Harvest Monday - June 19, 2017

I am short on photos of my harvests this week. We've had a high pressure system settle comfortably over the state which is making it uncomfortably hot for me and the garden. I spent some time Saturday afternoon bouncing between the relative coolness of the house (we don't have a/c) and the heat in the garden rescuing cool weather loving veggies that were stressed out and/or trying to bolt. Those didn't get photographed because I was trying to get them indoors and into the fridge before they and I wilted. I hauled in 2 more heads of napa cabbage, 6 heads of lettuce, nearly a pound of Aspabroc (aka Broccolini), some Batavia broccoli shoots and the first Romanesco zucchini.

Earlier in the week I cleared out a couple more varieties of carrots.

Atomic Red

Short Stuff

That photo of the Short Stuff carrots is a bit deceiving, they are short but they aren't all that small, that bunch weighed 1.5 pounds after trimming off the tops. There's always one joker in the group...

There's a basketful of veggies from earlier in the week before it got hot. Another Little Jade napa cabbage, some Aspabroc, a couple minuscule Fioretto Stick cauliflower, Cilician parsley, mini downy mildew stunted Red Candy Apple onions, and some very purple Corsican basil doing a good job of photobombing the shot.

Yellow Finn Potatoes

I dumped out the first pot of Yellow Finn potaotes to see what was going on. The certainly aren't beautiful and neither were they plentiful (only 1.5 pounds) but there were some decent sized ones that should make for a tasty Salad Nicoise tonight.

Blanched & Dried Pink Lettucy Mustard

Last week I cleared out some big bunches of mustard from the garden and decided to try a couple of preserving experiments with it. That bunch above was dipped in boiling salted water just long enough to wilt it, about 5 seconds, and then I chopped and dehydrated it. It is surprisingly delicious. And then I read about a traditional Chinese method of preserving mustard greens, fermenting and drying. Actually the process traditionally involves first sun drying the greens to wilt them, then fermenting them, then sun drying again (I saw one description that also steamed them before the second drying). I followed a more modern recipe that used a dehydrator instead of the sun. That batch is just finishing up in the dehydrator now.

Fermented and (nearly) Dried Pink Lettucy Mustard

One thing that I really do love about dehydrated foods is that they save a lot of space, 2 1/2 pounds of bulky mustard greens will fit into a pint jar once they are dried. The dried mustard greens will add a nice flavor boost to soups and stirfry dishes.

Dave wanted me to be sure to mention a salad that I made this week that we both really enjoyed. I found the inspiration for it from a Mark Bittman recipe for a deconstructed Vietnamese Summer Roll turned into salad. I changed the proportions (less noodles, more lettuce), added chopped peanuts, and used a different sauce (also modified to be less sweet) for the dressing. It was a fantastic cool and refreshing dinner salad for a warm almost summer night.

Harvest Monday is hosted by Dave on his blog Our Happy Acres, head on over there to see what other garden bloggers have been harvesting lately.

Now I've got to get outside before it gets too warm to get any work done.