My last harvest for 2010 was, of all things, chile peppers! The Rocotillo plant that I have overwintering indoors yielded 9 more ounces of good peppers when I finally stripped it on December 28. And the Suave Orange plant that is enduring winter outdoors in a protected corner yielded 1.25 ounces of ripe peppers. When I checked my spreadsheet of 2010 harvests I was amazed to see that the Rocotillo plant produced more than a pound of peppers last year. I sure hope that that plant makes it through the winter in one piece. Unfortunately the branches have a tendency to, well, not fall off the plant but they do break off easily and I've already lost, um, knocked off four.
My first harvest for 2011 wasn't photographed but I'm sure you would recognize it if you saw it, it was 9 ounces of Lacinato kale. I barely remembered to weigh the harvest. I've harvested so little lately that I'm getting out of practice. I used the kale to make one of my husband's favorite hearty, healthy, peasanty dishes. I tore the kale into pieces and braised it with sauteed garlic, a splash of Vietnamese fish sauce (aka Secret Sauce for the less adventurous eaters), and water to cover until it was quite tender. The braised kale was piled on top of toasted rustic bread along with the braising liquid (be sure to do this in a warm bowl), topped with a couple of soft poached eggs, drizzled with some bright green new olive oil (Olio Nuovo from McEvoy Ranch), and sprinkled with flakes of slow toasted Aji Angelo peppers. Yum!
The chile pepper harvest brought my total harvests for 2010 to 711 lb., 1.5 oz.
The harvest total for 2011 is off to a whopping start with 9 oz.
I'm not going to do a 2010 harvest recap here but if you're interested in seeing what I harvested during the year I've put spreadsheets of all my 2010 harvests along with most of the photos that appeared on my Harvest Monday posts on a separate page which you will find here.
Harvest Monday is hosted by Daphne on her blog Daphne's Dandelions, head on over there and check it out!
Beautiful harvest recap Michelle. Happy New Year ; )
ReplyDelete"Secret Sauce" - LOL! I love it.
ReplyDeleteWe definitely consume a lot of secret sauce in my house.
Such beautiful peppers. I look forward to your recap.
ReplyDeleteOooh, that kale dish sounds delicious. I'll have to try it with some of our kale, though our Lacinato has probably succumbed to the cold. I believe that would make for a great lunch!
ReplyDeleteWonderful to harvest those lovely colourful peppers in the middle of winter. And a good start to 2011 with the kale too. We're trying overwintering a chorizo pepper plant and an espelette, for the first time, and picked what are probably the last peppers of the season last week.
ReplyDeleteHappy new gardening year!
Love the sound of that Kale dish. Unfortunately my last Cavelo nero plant has been ravaged by caterpillars so maybe next year!
ReplyDeleteThe kale dish sounds delicious and your pepper harvest is beautiful! That's amazing that your outdoor plants are still producing in the cold winter weather.
ReplyDeleteThat kale dish sounds very delicious!
ReplyDeleteI have visited the page with all your harvests and all the numbers. You are very organized, unfortunately I stopped weighing my harvest sometime in September. I will have to do a better job next year.
Those peppers looks great! What will you do with them?
ReplyDeleteLove your recap page! I agree, you are very organized! Last year was the first year that I weighed my harvests. Hopefully this year, I will keep more detailed records of the garden harvests.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful peppers! Very Christmassy-looking.
ReplyDeleteJulie, thanks!
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Thomas, I use a lot of secret sauce also, although not everyone knows it... I LOVE secret sauce.
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Daphne, thanks!
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villager, that method works well with any kind of kale, actually it works great with most greens or any kind of vegetable. I made it with chopped Romanesco broccoli recently.
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chaiselongue, My chorizo and espelette plants are spending the winter out in the garden but they aren't entirely dead yet, it's possible that they could make a comeback if we don't have too many freezing nights.
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Funkbunny, sorry to hear about your poor kale, those danged caterpillars! My kale gets plenty of aphids but at least they don't bother the plants enough to do them in.
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A Kitchen Garden..., the outdoor plants aren't exactly pumping out the peppers but I'm not complaining, they're still alive which is more than I expected from them.
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vrtlarica, I nearly gave up keeping track a couple of times but my curiosity about what the garden was capable of producing in a year kept me going. Now I'm getting curious about what it was all worth, but that sounds like too much work, really!
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meemsync, I've already oven dried them and they are ready to be ground up and used as a mild paprika. I've been using my ground up oven dried peppers in a lot of things lately, the other night on my kale dish, sprinkled in a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, stirred into tomato sauce, and I can't remember what else...
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Robin, organized is not usually a term that I would use to describe myself. :) But over the course of the year I did manage to weigh and usually record what came out of the garden. I started that page ages ago and updated it every once in a while. Now I have to keep the effort going into the new year...
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Veggie PAK, My little pepper plant was very Christmassy-looking, it made it difficult to harvest all the peppers, but it finally had to be done after Christmas.
Computer is slow today! I'll try this comment again. Lovely looking hot peppers. What do you mostly use them for except everything of course. I had so many habaneros this year that I pickled some which I have only ever done with Jalapenos before.
ReplyDeleteI actually bought kale because we didn't have enough for my kale habit! It's such a staple. Yum. Your peppers are very pretty.
ReplyDeleteThe kale and eggs recipe sounds devine. I have kale, eggs, and secret sauce... I think it will be on the menu soon!
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