Harvest Monday - April 2, 2018

All of the runty Brussels Sprouts that I could salvage hit the harvest basket this week. It all came out to about 2.5 pounds of useable sprouts. I used the largest ones, about a half poud, to make the Raw Brussels Sprouts with Lemon, Anchovy, Walnuts, and Pecorino from Joshua McFadden's book Six Seasons, although I did use Parmesan instead of Pecorino. And then I used another half pound in a dish that I concocted using Freekeh and Lentils with Shredded Brussels Sprouts. And now I need to figure out the best use for all those marble sized ones that are left. It was a very disappointing year for Brussels Sprouts but what I did get were good tasting.

Gustus Brussels Sprouts and Cilician Parsley

The winter lettuces performed much better than the sprouts and we've been enjoying a number of salads lately.

Three Heart Butterhead Lettuce

The Pink Plum Celery is starting to bolt so I've been cutting it down. That basket below contains half of the plants, plus some more Pink Lettucy mustard shoots, and the Pixie cabbage that was determined to make a head in spite of the depredations of voles and birds. The cabbage wasn't as large as they usually get and perhaps it would have filled out a bit more given time but I needed the space to set out some collards that were becoming pot bound.

Pink Plume Celery
Pink Lettucy Mustard
Pixie Cabbage

My experiment with overwintering snow peas on a trellis has been quite successful. I wasn't expecting much from the latest harvest because I had picked the plant over quite well the week before but I got another 1.2 pounds on Sunday. I should have picked a couple of days earlier though, the warm weather that we've had for the past week made the peas mature more quickly and a lot of them had fattened up a bit too much. So far the plants have produced over 6 pounds of pea pods.

Frieda Worlds Snow Peas

I still have lots of vegetables in storage so I keep trying to find new ways to use them. The dish below is Prosciutto that I rolled up with ricotta, Parmesan cheese, and dried shredded Tromba D'Albenga squash and then I baked the rolls in a couple of cups of tomato sauce from the freezer. Dave declared it a winner so I wrote up the recipe which you can find on my recipe blog HERE.

The Allen's/Rufous hummer that has dominated the feeder by the Meyer lemon tree outside my kitchen window is still here. I managed to get a little better shot of it last week. And I saw the male or perhaps a different male vying for position at my other feeder on the other side of the house and I think I saw another female out there too. It's hard to tell sometimes because they are so FAST, perhaps it was the same bird that zipped from one feeder to the other faster than me.

And speaking of Meyer lemons, my poor rodent ravaged tree still managed to produce a good crop of really nice lemons which I've been trying to not let go to waste. I mentioned in a previous post that I have a couple of jars of them fermenting and then a friend told me how she has been slicing them and dehydrating them to use in drinks. I have a stash of those in the fridge now and I've gotten into the habit of adding a slice to a cup of hot herbal tea. And then I went a step further with the dehydrated lemon idea and sprinkled the slices with sugar before dehydrating them to a crisp. I originally made those to garnish some Meyer lemon buttermilk panna cottas that I served to guests, but the garnish turned out to be a tangy treat all on their own so I made another batch to have on hand.

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.