Monday, February 23, 2015

Harvest Monday - February 23, 2015

This past week the harvests were light because I've been trying to use up previous harvests. But the last of the winter brassicas left standing are now bolting so I've started removing them from the garden. Here's the net result from cutting down one of the Lacinato kale plants.

Lacinato kale

There were just a few aphids on this plant, actually you can see a few of them on the stone at the bottom of the photo, most of them were hanging out near the base of the leaves. This batch of leaves was torn up and steamed in a pressure cooker for 1 minute. Some of the cooked kale went into a frittata along with some dried zucchini, dried cherry tomatoes, bacon, onions, cheese and seasonings. Another bunch of the kale was warmed with some of the lemony confited garlic that I mentioned in last week's harvest post, then piled on top of toasted rustic whole wheat bread spread with spicy hummus, the whole lot seasoned with a bit of agrodolce vinegar, coarse salt, and fresh ground black pepper. I'll mention another toast and hummus combo that featured a preserved veggie from the garden, I've still got a few jars of preserved sweet peppers from last fall, I cut some of those into strips and piled them on top of the hummus smeared toast along with some crumbled feta.

Tonda Musona Bianca spring onions
When I set out my seed started onions I spaced them about 2 inches apart alternating the smallest seedlings with the largest and now I've started thinning out the smallest ones to use as spring onions. The bunch above went into a coconut curry featuring one of the Honey Nut butternut squashes from my stash, celery from the garden, mushrooms, and tofu.

I've been trying to use up previous harvests, most notably lettuce - we've had a lot of salads and another round of lettuce cups, this time with shredded leftover chicken that I had lightly smoked in the Big Green Egg. And I've slowly been using up the Romanesco broccoli - one night I roasted some florets with brussels sprouts (to accompany the chicken) and another night some went into a souffle.

The only other harvests for the past week were a few big volunteer Spanish Black carrots and celery, neither of which were photographed.

Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:

Spanish Black carrots - 12.3 oz.
Dorato di Asti celery - 9.8 oz.
Lacinato kale - 12.6 oz.
Spring onions - 2.4 oz.

Week - 2 lb., 5.1 oz.
Year to date - 61 lb., 2.1 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.

11 comments:

  1. Those green onions look wonderful - nice and thin. I don't really enjoy thinning, so I'm trying to establish a perennial bunching onion patch. So far, the one variety I tried was too wide and didn't start dividing until it was around 1" across. I'm trying another couple of varieties this year & hopefully I'll get a winner that produces nice, narrow onions.

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  2. Michelle, it is so nice to read about how you cook and eat your veg. Most other people stop describing it when they get to the harvest stage. Surely the whole point of growing veg is to eat it, so it seems like a missed opportunity if you don't describe the "kitchen stage"!

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  3. The hummus toast and frittata sounds yummy!

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  4. Those onions look wonderful. It makes me wish I had bought some from the store. OK really I wish I had fresh picked ones, but wishing won't make it so. But a curry sounds so good.

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  5. Great idea to space the onion seedlings about 2 inches apart alternating the smallest seedlings with the largest and then thin out the smallest ones to use as spring onions. I must remember to do so, thanks for the idea.

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  6. Oh, reminds me I need to do the same with my kale. LOL.... the onions are so bright it hurts to look at them. Nice harvest!

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  7. Thanks for the link for your preserved sweet peppers! I always wanted to preserve roasted peppers but wasn't sure how to go about it. I've saved the link to my favourites to try later this year (fingers crossed that our weather is warm enough to actually grow some peppers!).

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  8. Kale is so versatile. It's good the aphids were mostly on the base of the leaves, because it's a mess cleaning them off the green parts!

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  9. Fabulous kale! I am looking forward to planting more next season :)

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  10. I hate those pesty bugs! I love eating lacinato kale as salad with extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice, a dash cayenne pepper, and some parmesan cheese. Perfect onions!
    http://LivingItUpAlternatively.blogspot.com

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  11. Interesting that you pressure cooked the kale, never would have considered that. And using dried vegetables in a frittata is a great idea. I did dry some squash and mushrooms and a frittata would be a great way to use the. Thanks for the idea.

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