Broccoli Frittata

I intended to post my recipe for this frittata last week but didn't quite get around to it. So the delay means that I get to post two versions of my broccoli frittata recipe because I made another one this morning and, quite frankly, I had the opportunity to actually do some weighing and measuring instead of my usual eyeball/handful measuring.

I started off by roasting some blanched broccoli sprouts that were sitting in the refrigerator. I like to blanch my broccoli sprouts in boiling salted water for about a minute and then shock them in ice water, drain them well and dry them a bit by laying them out on kitchen towels for a while. The blanched broccoli will keep in the refrigerator for at least a week, handy for munching straight from the fridge or incorporating into any number of dishes. The blanching process is also a great way to rid the broccoli of any resident aphids.

The rest of the frittata filling can be prepared while the broccoli is roasting. This version includes some oven candied cherry tomatoes left from last year which are in the bowl shown above next to the roasted broccoli.

 A very handy, or hand sparing, gadget to have if you use a skillet in a hot oven is something like the silicone sleeve shown below that slips onto the hot skillet handle after you remove the skillet from the oven. I have seared the palm of my hand more than once when I've absentmindedly grabbed a hot skillet handle and this has been a hand saver.

The eggs from my girls vary from about medium to jumbo sized, I just use 8 eggs of all sizes, I think it generally averages out to about 8 large eggs. A standard sized large egg weighs about 2 ounces.

Broccoli Frittata

1 pound blanched or raw broccoli side shoots, or heading broccoli cut into florets

olive oil as needed

2.5 oz. sliced pancetta cut into 1/2 inch pieces

1/4 cup (.5 oz) oven candied cherry tomatoes or chopped dried tomatoes

1/2 large sweet onion cut into slivers

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

8 eggs

salt and fresh ground black pepper

4 oz. feta, coarsely crumbled

3 sprigs fresh basil, stems removed and leaves chopped

Preheat the oven to 350ºF.

Toss the blanched broccoli with some olive oil and arrange on a baking sheet. Roast for 15 to 17 minutes (I used convection) until the florets are starting to brown but are not dried out. If you are using raw broccoli it will take longer to roast and you should keep an eye on it and remove it from the oven when the florets are starting brown and then seal the hot pan with some foil so that broccoli stems will finish cooking in their own heat. The broccoli stems should still be crisp-tender. When cool enough to handle, chop the broccoli into bite-sized pieces.

Cook the pancetta with a tablespoon of olive oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat until the pancetta softens and renders some of its fat. Add the onions and garlic to the skillet and continue cooking over medium-low heat until the onions are translucent. Drain the onion-pancetta mixture in a heat proof strainer over a bowl to catch the oil. Clean the skillet and return the captured oil to it and add another tablespoon of olive oil, place the skillet over medium-low heat and allow it to heat up while you assemble the egg mixture.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl, season with salt and pepper to taste, remember that the pancetta and feta are a bit salty. Stir in the chopped broccoli, onion-pancetta mixture, feta, and basil. Pour the mixture into the heated skillet spreading the contents evenly in the pan and pressing any protruding bits into the egg mixture so that they don't burn in the oven. Cook until the eggs are set around the edges of the pan and are starting to sizzle just a bit. Put the whole pan into the oven and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until the frittata is cooked through and the top is starting to brown. I don't like to use convection with the frittata because it seems to brown the edges and top too much before the center is set.

Remove the frittata from the oven and let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes, this will help to release it more easily from the pan. Serve immediately or at room temperature or cold from the refrigerator.

Variation II

Follow the recipe as above but

- substitute smoked bacon for the pancetta

- use plain dried cherry tomatoes instead of oven candied tomatoes

- omit the garlic (if you choose)

- substitute a ball of buffalo mozzarella, cut into cubes, for the feta

- omit the fresh basil and use crumbled dried oregano instead

Harvest Monday - July 30, 2012

I didn't do a lot of harvesting in the past week because the garden is in a bit of a lull between crops. The sugar snap peas are gone, the filet beans are pooping out, the lettuce is starting to bolt, and there's just a trickle of broccoli shoots forming. Even if it weren't for the lull I wasn't around for much of the week because my husband and I were playing hooky tackling a big hike (forgive me for bragging).

