Garden to Table: Roasted Fairy Tale Eggplants

As I showed before in an earlier blog, the Fairy Tale eggplants, fresh from the garden. The bowl they're in holds approximately a quart, and they're only a few inches long.

I trimmed off the green tops, and then sliced each eggplant in half, down the middle. Afterwards, I tossed them in a big bowl, with some olive oil and a little bit of black pepper and sea salt. I arranged them on  a couple of small baking sheets (I only have a countertop oven right now) cut side down and baked for 30 minutes at 375. At that point they were done enough to serve but I wanted them really roasty and dark, so I flipped them and cooked a further 15 minutes.

When they came out of the oven, the insides were very soft. Next time, I will let them cool, scoop out the insides, mix with a little lemon juice and some spices, and make something kind of like Baba Ganouch. As they are, the skin is tender enough to eat too, so I just popped them in my mouth in one piece. You could also take a spoon and just scoop the inside out of the skin and eat them that way too.  Or just eat like you would an artichoke, leaving the skin behind.

I tried a new recipe: Spicy Tempeh & Green Beans

I had bought a pack of tempeh at the store, because I remembered having it before and liking it, and my husband had never eaten it before, but wanted to try it. Both of us really like green beans, so when I was browsing tempeh recipes, I came across this one:  Spicy Tempeh & Green Beans  and it looked like something we'd like, and I had most all of the ingredients already.

So, we gave it a try. The only substitution I made, was to swap a about a half teaspoon of dried red pepper flakes for the chopped red chilis that the recipe called for. It came out a little bit spicy, enough to give it some zing, not bland by a long shot.  And we had it over some plain jasmine rice, which was perfect with it. I'd actually made it earlier in the week, and we liked it so much that we got more tempeh and green beans and made it again last night.  Definitely a recipe that got printed out and put into my "food bible". The Food Bible is a large three ring binder full of page protectors where I keep my tried and true recipes on file.

It's a really simple recipe, and the most involved part is preparing everything to go into the pan. Also, I was able to find all the ingredients at a large local supermarket, without having to drive to a health food store, ethnic market, or gourmet food supermarket. And no wok, no problem. I just used a heavy large pan to stir fry it up in.

I'm looking forward to trying this recipe with green beans from my garden this coming Spring.

Garden to table: Roasted beets

Last week I cooked the beet greens, today I cooked the beets themselves. I like beets prepared in any manner. Pickled, thinly sliced raw in a salad, and roasted. My husband only likes them roasted, so that's how I made them this time.

This is right after they came out of the ground last week, and had the tops removed and a rinse-off with the water hose. I let them dry and then stored them in the refrigerator in a plastic storage bag:

I further cleaned them, by scrubbing in the sink with a vegetable brush, then peeling the thick outer skin off and trimming away the root end and the base of the greens up top. Then cut them into halves and quarters, depending on the size of the beet.  The pink and white striped beets are a variety called "Chiogga", the solid ones are just common beets, and there are a very few pieces of yellow golden beets as well:

After they were peeled and sliced, I tossed them with a little bit of olive oil, some ground white pepper, a little bit of salt, and a little bit of onion powder. And then spread them out in a single layer in a pan. I baked them at 400 for 20 minutes, then gave them a good stir, spread them back out across the pan, and baked them for another 20 minutes:

Roasting the beets gave them a very mild and sweet flavor, you want to cook them until they are fork tender, but not overcooked. No need for a sauce, the olive oil and bit of onion powder makes into a bit of a glaze while they cook.  They really don't need any seasoning when they're this young and fresh, but the tiny bit of onion powder really works well with the sweetness of the beets.

That's it for the beets from my garden, I will for certain be planting them again. I think that Fall is the only good season to grow them here, but I will try some in late Winter just to see if they do anything or not.

Garden to Table: Beet greens

I had assumed that I wouldn't be able to grow beets in containers, but after doing some research, I found out that I could grow beets even in fairly small containers, as long as I was okay with baby sized beet roots. Which is fine by me, I like the greens just as much as the beets, and decided it was worth the time to experiment with them in my garden.

I decided to plant these Assorted Beet Seeds in long narrow window box type plastic planters, six plants to a box, staggering them to maximize distance between plants. I had six boxes, so after thinning, it left me with 36 plants. I had them lined up along the sidewalk that runs up against the front of my house, between the main and side driveway. And that way they could get full sun as well as what little bit of rain we've been getting. They grew really well, and the dark red beets made plants with pretty burgundy stems and deep red veins in the dark green leaves. I will certainly use those as part of my edible landscaping in the future. Once they got to a size where the greens were just starting to be crowded together, the beet roots ranged from the size of a large gumball to a large chicken egg. I decided to go ahead and pull them so that I could plant some lettuce and radishes in the containers.

