It’s time once again for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. I started digging sweet potatoes last week, which is always a time of great anticipation. What is waiting there under the soil – will it be a good harvest? It looks like it won’t be a record year like 2021, but I believe we will be well-supplied with tasty tubers. Feeling my age, I’ve been breaking up the task into smaller digging sessions, and I hope to get the last ones dug today since freezing weather is in the forecast.
first of the sweet potatoes
I’ll do a full recap on the sweet potatoes later, but one of my favorites for baking is called Bonita. It seems to have done fairly well this year, though many of the roots are big enough to feed a family of four! Of course, the ones you see in the grocery have been graded out, and ones that are deemed too small or too large are used for processing and not the fresh market. Bonita has a sweet, moist white flesh and a light pink skin. My wife and I sometimes share the big ones.
Bonita sweet potato
I pulled the first turnip greens last week, starting with one called Topper that makes lots of tender leaves but no roots. My wife and I both love the greens, and as usual I sowed more greens than I did roots. We do enjoy eating them both, and I hope I will get some roots soon.
Topper turnip greens
The sweet peppers have been late to ripen this year, but we have a lot of them now. I’m growing mostly the bull’s horn types plus Jimmy Nardello’s frying pepper and Sweetie Pie mini-bell. They are really sweet when roasted or grilled, which is how we cook a lot of them.
Cornito Arancia and Cornito Giallo peppers
Cornito Rosso and Sweetie Pie peppers
The hot peppers have done well this year, and I harvested quite a few green jalapenos to turn into hot sauce. Emerald Fire and Early Flame have both been loaded with peppers.
jalapeno peppers
And, the shy producing Sugar Rush Peach finally gave us a decent harvest. A few of them could stand to ripen a bit more, so I will let them sit for a few days before I turn start them fermenting to turn into hot sauce.
Sugar Rush Peach peppers
I finished drying a batch of guajillo peppers last week, and ground them up for chile powder. The guajillo peppers make a fragrant and mildly hot chile powder, and they are my favorite for this use. The grinding process usually has me sneezing a few times, but the end product is well worth it to me.
dried guajillo peppers
guajillo chile powder
In non-harvest news, I baked another batch of sourdough rye focaccia bread. I used a recipe from Elaine Boddy’s Whole Grain Sourdough at Home, and uses a blend of bread flour and whole grain rye flour. It’s naturally leavened with my homegrown sourdough starter. I sprinkled course salt over the top and a bit of fresh rosemary on one end. I served it up with soup one night for dinner, and along with salad another day. Leftovers freeze well too.
sourdough rye focaccia 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 please take a minute and check out what everyone is harvesting!