Back home, much closer to sea level, I caught up on the harvests but only managed to take one photograph of a couple of extra large scallions and the first edible Persian cucumber (the first ones became overgrown in my absence so I gave them to the chickens).

The cucumber was sliced very thinly and incorporated into a salad with some of the bolting lettuce (still sweet but perhaps the soak in ice water helped), and the scallions which I grilled and chopped, along with a grilled peach and nectarine, and some smoked local wild salmon.

I also harvested a number of zucchini (thank goodness none of them turned into boats in my absence) and used a bunch of them to prepare one of my husband's favorite zucchini preparations - Zucchini in Agrodolce. We had that along with some deviled eggs my way - with chopped capers, dijon mustard, olive oil, and lemon juice, with a sprinkle of ground espelette pepper. That along with some melon and prosciutto was dinner on Saturday.

The capers keep trickling in, the total harvest is up to 2.7 pounds of buds so far. I hope to be able to bring in 3 pounds of capers this year and then I'll let the plants blossom and set some berries so that I can collect some fresh seeds to share.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 6.6 oz.

Apollo broccoli - 5.6 oz.

Capers - 2.6 oz.

Green Fingers Persian cucumber - 2.5 oz.

Sweetie Baby romaine (definitely not a baby anymore) - 1 lb., 5.2 oz

Parade Scallions - 5.9 oz.

Da Fiore Zucchini - 1 lb., 6.5 oz.

The total harvests for the week came to - 4 lb., 2.9 oz.

Which brings the yearly total up to - 82 lb., 15.2 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.

Harvest Monday - July 23, 2012

I only managed to take one harvest photo in the past week, but there's nothing new in the harvest basket so you aren't missing out on very much.

Here's the final harvest of Super Sugar Snap peas. I got a total of 5.1 pounds of snap peas this year. Pretty good, considering I got my plants in much later than usual. They all came in very quickly, the first harvest was on July 4 and the last on July 19. I've already torn out most of the plants, the last ones will come out in a few days. I give the plants to the chickens, they peck at them and work at them until there is virtually nothing left but a few of the toughest stems. I like to give them just a few plants at a time so that they don't gorge themselves too much on the greenery. Accompanying the peas on the tray are another harvest of Apollo broccoli. The 4 broccoli plants have produced 6 pounds of shoots (including the small main heads) between June 25 and July 22, and there's still a few shoots developing. I really like the flavor and texture of this broccoli and the side shoots have been a good size with tender stems. The plants produced a large amount right away with a lot of side shoots maturing very soon after the small main heads. I thought that the side shoot production would fall off a lot after that, but I've been pleasantly surprised by the steady production of a reasonable amount of shoots after the first big burst. This broccoli has turned out to be a winner and I will happily use up the rest of the seeds from the packet. I made another frittata with some of the broccoli. I'll post the recipe for that later this week.

The Rolande filet beans have continued to come in at a steady pace. I am very pleased by the productivity of this variety, it is better than I initially expected. I have harvested 10 pounds of beans from June 14 through July 22 and I think that there will be a trickle of beans left to harvest in the next week or so. The other night I prepared some of the large beans that had grown well beyond the "filet" size by braising them a few moments in a covered pan with butter, garlic and a splash of water, then cooked them further with the lid off until the water evaporated and the beans were tender, then turned the heat off and tossed in some chopped Early Girl tomatoes (from the farmer's market) and slivered basil and tossed enough just to heat the tomatoes through, and finished it off with some coarse sea salt and a good grind of black pepper. That was yummy, tomatoes and butter are so good together, and the beans were good too!

Other than beans, peas and broccoli, the garden has been producing zucchini and zucchini blossoms (not weighed), Sweetie Baby romaine (not so baby any more but still sweet), and a few more ounces of capers.

