Garden is Slacking Off

Sorry to be a slacker about blogging, but this week has been full of recovery from the kitchen remodel and catching up on all the things I didn't do because I was remodeling.  Like laundry and dishes and cleaning house.

The garden has been rather unproductive too.  The peas are done, but the eggplants and peppers and winter squashes have nothing to harvest yet.  Right now the only things coming out of the garden are a few beans (the Royal Burgundy are still producing like crazy, Fortex is a smaller harvest but still going), cucumbers that have slowed down since their initial burst of fruits, a zucchini here and there, and a handful of tomatoes each week.  I am so sad that after all of the work I put into the garden this year the weather has nearly shut down tomato, eggplant, squash and pepper production completely. 

Surprisingly the jalapenos have quite a few fruits ready... but with no tomatoes for salsa making I'm just not sure what to do with them.  My family just isn't into spicy stuff.

I did can some pickle relish earlier this week, and one quart of dill pickles.  It's my first attempt at pickles, so I'm letting them rest before trying them and hoping that the recipe worked out well.  If anyone has an awesome dill pickle recipe for whole pickles I'd love it if you'd share, I'm always on the hunt for great, tested, and approved recipes.

 That's about all I have to report today, hope everyone has a lovely day.

Cucumber Recipes

Ok, so obviously if you have pickling cucumbers... make pickles.  There are literally thousands of different recipes for pickles, some involve crocks, some don't, some involve dozens of spices and herbs, some don't.  Pickle recipes are easy to come by.  I recommend starting out by trying the recipes in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (the link to it on Amazon can be find on the sidebar -->).  It will give you a basis from which to begin your pickling adventures.

More importantly what are you going to do with the overproducing slicing cucumbers?!  They are really meant for fresh eating, but honestly you need to come up with other ideas unless you want a stomachache from cucumber over-indulgence.

So here are the recipes I use when I am sick of fresh sliced cukes:

Tsatsiki:  greek dip

2 single serve containers plain greek yogurt (I used Chobani nonfat and it turned out great)
1-2 cloves fresh garlic, peeled
1 slicing cucumber (half of one if it's large), peeled
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Pinch of dill weed, fresh or dried is fine
Pinch of mint leaves, fresh

You can chop these items all together and then stir into the yogurt, but if you have a food processor you can save a lot of time by throwing the garlic, mint, and cucumber in and giving it a whirl until it's well minced.
In a bowl combine the minced ingredients with the rest and stir well.  Refrigerate an hour or two, serve with veggies, pita bread, pita chips, or falafel.

Refrigerator Pickled Veggies
(this is a recipe for cucumbers, but other veggies can be thrown in as well, like peas, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.)

In medium bowl with tight-fitting lid combine:  1 part white or apple cider vinegar, 4 parts water, 1 part sugar.  This is the basis of refrigerator pickles.  Soak sliced cucumbers with onions (or other veggies) in this solution in the refrigerator.  For variation in flavor add salt, pepper, pickling spice, dill, etc. to taste.  These pickles will keep for about a week and make a zesty side salad for any meal.

For an Asian take on refrigerator pickles try using rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, a few splashes sesame oil, and a dash of Tabasco or Rooster sauce.

Pickle Relish
While most pickles are better made with pickling cucumbers, relish is a chopped pickle and is a great way to make use of over ripe cucumbers.  Just spoon out the seeds and then shred the cucumber flesh. I use a combination of slicing and lemon cukes for this recipe.

2 lbs. cukes, peeled, seeded, and shredded or finely chopped
1 large sweet onion, shredded or finely chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, finely chopped
1/2 cup salt

Toss the vegetables together with salt in a large bowl, set aside 2 hours, drain thoroughly.  (To save time, use your food processor for finely chopping all the veggies).

