Monday, September 13, 2010

Harvest Monday - September 13, 2010

The summer harvests continue, although the tomato and green bean harvests have already passed their peaks. The eggplants are suddenly in full swing and there are actually quite a few eggplants that have been on the plants for too long because I didn't really notice (or believe) that they were there.

Here's a few of the Diamond eggplants and the first real quantity of Not Wes tomatoes. There are a lot of Diamond eggplants left to harvest and I need to get to them this week. The Not Wes tomatoes are late producers and just starting to ripen up. The ones I've tasted so far are delicious.




I harvested all the Malaysian Dark Red eggplant that were larger than babies since they were all starting to get dull skins. The largest fruits were developing dark seeds but were still tasty and the small ones were still surprisingly tender and seedless despite their dull skins.



I made some pickled eggplant with some of them. These were made by blanching peeled and cubed eggplant in white wine vinegar, then they were packed in jars with chopped garlic, small basil leaves and some salt, then covered with the vinegar that they were blanched in. I've not tried these pickles before and they won't be ready to eat for a while yet, so I can't say whether they are good or not.


A couple more pounds of the eggplants were made into one of my husband's favorite eggplant dishes. This is grilled eggplant marinated in balsamic vinegar and olive oil with sliced garlic and dried oregano. This will keep for months in refrigerator. The slices are great in sandwiches or served at room temperature as an antipasto either straight up or rolled with some goat cheese or mozzarella.




I harvested the first Petaluma Goldrush beans as shelly beans. I simmered these in some salted water with a fresh bay leaf and then mixed them into a warm salad of chopped grilled romano beans, slivers of grilled eggplant, sweet grilled onion, chopped seared tomatoes, basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The fresh shelly beans are creamy and delicious, my favorite way to eat beans.




Ok, I forgot to weigh the cherry tomatoes this week, too bad. But I did weigh that huge Ananas Noir, it came in at 1 pound 11 ounces. Unfortunately it had a bad spot that extended in to the center of the tomato, but I was able to use about two thirds of it anyway. Wouldn't you know it, it was the best tasting Ananas Noir that I've harvested so far.




Here's most of the bean harvests for the week, from left to right Turkey Craw, Petaluma Goldrush, and Garafal Oro. That's pretty much the end of the Garafal Oros. The Petaluma Goldrush are just maturing, some are starting to dry and there's a bunch more that I can pick as shelly beans. The Turkey Craw beans are about halfway into the harvest.



I made a very interesting recipe out of Paula Wolfert's cookbook The Slow Mediterranean Kitchen.  It was Sesame Studded Tomato Jam made with some of the Andine Cornue paste tomatoes that I harvested the week before. The tomatoes are roasted until the skins blacken, the skinned tomatoes are chopped and then sizzled in olive oil until reduced to a jammy consistency. The jam is sweetened with some honey and seasoned with cinnamon and orange flower water. Serve it with toasted sesame seeds on top. Paula recommends serving it with Moroccan bread or on top of couscous but I served it as a dip/spread with pita chips, it was a hit.


The harvest totals for the week were:

Thai Tender Amaranth - about 18 oz (I forgot to weigh it)
Garafal Oro romano beans - 1 lb., 4.5 oz.
Petaluma Goldrush beans (shelled) - 9.25 oz.
Turkey Craw beans - 1 lb., 13.5 oz.
Suyo Long cucumbers - 1 lb., 6.5 oz.
Diamond eggplant - 1 lb., 3.75 oz.
Malaysian Dark Red eggplant - 7 lb., 9 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce - 14 oz.
Strawberries - about 1 lb (forgot to weigh them too)
Ananas Noir tomatoes - 2 lb., 1 oz.
Andine Cornue tomatoes - 2 lb., 3 oz.
Chocolate Stripes tomatoes - 1 lb., 13 oz.
Gigantesque tomatoes - 1 lb., 1.75 oz.
Not Wes tomatoes - 2 lb., 6.75 oz.
Zucchini - 6.25 oz.

The total for the week was - 27 lb., 2.25 oz.
The total for the year is - 503 lb., 13 oz.

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions to find more Harvest Monday posts, there's a lot of amazing produce to ogle there.

21 comments:

  1. Michelle, your photos of vegetables are right up there with the best of them, they're quite beautiful, and what a great harvest!

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  2. As always, I'm in awe of your amazing harvest! The egg plants look lovely and the pickled ones sound interesting. I have some jars of the grilled ones in oil in the fridge and they're lovely and very useful as a last-minute tapas dish!

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  3. What a fantastic harvest! Your bounty and your pictures are beautiful.

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  4. Fabulous harvest ! I really appreciate all the lovely recipes you share. I now know what to do with the few eggplants I have left ! Thx !

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  5. Michelle, your artistic presentation of your harvests is truly beautiful and impressive. If these pictures don't inspire people to start backyard gardening, I don't know what will! The bright yellow of the Not Wes tomatoes are really striking, and you say they are delicious, too? Very cool.