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 1 lb., 4.2 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 1 lb., 8.9 oz.
Capers - 4.1 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine - 2 lb., 1.2 oz.
Super Sugar Snap peas - 1 lb., 5.1 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 11.1 oz.

The total harvests for the week came to - 7 lb., 2.6 oz.
Which brings the harvest totals for the year to 78 lb., 12.3 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.

Gigante Beans

The peppers may be crap this year but I'm taking consolation from the fabulous Greek Gigante beans that I'm growing for the first time. Perhaps you've come across these in a Greek restaurant, that's where I first encountered them, at Evvia in Palo Alto. I have them every time I have a chance to eat there which is not very often since I live more than 90 miles away. Evvia prepares them in a typical way, baked in tomato sauce and served as a meze. If you are a bean fan these are not to be missed. Gigantes are also known as Gigandes, Yigandes, Yiyantes, and who knows how many other variant spellings. And then there is also the Macedonian Elephant bean which seems to be the extra-large selection of the already huge Gigante (Giant) bean.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about what type of bean the true Gigante bean is. I've seen them classified as common beans - Phaseolus vulgaris. There are large white lima beans or butter beans, Phaseolus lunatus, being sold as Gigante beans. Actually, that's about all I can find when I do a web search for Gigante Bean seeds. But I do believe that those are incorrect classifications, the true Greek Gigante bean is a runner bean, Phaseolus coccineus. The misclassification probably came about because of the difficulty of finding the real deal for cooking so a number of substitutes are recommended. The Spanish Hija bean is a good substitute, it is also a large white runner bean, although not as large as the Gigante. I have a very good Greek cookbook that calls for large white lima or butter beans, presumably because the author supposes that true Gigantes aren't readily available. But look at those flowers above and the plants below, those are neither common nor lima bean plants. And for further confirmation that these are runner beans, the cotyledons stayed in the ground when the seeds germinated.

So, you ask, where did I get my seeds if they are not available anywhere? I got them in a seed swap. And where did my seed source get his seeds? From a bag of imported Greek Gigante beans for eating. The real deal. Well, technically speaking, my harvests can't be called true Gigante or Elephant beans which must be grown in the Prefecture of Kastoria in northern Greece, so these are the California kissing cousins.

These beans are going to be huge. Each pod has 1 to 3 beans forming and there are a lot of beans setting. So far, so good, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that something doesn't happen to mess with my beans.

It's Gonna Be A Crappy Year For Peppers - Again

Sigh, big SIGH.

This will be another year of runty stunty peppers.

And here's the reason why.

That plant is a four-year-old Manzano chile pepper, Capsicum pubescens, also known as a Rocoto chile. It keeps coming back year after year and according to Wikipedia pubescens plants can live up to 15 years. It has beautiful purple flowers. The peppers on my plant are yellow, but the species also produces red and orange peppers and perhaps other colors that I'm not aware of.

My plant is producing some particularly fine peppers this year. But I do believe that I'm going to have to kill it this winter. Why?

Look at leaves on this pepper plant.

And this plant...

And this plant...

And even my basil plants...

And all of the pepper plants in the garden...

What do they all have in common? Stunted and wrinkled leaves and overall stunting of the plants. I do believe that every single pepper plant in my garden is afflicted with a virus, probably cucumber mosaic virus, which can infect many more types of plants than just cucumbers. And I do believe that that Manzano chile pepper plant is the main reservoir in my garden for the virus.

Cucumber mosaic virus is easily spread by aphids and most, or more likely, all of my pepper seedlings hosted at least a few aphids this year. And all of my pepper seedlings were hardened off right next to that Manzano pepper plant.

There is no cure, no treatment for CMV, there aren't any CMV resistant peppers. Prevention is the key - try to control the vectors (aphids) as early as possible and eliminate as many nearby host plants for the disease as possible. So, this winter the Manzano will be going and so will all of the baccatum species peppers that I typically like to grow for a couple of years. This winter there will be absolutely no pepper plants left in the garden. Hopefully next year I can start with a clean slate. It would really break my heart to not be able to grow peppers again. And in the future I must resist the temptation to overwinter the cold hardy peppers and just grow new plants every year. I suspect that the overwintered plants probably pick up the virus from aphids that have picked up the virus from other host plants in neighborhood and then the aphids pass the virus from the overwintered plants to the new seedlings.

