I cannot believe I have not blogged since July. What a summer! The garden did pretty good - no major pest out breaks. The flower gardens were much more neglected! This fall, I started selling a modest amount of produce at the Farmer's Market, along with some baked goods. After a frantically busy summer, adding the Farmers Markets has really put me over the top in busy-ness, but it such a nice place to be. I've made a couple of types of killer granola that I am quite proud of, and the market patrons seems to like it a lot as well. In just a few weeks, I have a following!
Meanwhile, I was quite late planting a fall crop. My lettuce and spinach are up but just barely. My cole crops are being attacked, so it is hard to tell whether the plants or the pests will win. The chard is happy and healthy, but we love it so much I am afraid I will take too much and it will quit for the year. I'm still getting lots of peppers - especially poblanos - and tomatoes.
We had friends over for dinner yesterday, and the food was particularly colorful. I oven-roasted a huge load of tomatoes - yellow, black, and red - with olive oil, onions, kosher salt, my strong soft necked garlic, fresh basil - in a hot 400 degree oven for 45 minutes. That mixture then went into a skillet, to which I added fresh spinach bought at the Farmer's Market, and it became our pasta sauce. I made homemade ravioli for the first time (a pasta roller being my newest toy) using pasture raised beef, heritage breed pork, and freshly harvested chard. It took me to a while to get the hang of the dough, but it was quite forgiving. Never was able to pop out the raviolis by tapping the mold on the counter -- hah!! Took each one out one by one by one by one.... sigh. Also roasted bell peppers from the garden - green, red, and yellow - for another colorful dish, with fresh mozzarella cheese. The broccoli rabe came from a store - shocking!
So a lot of activity in the kitchen and the garden... and now on the blog!
Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com
Showing posts with label peppers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label peppers. Show all posts
Monday, October 11, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Red Peppers
Weekends have a rythmn and a routine, and it always includes looking ahead to the work week and making the menu and grrocery list. I am more compulsive about this than most people. Each day has the evening activities noted that would compete with cooking time so I know whether it is a slow food day or a 15 minute dinner. The cookbook name and page number is noted in the margin each day, if used. The category is next to the day - meat, meatless, fish, poultry - so that I keep our diet balanced.
In the summer, there is always the line "harvest" so I know what is coming out of the garden, not the market. This time of year, that line item becomes "thaw". This week, I am thawing famer's market beef, and from my garden, basil pesto and red peppers.
This is the last of the peppers in the freezer. This wasn't a good pepper year. It was a wonderful year for virtually everything else in the garden, but the peppers suffered in the rain. They were leafy and healthy, but slow. We ran out of summer before most of them ripened, so red was a rare color in the pepper bed.
So now I will pay the high price for fresh peppeers at the supermarket until mid summer. But I hope I will be smarter this year. For years, I never knew that peppers froze so well, so I didn't keep the harvest. For the past few years, I have sliced and frozen green, yellow, red, and an occasional purple bell pepper (my husband's diet doesn't include hot peppers). But I continued to pay high prices for roasted red peppers. Dummy! For less than $2, I can get a pack of seeds that will give me more peppers than I can pick. Throw them on the grill, and Bam! (thanks, Emeril), roasted red peppers for the year.
When the rythymn of the winter weekends turns to long, frenetic summer days spent outside, I'm hoping I will make the time to make next winter's grocery list a little easier, cheaper, and more organic by saving my peppers, roasting them, and capturing the warmth of the summer to be released in the cold of winter. That can't be captured on any list.
Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com
In the summer, there is always the line "harvest" so I know what is coming out of the garden, not the market. This time of year, that line item becomes "thaw". This week, I am thawing famer's market beef, and from my garden, basil pesto and red peppers.
This is the last of the peppers in the freezer. This wasn't a good pepper year. It was a wonderful year for virtually everything else in the garden, but the peppers suffered in the rain. They were leafy and healthy, but slow. We ran out of summer before most of them ripened, so red was a rare color in the pepper bed.
So now I will pay the high price for fresh peppeers at the supermarket until mid summer. But I hope I will be smarter this year. For years, I never knew that peppers froze so well, so I didn't keep the harvest. For the past few years, I have sliced and frozen green, yellow, red, and an occasional purple bell pepper (my husband's diet doesn't include hot peppers). But I continued to pay high prices for roasted red peppers. Dummy! For less than $2, I can get a pack of seeds that will give me more peppers than I can pick. Throw them on the grill, and Bam! (thanks, Emeril), roasted red peppers for the year.
When the rythymn of the winter weekends turns to long, frenetic summer days spent outside, I'm hoping I will make the time to make next winter's grocery list a little easier, cheaper, and more organic by saving my peppers, roasting them, and capturing the warmth of the summer to be released in the cold of winter. That can't be captured on any list.
Copyright 2010, EmeraldAcre.blogspot.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
