It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. As the summer veggies wind down, I’m still harvesting ripe peppers for drying and for fresh eating. I got quite a few of the small but mighty hot Thai peppers last week, including the one I’ve been growing for many years now and a new one from the Seed Savers Exchange that is similar but slightly larger. It’s on the right in the below photo. I dried all of these for later use.
Thai hot peppers
The Amazing 2 peppers are a Korean pepper I dry and use to make gochugaru powder for kimchi. They have a mild heat level and bright red color both fresh and dried.
Amazing 2 peppers
The Italian type frying peppers are a dependable performer for me even in challenging years, and last week I found ripe Jimmy Nardello, Lemme’s Italian and Dolce D’Minervino peppers for fresh use.
Italian sweet peppers
The fall planting of bush beans is producing small harvests of quality beans. Cosmos is on the left in the below photo, and the smaller Tavera filet bean is on the right. We use these mostly for roasting.
Tavera and Cosmos beans
The pole beans are still producing too, and I got a bit over three pounds of them last week. They wound up in the freezer.
assortment of pole beans
I made another cutting of collard greens last week, and this batch (the Flash hybrid) wound up in soup. There are lots of them ready for cutting whenever we need them, and the cooler weather will just make them sweeter when cooked.
Flash collard greens
Since we have plenty of collards, I cooked up a batch of Vivian Howard’s Healthy Soup from her book Deep Run Roots in the Instant Pot, and we ate on it for two meals. I used homemade chicken stock for a base, including a bit of chicken meat we froze with the stock. To that I added celery, carrots and a few waxy fingerling potatoes and all the collard greens. I think collards make a good choice for soup because they hold their shape and don’t fall apart during a long, slow cooking that brings out the flavor of the ingredients. The soup was even better the next day, as soups often are.
soup with collard greens
It has been a great year for eggplants here. I harvested quite a few of the bright purple Dancer and one of the dark purple Nadia, with more still setting on the plants. We have been roasting them as a side dish, and they have wound up frequently on eggplant sandwiches. Our latest dish was eggplant panini, and some of these are destined for that tomorrow.
Dancer and Nadia eggplant
One of the bigger Turkeyneck neck pumpkins fell off the vine, and I brought it in to finish curing. I put it next to the Centercut squash that got caught in the fence for a size comparison. This Turkeyneck was a whopper, and weighed in at 9 pounds 11 ounces. That will make a lot of pumpkin puree! We freeze the puree in ice cube trays and use the cubes in our breakfast smoothies. They also can be added to soups.
Turkeyneck and Centercut squash
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!
Do you dry your chillies in a dehydrator Dave? We tried it a month ago, but they take so long!
Yes, I use the dehydrator and it does take a long time. It’s the best way I’ve found.
We are harvesting dwarf beans too. We pick them whilst they are very small at this time of year,
What a nice amount of those tiny firecracker Thai chiles. The eggplant is really beautiful, and that big neck pumpkin is really impressive. Is that its full color? I really like the idea of freezing squash puree in ice cube trays and adding to smoothies as needed.
The Turkeyneck should mature and look much the same color as the Centercut. I would have left it on the vine, but I guess the weight was too much for the vine!
I never thought of freezing pumpkin puree in portions that small. It would also work well for a pumpkin overnight oats recipe I’m fond of; my normal 2-cup portion of puree requires me to make an entire week’s worth at once.
With all the things you save for smoothies, you could have some gourmet flavor combinations! Like Daily Harvest, but without all the packaging and marketing budget. 🙂
Lots of combinations for smoothies for sure! I also use frozen zucchini from the garden, and fresh greens when available.
That is a great idea to freeze the squash in small portions and I’ve never thought to use it in smoothies, it sounds interesting. I’ll have to remember that soup for when the weather gets cool enough to enjoy it, my collards are in overdrive right now.
I will also do different variations of the soup, with lentils or beans for protein and other veggies if I have them.
Are those beautiful violet aubergines/egg plants the Nadia ones? I am very taken by then, even amongst all the other glorious harvest you have had this week
Those are the Dancer eggplants Kathy. White fleshed inside with a mild flavor.