Monday, December 5, 2011

Harvest Monday - December 5, 2011

The harvests last week were decidedly green.

I didn't get around to photographing the lovely green sprouting broccolis, but I did remember to take the camera out to the garden to photograph the spinach and pepper harvest. It seems so strange to me to see big robust leaves of spinach in the same basket as the shiny green chile peppers, it's as if the garden is in some sort of time warp.



But there they are, spinach and chile pepppers from the late November garden.


The spinach was used in two dishes, first in a wilted salad that came out ok but wasn't good enough to go into the recipe notebook. The second preparation was a version of a dish that my husband and I simply call Beans & Greens. It's never the same twice, but always tasty and satisfying, and I managed to get the latest version into my recipe notebook.

Most of the Big Jim peppers were used to make the annual dish of Turkey Enchiladas that features leftover Thanksgiving turkey. This year they came out particularly tasty so the recipe also made it into my notebook.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Di Sarno Calabrese broccoli - 15.5 oz.
Piracicaba broccoli - 13.1 oz.
Big Jim newmex chile peppers - 15.9 oz.
Pimento de Padron peppers - 3.6 oz.
Guntmadingen Winter spinach - 31.1 oz.

The total harvests for the week were - 4 lb., 15.2 oz.
The total harvests for the year have been - 561 lb., 2.8 oz.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.

15 comments:

  1. It may seem like a strange combination...but it is a beautiful one! We have had some strange weather this year!

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  2. Mmmmmm, turkey enchiladas. Sounds great!
    And I know what you mean. I threatened to take a calendar out to the strawberry bed today.

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  3. Wow, those are some pretty big spinach leaves! and great looking chiles; Wow 82 rats, that is a lot, is that just from this year? My place is overrun now that the neighbors moved a huge pile of old wood. ....

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  4. How lovely to be harvesting spinach this time of year. Lovely basket arrangeement.

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  5. Mary, that's the count for the last 4+ months, I shudder to think what the count would be if I had started at the beginning of the year.

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  6. I was actually just thinking about turkey enchiladas on my drive home from work tonight... wondering if I had enough left over turkey in the freezer to make a batch... love, love, love them and it is a great post Thanksgiving treat that celebrates turkey but does not taste like a Feast Day redux.

    Beautiful harvests as always Michelle!

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  7. Beautiful shades of green, fresh and healthy. Big Jim - a very popular New Mexican variety. Do you get much heat in them? It brings back pleasant memories of chile roasting.

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  8. Randy, there was just a little bit of heat in the core of the peppers. I'm not sure if that's typical for Big Jim, which is supposed to be medium hot, or if they just didn't have a chance to get spicy since they set so late in the season and didn't really fully mature. They are delicious, regardless of heat level.

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  9. I'm sure they are delicious. What do you use them in?

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  10. It's funny isn't it how the growing season wraps back on itself? The turkey enchiladas sound delicious — I could never figure out why people complain about t-day leftovers. I've plans for turning ours into a mole...

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  11. Nice harvest, the spinach leaves are big. Never thought of using turkey for enchiladas.

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  12. You are SO fortunate to be out and scratching around, here in Chicago we have had our 1st snow, altho only a dunsting it is still snow. Im debating on getting the cold frame all cleared out of the weeds and pour some good dirt in to grow lettuce and onions thru the wintertime but its at the far edge of the garden and it requires bundling up....spring seems so far away to us midwestern gardeners!

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  13. Great harvest. I'm very much a beginner when it comes to peppers and have read your pepper experiments with interest. This year in my zone 8b sunset 19 garden (inland SoCal) i had some padrons, fresno, anaheim and thai peppers which did OK. From your descriptions I'm thinking of adding some chimayo for next year and also probbaly some mild habaneros. Would you recommend a couple of others that you think might be good, the choice is a bit overwhelming but i'd like to try some new flavours.
    Thanks David

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