It's too late in the season to clean out the pepper patch now and start over again. There's a chance that I will get something of a pepper harvest. But, if it looks like the peppers won't produce then I may very well clean out the pepper bed and plant a big winter garden instead. The next few weeks will tell.

I wonder if eggplant is susceptible to CMV, they are pretty runty as well.

Dang, I wish I had figured this out a few weeks ago, there still would have been time to buy some plants and get them going for a late harvest. Well, actually, I should have figured this out last year. I guess I'm a little slow at some things.

Next year, things will be different next year...

Harvest Monday, July 16, 2012

The bean and sugar snap pea harvests peaked this past week. I wasn't able to harvest the beans in a timely manner the weekend before last so the harvest on Monday was a big one featuring beans that had grown beyond the "filet" size but which are still good tasting. The sugar snap peas have been maturing in quick succession and are almost done now. This is the first time that I've planted snow and snap peas for such a late harvest. I got a good crop from the plants but the peas did seem to come in almost all at once. Next year I'll be able to get back to my usual early spring planting times which will allow a more leisurely paced harvest.

Super Sugar Snap peas and Rolande "filet" beans

The Sweetie Baby romaine lettuces are also sizing up in record time and are just starting to bolt. We've been eating a lot of salad lately.

Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce

The Lark's Tongue kale is growing like a weed! Fortunately, it tastes much better than any weed that I've tried to eat. I used this bunch (three leaves!) in a raw kale salad with a simple dressing of lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The salad was fortified with zante currants, roasted salted sunflower seeds, and slivers of fresh sweet Blenheim apricots. I allowed the chopped kale to sit dressed in the refrigerator for a couple of hours to soften a bit before I added the seeds and apricots. The salad was delicious and my husband enjoyed leftovers just as much after the salad marinated for a few more hours in the fridge.

Lark's Tongue kale

Lark's Tongue kale

Rolande filet beans picked at the proper size and
Super Sugar Snap peas

The zucchini is starting to produce! I always get excited about the first zucchini, it's been such a long time since the final harvest from the garden last year and I almost never buy zucchini, even from the farmer's market. This lone zuke weighed in at 4 ounces, big enough to slice and roast with some asparagus and broccoli. The rest of the zucchini and the blossoms will go into the first Scarpaccia (savory zucchini tart) of the season.

There's still a few shoots of the Apollo broccoli trickling in and the caper harvests continue but are starting to slow a bit. The snow peas are gone, I pulled all the plants and gave them to the chickens to peck at, they love it. I hope that I will get to show off the first cucumber in the next week or so, keep your fingers crossed that the rats don't find them first...

Here's the harvest totals for the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 4 lb., 2.9 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 6.9 oz.
Capers - 3.6 oz.
Lark's Tongue kale - 10.8 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce - 2 lb., 4.6 oz.
Super Sugar Snap peas - 2 lb., 11.4 oz.
Da Fiore zucchini - 1 lb.
Zucchini blossoms - 1.1 oz.

The total harvests for the week came to 11 lb., 9.3 oz.
Which brings the total harvests for the year to 71 lb., 9.7 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.

Harvest Monday - July 9, 2012

I did not photograph all the harvests this week, just how many photos do you need to see of the same stuff. So here's a couple of highlights...

Lark's Tongue kale

Sweetie Baby Romaine and Super Sugar Snap peas

The kale is growing my leaps and bounds and then some more so I'm trying to come up with ways to use it rather than just let it get big and tough and turn into chicken snacks. I don't bother to freeze kale since it will be a staple in the winter garden so I won't be raiding the freezer for the frozen stuff. The frittata that I made last week was deemed a big hit by my husband, he loved the smoky notes from the bacon. I think that the kale may be starring as salad fixings for a while now that the Sweetie Baby romaine is starting to bolt and the replacement lettuces are struggling to get going. I had a test run using the kale to make a small caesar salad and it was quite good so I see a few of those in the weeks to come. And I have to try making some kale chips with this variety as well.

