Time to recall everything that came out of the garden in the past week. Only a couple of photos this time, above is a picking of Pimento de Padron peppers and Rat-tail radish pods. Below is another picking of Padrons, Piracicaba broccoli shoots, and Aleppo chile peppers.
The Pimento de Padron pepper plants are producing like crazy. I've been picking amounts shown in the photos pretty much every other day. Most of the time I simply saute them whole in olive oil until the skins blacken a bit the pods are soft, then sprinkle with coarse salt and serve. Yesterday I cooked up a batch but removed the stems and cut the peppers in pieces. Then I sauted some zucchini with chopped garlic, added the padrons to the pan, then poured in some beaten eggs, pushed everything around a bit until the eggs set, topped with some grated gruyere and served. Yum!
The Piracicaba plants produce just enough shoots to serve two this week. The bunch shown above was blanched until tender and then tossed with olive oil, Aleppo pepper flakes, and grated parmigiano. Another yum.
Most of the Rat-tail radish pods went into a pickling solution and the rest of them have been consumed raw. They taste just like radish roots.
I cut off the caps on all of the Aleppo chile peppers and have been putting the pods out to dry in the sun. When coarsely ground, these peppers make a great substitute for store bought chile pepper flakes.
Also harvested in the past week:
- 4 Black Sea Man tomatoes
- 2 Galinas cherry tomatoes
- 6 Isis Candy cherry tomatoes
- 6 Black cherry tomatoes
- more Rat-tail radish pods
- more zucchini than I care to admit to
- numerous basil sprigs
- one small head of di Jesi cauliflower
And here's the bit that I always forget to mention - for more great harvest posts check out Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.
Those peppers look wonderful. I don't think I've ever eaten a cooked pepper all by itself. I always put them in something. I haven't a clue as to why not. I eat lots of other things alone. All of mine this year are going into salsa. I've been eating tons of it.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures are just beautiful. So many different things to nibble. I love the estimation of zucchini -- I brought two home in my purse from Denise's house today.
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne, that's the raison d'etre of Pimento de Padrons, to be sauteed and eaten whole. I haven't found another good use for them, although they were good with the zucchini and eggs.
ReplyDeleteStefani, did you put them in your purse or did Denise slip them in there? ;> I do think that nibbling is my favorite way to eat!
I must have a really good look at my peppers, because some of them may be ripe. Not having grown them before, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle,
ReplyDeleteBeautiful harvests =) What you call Piracicaba broccoli looks like what we call Broccolini in Australia and I was just wondering if you have successfully collected seeds from them before? I have them growing and am try to collect seeds but its all a bit of an experiment at this point. Do you have any advice? Dot
Thanks Dot, We also have a vegetable here called broccolini but the seeds are only available to certain commercial growers. It's a cross between broccoli and gai lan (chinese broccoli). The Broccolini here has white flowers and Piracicaba has yellow so they're not the same. What color are the flowers on your plants? I believe that broccolini is an F-1 hybrid, so even if we could get seeds here most of the second generation offspring would not be true to type.
ReplyDeletePiracicaba is a hybrid developed in Brazil and is more tolerant of warm weather than most other varieties of broccoli. It's not an F-1 so seed saving should be possible but I haven't tried. Saving broccoli seeds requires growing at least 6 plants and preferably 20 plants to maintain the genetic health of the line. I don't really want to devote that much space to one vegetable which is the main reason I haven't tried to save the seeds. And then there's the issue of crossing - you have to isolate the blooming plants from other blooming plants in the Brassica oleracea family (broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, etc.) within a mile radius, which really means you have to cage them.
Aack, I hope I haven't discourage you! Now I'm curious if your broccolini is the same as what we have to buy at the grocery store here.
Hi Michelle,
ReplyDeletelol. You haven't discouraged me at all! Thanks for answering my question =) Although I must admit to being more confused. My plant has yellow flowers.. but the seeds were purchased and labeled as broccolini and looks identical to what is sold in the supermarkets here, as broccolini.
I have 17 plants in a small space (I didn't realise their size when I planted them) so your comment is a comfort in that regard.
Thanks for replying. You have piqued my curiousity as to what I am actually growing! Either way the seed experiment will go ahead, theres nothing to lose bar space for a short time. Wish me luck! Dot