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  6. Beautiful pictures and I really appreciate the ideas for the bean salad.

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  7. Nice harvest, the Petaluma Goldrush beans look like candy, the photos are beautiful as always.
    I love grilled eggplants with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, too bad all my eggplants are gone now. How many Malaysian eggplant plants do you have, that's a pretty big haul there, I love the color.

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  8. I struggle keeping mites off my eggplants, though they don't attack anything else. What's your secret? Clearly, your plants are healthy and productive.

    I'm glad you're enjoying the flavor of Not Wes, even if they don't meet the expectations of strange shapes. Lots of mine have that funny dimple on the bottom like the one on the right in your photo does. They are very late producers, which is great in my climate, but I just realized may be problematic in yours. I hope you get a good crop before frost sets in.

    As always, beautiful and inspiring harvest.

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  9. I love all the creative ways you cook with your fresh produce. I am so boring with my cooking but really do appreciate someone who is more creative about it. I was getting hungry looking at the pictures and reading the recipes and I just had dinner only an hour ago! LOL!

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  10. Yummy eggplant!! I love the marinated grilled eggplant idea! I'll have to try that with my eggplant! Thanks for sharing!

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  11. Jan, thank you!

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    chaiselongue, I am waiting to taste the pickled eggplant, I hope they're good. And it is really handy to have the marinated eggplant in the fridge to pull out for impromptu dining.

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    Ribbit, thanks so much!

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    miss m, if you want more detailed recipes let me know and I'll email them to you, I don't like to post published recipes but am happy to share privately.

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    thyme2garden, thank you, I do hope that other gardeners are inspired by my efforts, I've always loved to share.

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    Stefaneener, thanks and you're welcome!

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    mac, I've got 6 plants of the Malaysian eggplant growing in the garden. They are pretty, I would grow them again just for that color, but they are also delicious.

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    Christina, the eggplants are totally infested with spider mites. I give them an occasional spray with Neem oil when I've mixed up a batch for powdery mildew on other plants, otherwise I leave the plants alone. The Malaysian and Diamond eggplants seem to take the spider mites in stride for the most part. I wonder if the mites would be more of a problem if the weather was hotter?

    I am enjoying the Not Wes tomatoes. I wonder if the different shapes are because of the difference in our climates and the effect that might have on pollination. Late tomatoes aren't really a problem for me and I do like to have a late variety or two to carry on the harvest well into the fall. I can pick tomatoes into early November and don't usually get a frost until sometime in December. But I don't like to wait too long for the main crop of tomatoes so I like to grow short and mid season varieties for the most part.

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    kitsapFG, I'll take that as a huge compliment that I can make you hungry on a full stomach! I'm actually a pretty lazy cook, I don't like fussy complicated recipes, but I do like variety so I keep looking for easy and unusual ways to make use of all the veggies.

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    Holly, You're so welcome, and like I said to miss m, I can email you the detailed recipe if you would like.

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  12. The beans look just wonderful and so does your eggplant. I'm not an eggplant fan, but grilled marinated slices sound pretty good.

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  13. What spectacular colours! The eggplant next to the yellow tomatoes are stunning. Nature has a way of matching colours that no designer ever could!

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  14. I just harvested my first shelly beans...ever. I wasn't really sure what to do with them until I read this post. Thanks!

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  15. I love what you've done with the eggplant. I wonder if most things will keep for a long time if packed in olive oil. In any case, it sounds tasty.

    One thing I need go grow next year is shelling beans. They are just so beautiful.

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  16. Daphne, the grilled marinated eggplant is a good way to try eggplant, and who know, perhaps it could make you a fan?

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    Matron, nature is much more bold than most designers would dare to be. It's too bad that those colors don't stay as vibrant when the veggies are cooked.

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    Jackie, the shelly beans are such a joy to cook and eat, there's no soaking and they cook quickly and turn out so creamy and delicious. I think I'll have to go harvest another batch before they all dry out.

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    Thomas, Italians preserve a lot of vegetables in olive oil - sott olio. It is important that the vegetables are prepared with vinegar also, olive oil is anerobic and friendly to botulism organisms so the veggies need to be acidified.

    I think you will really enjoy growing shelly beans next year, they're beautiful and delicious.

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  17. Hi there, thanks for sharing all the variety information. I am truly enjoying your blog. I've posted several links of your posts about variety information on my blog and hope you don't mind! www.amysoddities.blogspot.com

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  18. I just printed out that tomato jam recipe. I'm working my way through 125lbs of tomatoes from the farmers mkt. Have made lots of roasted tomato sauce. The jam sounds so good. Was the orange flower water noticable in the jam?

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  19. elizabeth, the orange flower water is noticeable in the jam but not over powering, it adds a nice floral note to it that is wonderful with the cinnamon and honey.

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  20. Do you think the jam would can or freeze well?

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  21. Did you use Roma tomatoes. I don't have paste tomatoes, only Mountain Fresh.

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