The first handful of Super Sugar Snap peas are shown in the basket with the romaine lettuce. I got really lucky and managed to sow the seeds for the snap peas so that the harvest started just as the snow pea harvests dwindled down to nearly nothing. I have to look at my sowing dates and try to replicate the timing next year.

The Apollo broccoli put out a few more side shoots and looks to have a few more in the works but I think those harvests will trickle down to nearly nothing in the next week or so. I've already got seedlings for their replacement on the way.

The filet beans have been a real surprise, they have been producing quite a respectable crop of very good tasting beans, I have harvested enough for both fresh eating and pickling. The third quart jar (1 lb.) of pickles went into the refrigerator on Friday. I sowed another flat of beans and they've started to germinate, but something, probably the dreaded RATS (S#%@)!!! came through last night and mowed down every seedling that had pushed it's head above ground. There's a few more emerging but now I have to sow some more. And it's time to start sowing some rat traps around the premises again.

Here's the harvest totals from the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 1 lb., .7 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 8.3 oz.
Capers - 2.5 oz.
Lark's Tongue kale - 1 lb., 10.7 oz.
Sweeetie Baby romaine - 2 lb., 6.6 oz.
Parade Scallions - .7 oz.
Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas - 2.8 oz.
Super Sugar Snap peas - 1 lb., 1.3 oz.

The total harvests for the week were - 7 lb., 1.6 oz.
Which brings the total harvests for the year up to - 60 lb., .4 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.

Friday Frittata

We have a (somewhat) new favorite food item around here, frittata. I've made plenty of them over the years but never with such regularity as of late. They are a great way to utilize the bounty of eggs from the girls and the vegetables from the garden and farmer's market. My husband has started to pack a lunch to take to work lately and I've been trying to have stuff on hand that is easy to pack and eat. We are off bread so sandwiches aren't on the menu. Frittatas seem to be a perfect option - healthy, tasty, and easy to eat out of hand. I've been making one every week lately and no two have been the same. 

Kale, Onion, Bacon, Tomato, and Comte Frittata

This week the filling is Lark's Tongue kale that I first steamed in the pressure cooker for a couple of minutes and then squeezed the excess moisture out of, Vidalia onion and a bit of chopped garlic that was sauteed with chopped bacon and olive oil, some oven candied tomatoes that were lingering in the refrigerator from the tomato harvest last fall, dried Syrian oregano, Comte cheese and, of course, eggs.

Frittata is so easy to make. I don't have a specific recipe just a general formula and technique. I like my frittatas to be chock full of vegetables so I put together a generous mixture of freshly cooked vegetables or perhaps use leftover vegetables or a mixture of old and new. Mix a few cups of cooked vegetables, perhaps some bacon or pancetta, a handful of grated, chopped, or crumbled cheese, and eight large to extra large eggs (my girls lay different sized eggs, anywhere from petite 1.8 ouncers to 3.8 ounce double yolkers). Blend well, season with salt and pepper and perhaps fresh or dried herbs. Preheat a 10-inch skillet over medium-low heat, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to the pan, pour the egg mixture into the skillet, turn the heat down to low. Cook the frittata until it starts to bubble around the sides, perhaps 5 to 10 minutes and then pop the whole pan into a preheated 350ºF oven and bake about 15 to 20 minutes or until the frittata has puffed up a bit and the center is set and starting to brown. Remove from the oven and let it sit for 10 minutes or longer, this will help to loosen the frittata from the pan. Serve hot, room temperature, or cold. It is delicious served hot with some tomato sauce. If you are a sandwich eater it makes a great sandwich filling. I get six generous servings from an 8 egg frittata.

Zucchini, Pancetta, Corn, Bean, Snow Pea, Onion, Comte Frittata 

Last week I sauteed sliced fresh zucchini with pancetta and mixed that with a leftover saute of sweet corn, filet beans, snow peas, and Vidalia onion, and added a handful of grated Comte cheese and some dried oregano. This was a big hit with my husband.

