It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. We’re getting a bounty of summer veggies now, so many that I think I will share a few group photos of what I’ve been bringing in.
squash and eggplant
Chef’s Choice Orange, Chef’s Choice Red and Damsel tomatoes
Centercut and Tatume squash
cucumbers and Naked Bear pumpkin
eggplant and squash
Centercut is a new hybrid squash released by Row 7 Seed company. It is a moschata type squash that is used at the green immature stage. We’ve really been enjoying these roasted in the oven. The vines have been prolific so far, and like tromboncinos the real trick is to harvest them while they are young and before they get too big.
Centercut squash
And Naked Bear is a small pumpkin grown for the hulless seeds. I got about a half cup of seeds from this one, and after soaking for a few hours in salt water they were off to the dehydrator.
Naked Bear pumpkin
inside of Naked Bear pumpkin
The pole beans are producing now. Musica and Robe Mountain are setting nicely, with a few Rattlesnake beans also joining the party. Most of the varieties I have planted will be a bit later.
pole beans
I got enough okra one day last week to officially qualify as a “mess” of okra! All the plants are not yet blooming, so harvests will pick up once they do. Meanwhile this was enough to enjoy roasted for a side dish.
mess of okra
Meanwhile, I’ve started setting out the fall veggies. I grew these in 72 cell plug flats, and transplant directly from there to the garden. I set out kohlrabi last week, and I will be working to get the kale, cabbage and broccoli in the ground soon. I set out collard greens about three weeks ago, and they are doing well. I also sowed a short row of bush beans last week, and I will sow turnips and fall radishes next.
fall brassicas
Finally, I got caught up with my bread baking last week. We were running low on our bread supply in the freezer, so I baked a couple of loaves. One was a crusty sourdough bread I baked in the Breadtopia clay baker, and the other was an Emmer Whole Wheat loaf. I used my Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread recipe to make the emmer version, using 4 ounces of whole grain emmer flour and 4 ounces of of white whole wheat flour along with the other ingredients. It had a lovely flavor, and I will be making this one again for sure.
no-knead sourdough bread
Emmer Whole Wheat andwich loaf
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!
Last fall I shared my recipe for Rye and Whole Wheat Sandwich Loaf. That is now my go-to recipe for rye sandwich bread, and it makes a perfect base for for reubens and other hearty sandwiches. In fact, it is so easy to make and my wife and I love it so much that I wondered if I could make a whole wheat version of it. So I substituted whole wheat flour for the rye flour, and changed the sweetener to honey which got me off to a good start. With a little more tweaking and testing, this recipe for Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread was born.
Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
This bread has 66% whole wheat flour, with a bit of honey for flavor and a little oil to soften the crumb. I use either traditional red whole wheat or white whole wheat flour, or sometimes even a combination of both. The white whole wheat flour has a sweeter and milder taste plus a lighter color, while the traditional red whole wheat flour gives the bread a darker color and more of a classic whole grain taste. I find no real difference in the performance of the two flours, and both make a great bread. It is important to use high protein flours intended for bread baking. Soft wheat or pastry flours don’t give bread the lift that higher protein bread flours give. I am a fan of King Arthur flours, and I always use either their unbleached bread flour or unbleached all-purpose flour for baking. For a real taste treat try using an heirloom whole wheat flour like Red Fife or Turkey Red.
slice of Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
I use the dough cycle of my bread machine to do the work of kneading and the first rise. If kneading by hand, around 8-10 minutes should do it. If using a stand mixer, knead at low speed for about 5-6 minutes. After the first bulk ferment, I form the dough into a rectangle and proof in a greased 8-1/2″ x 4-1/2″ loaf pan.
dough rising in loaf pan
The dough typically takes 60 to 90 minutes to rise, depending on the room temperature, and is ready for the oven when it has risen 1″ over the rim of the loaf pan.
eggplant sandwich on toasted Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
Be sure and let the dough rise high enough before baking to avoid the bread splitting when it expands in the oven. And let the finished bread cool thoroughly before slicing. It slices even better the next day. I freeze any leftovers, and I try and always have some of this bread in the freezer since we use it so often.
