Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I’m getting a few new veggies in the harvests now that we have transitioned from summer to fall and winter harvests. I got a cutting of turnips greens one day, our first taste of the season. This is a Japanese variety called Nozawana that is grown specifically for the greens (it doesn’t make roots) which are smooth and mild tasting. I’m also growing one called Topper for the greens, plus Scarlet Ono Revival which has large leaves plus pink/magenta roots. The Nozawana cooked up literally in a few minutes. I only harvested the leaves and left the plants to grow more.
Nozawana Turnip greens
Another first for the season was a harvest of broccolini or stem broccoli. I’m growing three plants each of Artwork and Apollo and they both made small heads at the same time. In the below photo it’s Apollo on the left and Artwork on the right. The main heads of Apollo are a bit bigger, but it’s the side shoots that are the main attraction for these two. Though it’s getting late in the year hopefully the plants will hang on long enough for me to get a few more cuttings. I should get some of the heading broccoli this week since those plants are heading up too.
Apollo(L) and Artwork(R) broccoli
I also cut most of the Minuet Napa cabbage last week. I got one big head and two smaller ones that weighed just under four pounds total. That will give me enough for two quart jars of kimchi with a bit left for perhaps a stir fry. I’m still waiting on the other cabbages to make heads big enough to harvest. As always, the slugs had a feast on most of the outer leaves, but it cleaned up nicely for the kimchi.
Minuet cabbage
I made a cutting of the Tronchuda Beira last week, which is something I haven’t grown in a couple of years. I set out three plants in early August, and they have grown quite tall by now. I cut a bit over a pound, which was plenty for a batch of Caldo Verde I cooked up last night for dinner. The leaves are huge, and I want to try stuffing them too using Michelle’s recipe as a starting point. I’m looking for suggestions for other ways to use this productive green.
Tronchuda Beira leaves
Something else I haven’t grown in a few years is bulbing fennel. This year I started some of the 2017 AAS Winner Antares for a fall planting, and I’m glad I did. I got a half dozen bulbs of fennel for my efforts, weighing about two pounds after trimming off the leaves.
Antares fennel
We like fennel grilled or roasted, and these wound up getting roasted in a cast iron skillet. I’m planning on growing this one again next year for sure.
roasted fennel
Speaking of cooking up the harvest, my wife baked a pumpkin pie to take to a carry-in dinner last week, using some of the Dickinson puree I cooked up a while back. She used her recipe for Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie, and made pie dough leaves to decorate the top. I thought it was yummy, and there were no leftovers to bring home from the dinner! I see another pie in our future for Thanksgiving however, and more to come since we have several of the Dickinson pumpkins left. I baked a batch of my Multi-Grain Seeded Dinner Rolls to take along.
pumpkin pie
I managed to find a few more sweet peppers that survived the recent frosts and freezes. I was shocked, because it got down below freezing on a couple of nights. But while the foliage on the peppers was definitely zapped, the peppers slightly down below looked fine. From top to down in the below photo it’s Cece, Cornito Giallo, Cornito Rosso and Orange Blaze. Some of them wound up in a frittata I cooked up yesterday, along with a bit of fresh tromboncino, shallots, and dehydrated tomatoes. It’s a treat to have any fresh peppers here in November.
Cece, Cornito Giallo, Cornito Rosso, and Orange Blaze peppers
And in the previous harvest department, one of my favorite new kraut creations is the Pineapple-Turmeric-Ginger Sauerkraut I made from some of the spring planted cabbage. The sugars from the pineapple get fermented away, and the results is a tart pineapple taste with overtones from the turmeric and ginger. I added about a half cup of chopped pineapple to the salted cabbage, along with a teaspoon of turmeric powder and a heaping tablespoon of fresh grated ginger. I served it as a side dish for a salmon burger I ate one day for lunch, using one of my sourdough buns for bread. I hope to make more of this kraut if the fall cabbage ever heads up, using some of our homegrown turmeric and ginger.
Pineapple-Turmeric-Ginger Sauerkraut
As I’ve said before, around here soup calls for bread, and for the Caldo Verde I thought it would be appropriate to serve a Portuguese Corn Bread called Broa. I’ve never eaten or made this bread before, and I settled on a King Arthur Flour recipe since I couldn’t find a recipe for it in any of my cookbooks. This is a yeasted bread, enriched with a bit of honey, milk (I used almond milk), and oil. For the cornmeal I used a stone-ground meal we got from the Old Mill in Pigeon Forge. I think it turned out nicely, and my version looks a lot like the one at King Arthur. It was sturdy with a crisp crust but had a soft crumb, and my wife and I both thought it went well with the soup. Together they were just the thing for a cold, gray, dreary day like it was here yesterday.
Broa Bread
crumb shot of Broa Bread
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!
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