Artichoke, Onion, Dried Tomato, Mozzarella Frittata

The week before it was sliced artichoke hearts, dried cherry tomatoes, Vidalia onion (I'm working my way through a big bag of those!), and chopped buffalo mozzarella. Another yum.

Previous frittatas have featured roasted broccoli or asparagus. Next week I think I'll be roasting some fabulous sweet red peppers that have been appearing at the farmer's market, with perhaps some sweet corn that has been showing up as well. Or perhaps I'll find something else to inspire me. Come on back next Friday to see what I stuff into the next frittata.

What is your favorite frittata filling? Or perhaps you've never made a frittata before - go on, give it a try.

Harvest Monday - July 2, 2012

It was the week for the broccoli. I harvested the small main heads last Monday.

The bulk of the side shoots came hard on the heels of the main heads. I put off harvesting them as long as possible but I harvested these yesterday.

The Apollo broccoli does produce an abundance of side shoots, but the harvests come very quickly and  I suspect that there won't be a lot more to harvest after this. It is a tasty broccoli and I do like the size of the side shoots so I am willing to try to figure out a growing schedule for this variety, at least until I use up the rest of the expensive seeds. I think I will have to figure out a shedule for successive sowings with fewer plants. Three and a half pounds of broccoli in one week is a bit more than I want to have to deal with at one time. This harvest came from only four plants that I set out close together. I'm going to try sowing 2 or 3 plants at 2 or 3 week intervals for the rest of the season. It will be interesting to see how the harvest changes as the days get shorter and later in the season as the days get cooler as well.

The Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce is coming on fast as well and so far it is not showing signs of bolting. The head above was used for a couple of my almost daily lunch salads. I prepped the entire head for salad but only used half one day and put the rest of the cut strips of lettuce in the refrigerator. When I made a salad with it the next day, or maybe it was two days later, it seemed that the refrigerated lettuce had sweetened up quite a bit, not that it was at all bitter to begin with. Hmm, I'll have to try that again if the lettuce seems to be getting bitter. The two heads below were used to make a big Caesar salad that accompanied some Dungeness crab that we got from our CSF last week.

My variegated pink lemon tree is producing a few lemons this year and I used one of them to prepare the dressing for the Caesar salad.

The juice of the lemon is truly pink and it's tart and tasty as well.

Here's one of my caper harvests this week. Two and one half ounces of buds.

Here's what the capers look like after they have been cured. Fresh capers taste horrible and must be cured to develop their characteristic flavors and remove the horrible bitterness of the raw buds. These buds were harvested in May and brined for about a month, then drained and packed with some coarse sea salt. These will keep in the refrigerator for well over a year. I'm still using buds that I cured last year.

The filet bean and snow pea harvests continued through the week but I didn't photograph any of those. The snow peas are about finished producing. Those came on very quickly also, I was expecting a longer harvest period (only two weeks!), but the pods were getting thick while they were still quite small and each successive harvest produced smaller and smaller pods, and now the plants are finished blooming all together. I don't know if that is typical for this variety or if it is because I am growing them so late in the season. I'll give them another try this fall and see how they do then. But now I'll be able to pull the plants and set out another sowing of the filet beans (already sown in paper pots). The filet beans have been a delight. I've harvested enough to enjoy them fresh and got just enough last week to make a batch, no, two batches, of pickles and the plants are still producing.

Here's the harvests for the past week:

Rolande filet beans - 1 lb., 15.2 oz.
Apollo broccoli - 3 lb., 8 oz.
Capers - 5 oz.
Lark's Tongue kale - 3.7 oz.
Sweetie Baby romaine lettuce - 1 lb., 12.4 oz.
Parade scallions - .6 oz.
Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas - 3 lb., 4.3 oz.

The total harvests for the week were - 11 lb., 1.2 oz.
Which brings the total harvests for the year up to - 52 lb., 14.8 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.