Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The harvests here have settled into a familiar pattern, but I’m certainly not bored with them. I harvested some more of the Coalition Mix kale this past week. It has been a dependable performer for me the last two years. Some of the plants are starting to get aphids on the leaves, which is not unusual here in fall and winter. We’ve had several freezing nights in a row and I am thinking that will help reduce the bug population. The leaves in the below photo were bug free.
Coalition Mix kale
My wife was cooking last week and she combined the kale with some of our Yukon Gold potatoes from storage to make Kale and Potato Hash. I really enjoy eating this dish, especially when she is cooking it and not me!
Kale and Potato Hash
She also requested I get some turnips and greens for dinner one night. We still have plenty of them in the garden. I pulled mostly Purple Top White Globe, which I planted for the greens more than the turnips themselves. I have come to prefer ‘salad’ turnips like Hakurei, which I also pulled for her.
Purple Top and Hakurei turnips
She cooked the tops and bottoms together. Sometimes I like to put a seasoned vinegar on my turnip greens, but these were so sweet I skipped the vinegar. As you can see in the below photo some of the Hakurei turnips are getting quite big, but they are still tender and not a bit woody even at that stage.
Hakurei turnip
I’ve taken over the cooking duties for a couple of weeks. I started off with pizza last night. We love arugula on our pizza and I have quite a bit of it at the moment, so I harvested some of the Apollo from the cold frame bed. I also cut some parsley from the greenhouse to make pesto to use as a pizza sauce.
arugula and parsley for pizza
I made the crust from homeground whole grain White Sonora wheat. White Sonora is an heirloom soft white wheat that was quite popular in the U.S. Southwest until the 1900s. It is a wonderful wheat for tortillas and other flatbreads like pizza since it is easy to roll out. The dough turned out so light in color it is hard to believe it is 100% whole wheat. I used a Peter Reinhart recipe from Artisan Breads Every Day for the crust, which involved an overnight fermentation in the refrigerator.
pizza crust made from White Sonora wheat
I put some of our frozen Slow Roasted Tomatoes on the pizza, along with mushrooms and a few of the pickled Malawi Piccante peppers. I used parsley pesto on one side and homemade tomato sauce on the other. But if you look at the below photo, can you see what I forgot to put on the pizza? There’s no arugula! Oh well, it was tasty anyway, even without the arugula. And my wife assures me I will not be fired from my job as cook, since she was more than ready for me to take over for a couple of weeks. We do like to tease each other about whose turn it is to cook. In reality taking turns is a great way for both of us to keep our cooking skills intact, and we do enjoy sharing duties in the kitchen.
the finished pizza
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to share, add your name and blog link to Mr Linky below. And be sure and check out what everyone is harvesting!
I don’t normally have aphids but found a couple of small colonies on my harvest this week. Maybe because that about all the living foliage left in the garden. I agree with Hakurei being a great turnip, but I also tried Royal Crown this year and liked them a lot. They are an improved purple top from Sakata Seeds.
It looks like Royal Crown has lots of leaves for greens too. I had a whole lot of Purple Top seed to use up this year, but I will give Royal Crown a try.
Surprising you can so much harvest at this late date. Are some of these crops (like the arugula) grown in tunnels, cold frame or the greenhouse? And was this your homegrown wheat? I’ve read stories about the wheat grown in southern California in earlier times. Fun to see all your garden harvests.
I did not grow the wheat, but I did grind it using our Nutrimill grinder. The arugula came from the cold frame, where it is going strong despite many nights of freezing temps.
Our summer planted kale has some aphids on them this year, but the plants we put in for fall and over wintering seemed to miss them for some reason this year!
Another great looking harvest! How do you use your turnips? I don’t grow them often because neither of us really know what to do with them. But I do a have a very small picking this year. I’d love some ideas?
We had the turnips tonight for dinner, mashed up with some of our potatoes (about half and half). I also like them sliced and cooked by themselves. My mom used to make scalloped turnips. So they are pretty versatile!
I had more aphid issues this year than in the past & am hoping that it’s just one of those years instead of a recurring problem.
The pizza looks delicious – I do enjoy making pizza with homemade dough, but often struggle with stretching/rolling out the dough, so lately have been making Greek pita or naan pizza’s instead. I’ll have to try Peter’s recipe.
I used his 100% Whole Grain Rustic Bread and Pizza Dough recipe. I halved the recipe, and it still made two pizza crusts and two pitas! The soft wheat made for an easy to roll out dough. I did roll it out using a rolling pin instead of my hands, since that seems to give me better results.
The aphids held off for along time, and so far they are only on about 3 or 4 plants.
So many good looking dishes. The pizza looks so good, I haven’t made any in a while, perhaps it time! I wish I had’t been so lazy this fall, I don’t have any kale or turnips or arugula in the garden now. Oh well, I guess I’ll be hitting my stash of preserved summer veggies harder than ever and none of my continuing bonanza of broccoli will go to waste.
Mmm, lovely, especially the hash and pizza. In the past we’ve made potato pizza, which has potato in the base as well as flour. Will have to find out the recipe, Jan usually makes it.
I’ve heard of using potatoes for a pizza base. I think maybe Michelle has blogged about it. It does sound good.
Your pizza looks amazing. And the Hakurei turnips sound wonderful. None of my turnips have been sweet not even Shogoin which I got from Pinetree Seeds, I might have to try some different varieties.
Did you get your Hakurei seeds from Kitazawa?
I got my Hakurei seeds from Johnny’s. Oasis is another white turnip that does well for me, and I got those seeds from Fedco.
Nice pizza crust … and nice looking pizza! I haven’t made my own dough in a while as I’ve gotten lazy. Your homemade breads and pizzas are inspiring!