Harvest Monday November 20, 2017

Welcome to Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I am harvesting the fall veggies now on pretty much an as needed basis. Though one exception is broccoli, which pretty much needs to be cut and harvested on its terms whether it is on the menu or not! I had two heads of Green Magic that were ready to be cut last week. There was a little browning of the beads on one, but they each weighed 12 ounces and I am always happy to get broccoli at any size. I roasted one of these for lunch Saturday, and I believe I will make soup with the other head.

I pulled a couple of daikon radishes to go in a batch of Baechu Kimchi (made with mostly napa cabbage) I started fermenting last week. I grate the radishes for this kimchi, though when I make radish kimchi (Kkakdugi) I dice them into medium cubes. The long radish is Summer Cross and the shorter one is Alpine. Both do well for me when planted in late summer and they mature in fall or early winter. I’ve also got Sweet Baby and Bora King planted and some of those should be ready soon.

I cut a few leaves of the Tronchuda Beira to go in a pot of veggie soup I cooked up over the weekend. In summer I freeze bags of mixed veggies like snap beans, squash and cabbage to use later for soup. I added a bag of the frozen veggies to homemade broth, then cut up the greens and added to the simmering soup. Then I added some cooked Rancho Gordo Ojo de Cabra beans for protein. That day I also cut a small head of Minuet napa cabbage, which will likely go in another jar of kimchi. It’s a little wonky looking (or a lot), but it cleans up well and we try our best not to waste food here at HA. The Minuet only weighed a pound, but it was dwarfed by the giant Tronchuda Beira leaves which weighed half as much!

I’m still getting a nice supply of lettuce as we need it. I made several cuttings last week, including some Red Sails and Simpson Elite we used for wilted lettuce salads.

I’ve taste-tested most of the 2017 sweet potatoes and I am about ready to do a review. My latest tasting was a Grand Asia potato I baked whole and served up simply with a pat of butter and a little salt. The Grand Asia came from Duck Creek Farms as a substitute for Red Japanese which apparently was sold out. It had a fairly dry and sweet white flesh which I think compared favorably to the Red Japanese potatoes I have bought from our local Asian market. But it was the least productive of the ones I grew this year, so I still want to try Red Japanese next year to see how it does.

I found a few more ripe peppers from a Lady Choi plant I have growing in a container in the greenhouse. This a a Korean pepper usually used to make kimchi, and I dehydrated these for that purpose. I used some of these peppers from an earlier harvest to make a jar of kimchi which is now fermenting. I want to see how they compare with the commercial pepper flakes (gochugaru) I have been using.

And since I made a pot of veggie soup, that means I also made bread to go with it. This time I made a version of Baguettes à l’Ancienne from the William Alexander book 52 Loaves, using this recipe. It’s a hybrid recipe using both commercial yeast and a natural levain, and it has an overnight ferment in the refrigerator to give it extra flavor. I used a steam treatment to give it a crisp, shiny crust.

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!