4 oz unbleached bread flour
8 oz whole wheat flour
1 tbsp vital wheat gluten
1-1/2 tsp instant yeast
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp honey
8.5 oz water
1. Put all ingredients in bread machine in order listed. Use dough cycle. If dough seems too wet or too dry, add a bit of water or flour accordingly. It should form into a ball while kneading, and clean the sides of the bread machine.
2. When cycle is complete, remove dough from machine and punch down to remove any air bubbles.
3. Shape dough to fit a greased 8-1/2″ x 4-1/2″ loaf pan. Cover and let rise for 60-90 minutes, until dough has risen 1″ over the rim of the pan.
4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake loaf for 30-35 minutes, until instant read thermometer inserted into center of loaf reads 190°F. Bread may be covered in foil near the end if getting too brown.
5. Remove bread from oven, let cool on wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread from loaf pan and let cool thoroughly before slicing.
It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. It’s summer here, and the harvests are reflecting the season quite nicely. Warm weather veggies are the rule, and we’re getting a good variety of them now. Okra loves hot weather, and my plants are just really getting stated blooming. We’ve been enjoying it roasted in the oven, and when more of it comes on I want to make okra and tomatoes with it as well as freeze some for later use in soups.
okra
Last week I got the first ripe sweet peppers, an heirloom called Melrose. My hat goes off to Joseph and Lucia Napolitano who brought seeds of this pepper with them when they emigrated to America back in the early 1900’s from southern Italy . It’s named after the Melrose Park area of Chicago where many Italian immigrants lived. Some of these wound up on a pizza we had Saturday night. They are crunchy and sweet when raw, and I roasted them before putting on the pizza. I’m looking forward to using these every which way I can.
Melrose peppers
I got more of the Centercut squash last week, a creation of the Row 7 Seed Company. This hybrid tromboncino type squash seems to have a bit more moisture than the Tromba d’Albenga I’m growing, and also more flavor. Our favorite way to prepare it so far is to slice in half and roast in a cast iron skillet. A little olive oil and salt is the only seasoning I need for it. I gave one of these two to some friends to try, and the other one we cooked up for ourselves.
Centercut squash
The Centercut is considerably shorter than your average tromboncino, which is not a bad thing as far as I am concerned. It’s hard for us to use a whole trombo at one time, though they do keep for several days when refrigerated. Two of them are hanging out with a bowl of cherry tomatoes in the below photo.
tromboncino squash and cherry tomatoes
One tomato I’m growing this year for the first time is Indigo Kumquat. It’s a cross between Indigo Rose and a yellow cherry tomato, and the seed catalogs promised a sweet taste that I cannot detect in mine. They are lovely to look at and good in salads, but I doubt they will be back in next year’s “scaled down” garden. For a tomato with Indigo parentage, I’m more impressed with Midnight Snack which is a 2017 AAS Winner. They aren’t real sweet either, but they do have a good flavor overall, which I can’t exactly say about Indigo Kumquat. If anyone else has experience growing it I would love to hear about it.
Indigo Kumquat tomato
I got the first of the big Italian eggplant last week. The big one was Galine, and the slightly smaller one Nadia. I used one to make eggplant sandwiches one day for lunch, one of our real summer treats when we have tomatoes and eggplant from the garden.
Galine and Nadia eggplants
For the sandwich I grilled slices of eggplant I had brushed with olive oil. Then I layered eggplant, tomatoes and a slice of cheddar cheese on homemade Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread I had baked the day before. I toasted the bread and spread on a bit of mashed avocado before assembling the layers. It made for a yummy meatless lunch, and it will likely be on the menu again soon.
Eggplant Sandwich
I used Chef’s Choice Pink and Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes for the sandwich. We ate the extras on the side. These two are doing well for me this year, and I love the flavor of both of them. Both are AAS Winners from past years.