3 cups cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp. ground allspice
1 tsp black peppercorns (I prefer ground)
1 tsp celery seed

Combine above ingredients in large non-interactive pot and bring to a boil, stir until sugar is dissolved.  Add vegetable mix and return to boil.  Simmer five minutes.  Remove from heat.
For canning:  Boiling water method.  Ladle hot relish into half pint jars covering solids with 1/4 inch liquid.  Leave 1/4 inch headspace.  Process for 15 minutes, turn off heat, let jars rest 5 minutes.  Remove jars.

Two things to note about this recipe: it tends to be a bit watery, if it is too watery for your taste add in 1 tsp. corn starch while simmering, or you can simply drain off some of the liquid in each jar when you open it.  Also, this relish looks brownish rather than the clear green color of store bought relish.  I would imagine the color would improve by substituting distilled white vinegar for the cider vinegar, but I haven't tested what effect this would have on the flavor and I like the flavor enough not to want to mess with it.

I hope these recipes have given you a few ideas to help manage the influx of cucumbers from your garden.  Please, if you have other recipes for using garden cucumbers up, post a comment to share it with the rest of us.  Enjoy!

Canning Education

Today I took the National Center for Home Food Preservation free educational course on canning.  Since it was free I figured it was worth the time to learn something new and double check my knowledge of canning safety and standards. 

The reading was pretty brief and included safety information and links to canning competition judging standards.  It included how to care for and maintain pressure canners, and where to go to get pressure gauges checked; and water bath canning do's and dont's.  Considering it only took about an hour to do all the reading and quizzes, it was well worth the time to learn some new things.

If you have never canned foods, or are unsure of the hows and whys of canning safety, or if you want to branch out from water bath to pressure canning and aren't sure what you need please go sign up for the course.  It never hurts to expand your knowledge.

For Food Preservation, Go To Georgia?

While at the farmer's market this weekend I had a few questions for the Master Gardeners and Preservers there.  Usually, I see their stall and completely draw a blank in regards to what I planned to ask them.  (I also never remember to bring my knives to the market to have them sharpened. Boo.)

Since I was posting this week about preserving brassicas I wanted to ask if they had any ideas beyond my own.  They didn't.  Though they did tell me that the standards for all home canning and food preserving are determined... in Georgia.  Specifically at the University of Georgia, so for those looking to learn the details of food preserving from a legitimate source that sets the national standard, check out the University of Georgia Extension Service Food Preservation Page.

I plan to spend some time there and bookmark it in my recipe folder so that I will have all the safety standards at hand when doing my home preserving.

*In case you don't about Extension Services: every state has an Extension Service, the job of the Service is to provide gardeners and agriculturists with information on pests, plants, diseases, and climate that is specific to their area.  Some states offer a Master Gardener certification as well that allows people to attend classes and learn about agriculture in their area, sometimes this course is paid for straight out and other times it can be discounted by volunteering in the community, as part of the Extension Service, to answer questions of other gardeners.  Check out your local Extension Service to find out more about what they can offer to help you as a budding gardener.

Cooking With Coles

Some of my favorite ways to eat broccoli, and cauliflower are fresh from the garden in salads or as a vegetable tray, or steamed lightly as a side dish.  Obviously those are the easiest ways to make them, but sometimes you have to get creative to get a whole harvest eaten before it's too late; or you need to preserve them for later in the year.

My all-around favorite way to use up brassicas is Colcannon.  Colcannon is traditionally made from mashed potatoes and kale (or cabbage), with scallions, butter, salt and pepper added. It can contain other ingredients such as milk, cream, leeks, onions and chives.  It is an Irish food, and is traditionally served on Halloween.

• 1 pound cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower
• 1 pound potatoes
• 2 leeks
• 1 cup milk
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pinch ground mace
• 1/2 cup butter

1. In a large saucepan, boil brassicas until tender; remove and chop or blend well. Set aside and keep warm. Boil potatoes until tender. Remove from heat and drain.
2. Chop leeks, green parts as well as white, and simmer them in just enough milk to cover, until they are soft.
3. Season and mash potatoes well. Stir in cooked leeks and milk. Blend in the vegetables and heat until the whole is a pale green fluff. Make a well in the center and pour in the melted butter. Mix well.

