It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I can report I’m still getting plenty of harvests here to keep me busy. I was happy to get a few slicing tomatoes last week. Garden Treasure And Chef’s Choice Yellow gave us enough for a treat. They aren’t the prettiest specimens, but they were tasty.
Garden Treasure and Chef’s Choice Yellow tomatoes
Some of the tomatoes went on an open faced portobello mushroom sandwich. We spread avocado on naan bread (not homemade), added sliced tomato and a roasted mushroom topped with melted cheddar cheese.
Open-Faced Portobello Sandwoch
I got a few more peppers to dry for kimchi seasoning (gochugaru). These are the Hong Gochu Large variety (Adaptive seeds), and had a medium heat. These have fairly thin walls and dried quickly in the dehydrator.
Hong Gochu Large peppers
I also picked a few green jalapeno peppers to start a fermented hot sauce. I used Senorita and Emerald Fire for this batch. I got enough to fill a pint jar, and I plan to make a thin Tabasco style green hot sauce with them.
green jalapenos for hot sauce
Meanwhile, I took the first batch of fermented red ripe peppers and turned it into a batch of No Rooster Chili Garlic Sauce. I modified the recipe a bit for using fermented peppers. I cut back on the vinegar and omitted the salt and sugar. I also added more garlic than usual because I like my garlic! This stuff is so tasty I could just eat it with a spoon, and one of my favorite uses for it is to spoon it on a baked potato. The mild heat of the peppers I used let the flavor of the fermented peppers take center stage instead of a blistering heat. It also means I can use more of the sauce on a dish without jacking up the heat too much.
fermented chili garlic sauce
I got big haul of squashes last week. There were nine of the Thelma Sanders acorn squash, and one big tromboncino. Thelma Sanders is a sweet tasting squash with a tan colored skin and creamy orange flesh. It is a good keeper, and one of my favorites of the acorn squashes I grow. These weighed 11 pounds total, so they averaged a little over a pound each.
Thelma Sanders acorn squashes with Tromba d’Albenga
It was my wife’s turn to cook and she spiralized the tromboncino to make what we call ‘toodles’ (trombo noodles). They made a tasty base for a marinara sauce we enjoyed for dinner one night.
spiralizing tromboncino
The pole beans are still keeping my busy. Robe Mountain and Non Tough Half Runner are two of my favorites and producing well.
Robe Mountain and Non Tough Half Runner beans
I saved my favorite harvest for last. We planted our first two pawpaw trees in 2011. A couple of years later, an errant tree service employee trashed one of them. We replanted with several more trees until we had six in all. Last year two of them fruited, but critters got every one of them. This year only one tree had fruit, and I protected it with netting. Rascally raccoons still made off with three of them, but I managed to pick the rest of them.
Shenandoah pawpaw
The flesh inside is soft with a custard or pudding consistency. The taste is hard to describe, sort of like bananas with mango or pineapple overtones. We scooped the flesh out of the skin with a spoon to eat it. This one is the Shenandoah variety, and it has a mild taste that is a favorite of many who grow it for sale. I’ve not seen them for sale around us, so we’ll have to keep growing them if we want more in the future. These trees are native to the eastern U.S., and are rarely bothered by pests. They are also host plants for zebra swallowtails. They have several large black seeds inside about the size of a lima bean. All in all it’s an interesting fruit, and I am tickled to be finally eating some of ours!
inside of Shenandoah pawpaw
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!