 Beet plants, in their containers this morning, just before I pulled them.

Beet tops and roots, after being pulled, before cleaning.

Beet tops/greens, after being separated and rinsed.

Beet roots, after being washed, tops removed.

I decided to hold onto the roots, and roast them later in the week, but the greens needed to be cooked right away. You can eat the baby ones in salads, the leaves taste (to me) like a cross between spinach and any other garden green like collards or turnip greens. Beet greens are more tender, like spinach, so they benefit from a quick saute, or a soft simmer. You don't want to overcook them, or they turn to mush. The stems are perfectly edible as well, so don't throw them away! 

To prepare the greens, I soaked and rinsed the leaves and stems very well, to make sure there was no dirt on them, or insects hitching a ride. Then I took the stems off, chopped them up fairly fine, and put them aside. The rest of the leaves, I stacked, sliced in half lengthwise, and then sliced into narrow strips. I like to cook my greens "Southern" style, or at least a take on it. I chopped up one and a half large onions, a couple good sized shallots, and six garlic cloves. I also diced up four thick slices of bacon for flavor and to provide fat for sauteeing the other vegetables.

Beet stems, chopped and ready to go into the pot

Beet greens, washed, trimmed, and sliced into strips.

Bacon, diced...along with chopped onion, shallot, and garlic.

To cook the dish, I rendered the fat out of the bacon over medium-high heat, and then sauteed the onion-shallot-garlic mixture until transparent. I added about ten good grinds of black pepper from the grinder, and a half-teaspoon of hot red pepper flakes. To that, I added a pint of stock (I had beef in the fridge, but you can use beef, vegetable, chicken, turkey, etc... whatever really. Or just plain water if you don't have stock. Dropped the heat to medium, and waited for it to come to a boil. Then I added the chopped up stems and simmered them for about five minutes until they were starting to get tender.

When it was time for the greens themselves, I had to add them a half at a time, because even my big stock pot wasn't room enough for that pile of greens (easily four gallons worth). I added about half, closed the lid, let them wilt for about a minute, then added the rest. Once they had wilted, I gave it all a good stir, dropped the heat to low, and let it simmer gently for ten minutes. Any longer and my greens would have cooked to mush.  Because of the dark burgundy stems, the liquid is a bright magenta color, and the stems turned a brilliant shade of purplish-burgundy. It tastes great, I didn't even need to add salt. I got about a gallon worth of finished cooked greens, which we will enjoy over the next week. Very fresh, very healthy, and very tasty! Later in the week, I will prepare the beet roots themselves, probably roasted because that's the way my husband prefers them, and I like them that way too.

Finished Southern style beet greens, still steaming!





Garden haul!

Here are some of the things I've picked from my garden over the past few days. Lots of cucumbers, including one monster one that had been hiding away behind the lattice the vines are growing up. I try and pick them before they get so big, because they're still sweet and tender and the seeds aren't tough. But occasinally one gets missed and turns into a whopper. There are still at least ten more baby cukes on the vines. No more flowers, too cool for that now, but I'll have at least one more little picking worth of cucumbers before they're done for the season. I also got the last two eggplant, the plants need to come up now to make room for more carrots. And poblano peppers too. There are still a lot of small ones on the plants, and a bunch of tiny jalapenos finally too. The beans are a mix of green and burgundy bush beans. There are some still on the plants, and a few blooms too. But I think the bulk of the beans have already been picked and enjoyed.

I took a couple of the cucumbers, and just rinsed and sliced them into rounds, and mixed them with a "dressing" made from some nonfat plain bulgarian yogurt, a little bit of Penzey's Mural of Flavor seasoning, some finely sliced green onion (white and green parts) and a pinch of salt. I usually use dill, but my Dear Friend had brought me a gift box of four small jars of salt-free seasonings, and I wanted to try out the Mural of Flavor, since I had never tasted it before. It's awfully good! The green beans, we boiled until just fork tender but still crunchy. And tossed them with a tiny bit of melted butter, some Penzey's Forward seasoning (from the same gift box) and a pinch of salt too. Very good as well.. It's funny how the burgundy beans turn green as soon as they hit that boiling water. The poblano peppers are going into my Southwestern omlettes for breakfast, and the eggplant will go in with some zucchini and tomato to have with pasta and chicken breast for supper tomorrow. The rest of the cucumbers are going to become salad for the Thanksgiving table at the inlaws' house.