Colcannon pretty much amounts to mashed potatoes and veg.  It is very tasty and can use up pretty much any cole crops you have in excess, it also freezes well for use during the winter when you may feel like something warm and hearty but not feel like spending the time to cook it.

Since I usually eat my broccoli fresh or steamed with little additional flair I don't have a broccoli-only recipe to share, but the recipe below looks good and i plan to try it out when the broccoli are ready.

Awesome Broccoli-Cheese Casserole

For a change in tempo, this is a spicy recipe from India for cauliflower.  The recipe I found online has several vegetables in it, but the proportions can easily be adjusted, for cauliflower bhaji just replace the potatoes with more cauliflower.

Indian Vegetable Bhaji

No one in my family likes coleslaw, except my husband.  He is a slaw fiend and after much browsing last year I found the perfect recipe for him.  There are several comments about this recipe being too sweet, so if you try it you may want to put in about half the sugar initially, then add a bit and taste until it is the sweetness you prefer.  Coleslaw is a great way to use up cabbage, especially since cabbage doesn't freeze well.

Sweet Restaurant Slaw

For fresh use these recipes are some different ways to use your harvests.  The colcannon, bhaji, and casserole should even freeze well.  Now what do you do when you have so much harvest you can't eat it all before it goes bad? Or if you want to save some for later in the year?

 Cabbage is not very freezable as far as I know, it can be preserved as sauerkraut though.  I've never tried this, but my sister has and apparently sauerkraut is a hit or miss.  It is made by fermenting and canning the shredded cabbage.  If you have a lot of cabbage and no way to eat it before it spoils give sauerkraut a shot, but be warned it may just spoil rather than coming out right.  Cabbage can be frozen in recipes, like colcannon.

Broccoli and cauliflower should be picked early in the day, washed thoroughly in cold water, chopped into small pieces (florets), then blanched for 1-2 minutes in boiling water.  The broccoli will turn a bright green.  Immediately move the florets to ice water for a couple minutes to stop the cooking process.  Drain the florets and place in freezer bags; if you want to do gallon freezer bags, freeze the florets in a single layer on cookie sheets first then bag them.  This keeps them from becoming one big mass of frozen vegetable, and makes removing a serving size easier.  Label with the name of the vegetable, variety (if you are doing more than one variety), and the date. 

One other way to preserve cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower is as pickled vegetables.  Picalilli is a well-known type of pickled mixed vegetables.  There are dozens of different recipes available for pickled vegetables, personally I'm not a fan.  Though I do like Refrigerator Pickled Vegetables, but they don't help much when it comes to preservation.

A good book to check out for recipes and directions for preserving any harvest is Putting Food By, which even includes directions on root cellaring and drying brassicas.

And lastly, since I didn't discuss it on the culture post we will cover seed saving from brassicas.  After flowering, leave flower stalks on the plant until they make seed pods that are nearly dry, before they dry completely cut the stalks off and place in a large paper bag, seed pods down.  Leave the bag in a warm, dry area for a few weeks, you'll know they are ready when a gentle touch will cause seeds to drop from them.  Strip the seeds and pods off the stem into the paper bag.  Remove the stem and shuffle the rest around in the bag, this should loosen up any seeds still attached to their pods.  Get a clean dry bucket and set it outside on a day with a nice breeze.  Slowly pour the seeds and chaff into the bucket from about a foot above it.  As they pour the chaff will be blown away by the wind and the seeds will drop into the bucket.  If you still see chaff, dump the bucket back into the bag and repeat pouring.  Pretty quickly you will see only seeds.  Store seeds in a paper envelope or bag in a cool dry place, labeled with the species, variety, and year.  Brassica seeds will keep for up to 3 years.

If you have a brassica recipe or preservation technique you'd like to share, please leave a comment below.