Welcome to Harvest Monday. I'm stepping in for Dave of Our Happy Acres as the temporary host of Harvest Monday for the month of January while he takes a much deserved holiday from the task of hosting every week. Harvest Monday is where we celebrate all things harvest related. This is the place to share your latest harvests and what you've been doing with them. If you would like to link up you will find Mr. Linky at the end of this post.
It was a few more of the usual suspects last week.
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| Calabrese Broccoli Shoots |
Broccoli was on the menu again. The Calabrese broccoli plants are slow to produce shoots now and one of my three plants has been struggling in the shadow of the towering Brussels sprouts plants so it hardly produces anything and then I pretty much ignored the shoots that were growing so this is the first broccoli I've harvested since December 6.
Dave enthusiastically plowed through a bowl of brothy broccoli piled on toast. It's a nice simple dish that's so nice to have on a cold winter night. I blanched the broccoli first because it had a few to many aphids to simply wash away, then I chopped it and added it to a seasoning mixture of sauteed apple cider bacon, chopped I'itoi onions, and Aji pepper flakes. Then I let the mixture braise briefly in some poultry stock and piled it all on top of some toasted rustic bread that I smeared with some green garlic cream and then topped it all of with some grated pecorino romano cheese and a drizzle of olive oil.
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| Pink Plume Celery |
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| Syrian Medieval Chard |
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| Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad |
Not photographed was a basketful of big Hestia Brussels sprouts. I made another version of the Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad that I mentioned last week. This time I used pecorino romano cheese instead of parmesan, and I have to say that it was good but the version with the parmesan is better. But this time I did try to take a photo. Just this Sunday the San Francisco Chronicle published another version of a shredded Brussels sprouts salad, but that one has the addition of wheat berries, roasted mushrooms, and hard boiled eggs to make it a hearty main dish salad. I'm going to have to give that version a try soon.
And the Brussels Sprouts Challenge continues! I came up with two new ways to consume some of the glut of sprouts. One way is to use them as a filling for a Savory Brussels Sprouts Galette. And the other dish, which I did not photograph, is a Brussels Sprouts Skillet Souffle, which might also be described as a fluffy frittata. Both of them got two-forks-up from my Eater-In-Chief (aka my husband Dave). Click on the links to find my recipes.
The only other thing to hit the tally last week was one more tomato that ripened on the counter, still surprisingly good.
Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:
Calabrese broccoli - 13.5 oz.
Hestia Brussels sprouts - 2.1 lb.
Pink Plume celery - 9.3 oz.
Syrian Medieval chard - 2.1 lb.
Chianti Rose tomato - 3.8 oz.
Total harvests for the week - 5.9 lb. (2.7 kg.)
2017 YTD - 13.2 lb. (6 kg.)
If you have a harvest you would like to share then enter a link in Mr. Linky below, then go and see what everyone else has to share. Thanks for joining in the fun!
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| Savory Brussels Sprouts Galette |
The only other thing to hit the tally last week was one more tomato that ripened on the counter, still surprisingly good.
Here's the details of the harvests for the past week:
Calabrese broccoli - 13.5 oz.
Hestia Brussels sprouts - 2.1 lb.
Pink Plume celery - 9.3 oz.
Syrian Medieval chard - 2.1 lb.
Chianti Rose tomato - 3.8 oz.
Total harvests for the week - 5.9 lb. (2.7 kg.)
2017 YTD - 13.2 lb. (6 kg.)
If you have a harvest you would like to share then enter a link in Mr. Linky below, then go and see what everyone else has to share. Thanks for joining in the fun!
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Your use of sprouts certainly shows versatility but what are wheat berries?
ReplyDeleteInteresting, I never thought about this before, I don't know why they are called "berries", they are simply the whole grain of wheat.
DeleteBeautiful harvests and delicious-sounding recipes! Have you posted a recipe for the cornmeal creamed chard? I read somewhere that with all the rain and snow California is no longer in a drought--can that be true?
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to see you back Will. I haven't posted the chard recipe since it was one of those "wing it" dishes and I didn't particularly keep track of amounts. What I did was to add a couple of tablespoons of cornmeal (Oxacan Green) to a sofrito before adding the chopped chard and some cream, I think it was about 6 tablespoons or a bit more of cream. And then let it cook gently until the chard was soft the the sauce creamy. It was pretty good but I need to tweak the seasonings because it came out a bit bland.
DeleteIn the short run the drought is over for about 60% of the state at least in terms of surface water, but a lot of the state still has a major deficit of ground water. One winter of good rain will not recharge the aquifers. So the drought isn't truly over yet.
One of my new chickens is laying so we have eggs again. I am getting herbs and lettuce from the garden, so I hope that counts as a harvest. My harvests are piddling compared to yours, though. So happy it isn't a contest. Your rustic galette looks wonderful. I made a salad with sliced Brussels sprouts last week. It was pretty good. First time I had tried raw Brussels sprouts. And I made a lovely slab pie with chard. But those veggies were store bought. Lou
ReplyDeleteRaw Brussels sprouts were a first for me this year too and now I love them. It doesn't do to compare gardening efforts. I don't think I'm a typical home vegetable gardener, it's something of an obsession for me and I devote more time to it than most people are able to or would really even want to. So revel in your harvests whatever quantity they might be!
DeleteAll your veggies look beautifully uniform - mine are usually odd shapes. It would be nice to have a glut of Brussels sprouts that need creative cooking...I'll just have to keep fingers crossed for a few more tiddlers from my plot.
ReplyDeleteIt' amazing how deceptive photographs can be! There really isn't a lot of uniformity in my veggies, just some clever arrangements by the photographer... Tiddlers are good, certainly better than nothing. That's how I'm feeling about my parsnips this year.
DeleteI had to laugh at your comment about washing the aphids off. WHY do they love brassicas so much.
ReplyDeleteAnd they always find the most difficult spots to snuggle into!
DeleteThat's why I'm not too keen on growing curly leaf again as it's so hard to find them! Liking the red Russian as it's a flat leaf. But I did discover they don't bother the collards as much as kale.
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