs or posts about the local markets or local food in Massachusetts check out In Our Grandmother's Kitchen and if you want to support the Federation of Massachusett’s Farmer’s Market click here.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

In the Red!

This week kicks off the Loving Local Blogathon to support our local Massachusetts Farmers Markets.  Check out some details at In Our Grandmother's Kitchen and see all the participating bloggers at the  Loving Local blog.  The blogathon is hoping to raise money to support massachusetts farmers markets so if you would like to show your support and make a donation, click here.

 And in our garden this past week, the tomatoes were in full gear.  What seemed like a manageable amount of toms turned into an obscene amount in two days time.  So, yesterday, and finishing up today, Marc and I went to work.

We have put up a lot of tomatoes already, but this time we decided to make more sauce.

The wash

Followed by the chop and press

Into the pot to boil off...but at this point we were only half way through our tomatoes and the 5 gal pot was almost full.

We still had these babies to go!  

So another pot was started.  We boiled this down for hours until it was all in one pot and nice and thick.
We decided to start the actual canning the next morning.  Which turned out to be a good plan.

Final tally was 16 quarts and 1 pint of tomato sauce!

Here's the Down and Dirty Tomato Sauce Recipe (no salt, no sugar):
10 lbs tomatoes (or however many you may have)
1 bell pepper
1 large onion
4 cloves garlic
1 bunch fresh basil or 1 tbsp dried
1/2 bunch fresh oregano or 1/2 tbsp dried
* This amount usually fills our 5 quart spaghetti pot, so do the math if you have more or less tomatoes.

1) Clean tomatoes and remove skin, core and seeds.  We use an amazing hand press which does almost everything except wash them and we do have to cut the big tomatoes.  You can always skip the step of removing seeds and skin and keep the extra fiber too!
2) Put puree into large spaghetti pot and bring to boil.  Add all other ingredients and continue to cook down over controlled boil until desired consistency is reached.
3) If canning, process in boiling water bath for 45 minutes for quarts and pints.

Sauce with homegrown summer squash and Hager's Grass Fed ground beef.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

News from the Garden

Well, once again I have been slipping on the posts.  With the veggies, especially the tomatoes, getting into full swing and canning needing to get done, I have definitely been a slacker on this end.  So let me start off by giving you an update on some things Village Veggies will be participating in during the next couple weeks!
First off: Loving Local Blogathon.  I am pretty excited about this!  During the week of August 22 - August 28, In Our Grandmother's Kitchen will be hosting the Loving Local Blogathon; celebrating Massachusetts Farmers Markets and Local Flavors.  During that week people from all over the state will be posting recipes, entries, thoughts and good cheer about our home grown food.  Donations will be raised for the Mass Farmers Markets.  Even if you aren't a regular at your local farmers market (and I will admit, this includes myself), it is a great opportunity to give your support to these farmers.  You can friend Loving Local on Face Book, and/or check out their blog spot for all the different posts from individuals across the state.  This starts ONE WEEK from today, so mark your calendar!
The other thing Village Veggies has started participating in, is the Harvest Keeper Challenge hosted by the folks at Path To Freedom.  People all across the nation are tallying their harvests and preserves.  Here's the tally for Village Veggies:
Diced Tomatoes: 24 pints                                    
Tomato Sauce: 8 quarts                                       
Garden Salsa: 3 pints                                           
Curried Beets: 6 quarts                                        
Madras Lentils: 5 quarts, 3 frozen quarts             
Sweet Potato Minestrone: 12 quarts                  
Kosher Dill Pickles: 15 quarts, 3 1/2 pints           
Sweet Relish: 8 pints, 4 1/2 pints                        
Sweet Pickles: 6 pints                                          
Dill Relish: 5 pints, 10 1/2 pints                          
Onions: 10 lbs 
Garlic: 15 cloves
Spiced Peach Preserves: 2 pints, 1 four oz.
Baba Ghanoush: 3 quarts frozen
Pesto: 5 misc. pints frozen
Peas: 1 quart frozen
Broccoli: 2 quarts frozen
Corn: 1 quart frozen
Strawberries: 3 quarts frozen
Raspberries: 1 quart frozen
Sweet Potatoes: 12 lbs
Carrots: 10 lbs

Whoo Hoo!  And that isn't even including all the things we harvested and ate already!  Next season I am hoping to invest in a scale so I can weigh the bounty when I harvest it and then get a better idea of what our little front yard is capable of.  We are going to be so excited when we open this stuff in January!
Well, I will post again about more updates about the fall plantings we have done around here, but for now, I will leave you with this picture: Can you guess what used to be here?  


Hope everyone has a great weekend!






















Thursday, August 5, 2010

Reminiscing and Updates

I have had the pleasure of talking with some of my neighbors this week; who reminded me of the time I said that "we were no longer going to park our cars on our lawn because I was going to make a garden".  That time seems ages ago, so I am going to take this time to give you a little photo time-line of how amazing this endeavor has been!
The parking lot.

Hand turning it.

Beds in place this spring...not knowing if anything would grow...

...more than we EVER imagined!  I feel incredibly blessed every time I look at our "parking lot".

Remember the tomatoes?

It's hard to see, but those are the same trellises and plants!

Our beautiful bird bath...

...is like a 'Where's Waldo' now.  
I have truly enjoyed this process!

And enough of the self-praise; updates about the garden: We finally pulled a sweet potato and they are HUGE!  Pretty psyched about that and we got roughly 10lbs for storage.


This is the Benning's Summer Squash I let get away...Yikes!

Eggplant still doing well, our biggest harvest yet!

And before the rain, I pulled our dry beans to find a pretty good amount of Mexican Bean Beetle Larvae.  I have taken measures to kill most of them by hand, and hopefully the organic spray I put on them will take care of any other larvae in the soil.  Don't want that to spread through the compost!  Luckily, the beans will finish drying in our solar dryer and won't be effected too much by the bugs.

And in the place of the beans, cauliflower (which was canned as Madras Lentils), and sweet potatoes we now have more Peas, Daikon Radish, Japanese Turnip, more Danvers Carrots and more Beets.  It was a busy productive morning!

Current status of our garden.

And lastly we have been bringing in a ton of tomatoes daily, so I made some Tomato Sauce and Diced Tomatoes this week.

Tomatoes love this hot summer and so do I!