Chef’s Choice Pink and Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes
Another harvest featured an international collection of eggplant from all over, including the Asian types Machiaw, Bride and Shoya Long and the Italian types Dancer and Nadia. We have been enjoying the long skinny ones roasted, and all three of these are lovely when prepared that way.
assorted eggplant
The bush beans are winding down, and right on cue the pole beans are starting to set pods. I got the first few from the flat-podded Musica, plus a lone one from the heirloom Robe Mountain. I’ll pull the bush beans in a week or two and replant for a fall harvest, something I’ve done for several years now with great results. With any luck the pole beans will keep on going until first frost.
Musica and Robe Mountain beans
Some of the cherry tomatoes and bush beans went with us on a picnic last week to Harmonie State Park. The menu included my wife’s Curry Chicken Salad, my Green Bean and Bulgur Salad with Walnuts plus some Quick Refrigerator Pickles. We brought cloth napkins, real silverware and re-usable plates, because that’s how we like to picnic! It was a great day for it, and we went on a meandering hike before stopping at Farview Orchards on the way back to pick up some peaches to bring home.
picnic in the park
I’ll close on a wildlife note. A swallowtail caterpillar hitched a ride inside on a bit of parsley I cut one day for a salad. Thankfully I spotted it before chopping the parsley, and I took it back out and put it with the parsley plants. The swallowtails also feed on fennel, dill and carrot foliage but parsley is the only game in town here at the moment. Hopefully we will see this one flying around as a beautiful butterfly one day!
caterpillar on parsley
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!
It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The summer squashes are slowing down but we had a few replacements last week. Tromboncino is a moschata winter squash that is usually used before the fruits are mature. I’ve been growing it for years now, and this year I’m also growing a hybrid creation called Centercut (Row 7 Seeds). It’s shorter and a bit darker green than the o/p version.
Tromboncino and Centercut squash
I took these and sliced up into pieces and roasted in a cast iron skillet. The Centercut had a bit more flavor, though both were tasty prepared this way. The Centercut had a yellowish tint to the flesh, which made it easy to tell from the all green Tromba d’Albenga. I also like to spiralize the Tromboncinos, which we will surely do as more set on. The drier flesh holds up well that way whether it’s blanched in water for a pasta substitute or roasted.
roasted tromboncino
I got enough of the red Amy’s Apricot cherry tomatoes to save seeds for next year. We ate the rest of them in various dishes. These are a sweet cherry type from Amy’s Apricot Mix tomato, which usually makes orange fruits but occasionally throws off red sports like the one I got this year.
Amy’s Apricot Red tomatoes
I’m also starting to get slicing tomatoes to enjoy on sandwiches and as a side dish. This batch included Chef’s Choice Orange, Better Boy and Damsel. I’m losing quite a few to rot and splitting but some are making it to ripen.
Chef’s Choice Orange, Better Boy and Damsel tomatoes
I picked a few peppers last week. The Czech Black peppers turn red when ripe but are a blackish purple when they are young. These were mildly hot, and I believe they have a better flavor when ripe.
Czech Black peppers
The Kimchi peppers I have growing in a container were definitely red ripe and and ready to harvest. I generally dry these peppers and grind them into gochugaru powder for seasoning kimchi, which is what I did with this batch.
Kimchi peppers
I got a few more pods of okra last week. I set out 30 plants, but only a few are flowering so far. When they all get going we should get a regular supply of pods, and hopefully enough to freeze a bit for soups and other uses. These were great roasted, even if it was only a few bites worth!
Okra
The eggplants in the main garden are starting to produce now. The first two were Shoya Long and the white Aretussa. Shoya Long got hung up on the cage when growing, otherwise it wouldn’t have grown crooked like that. Didn’t hurt the taste any though! Aretussa is especially mild and bitter free.
Shoya Long and Aretussa eggplant
The pink and white Bride eggplant also set the first fruit, and is hanging out with bush beans, cukes and yellow squash in the below photo. I’m also growing the white fruited Clara eggplant, which hasn’t set fruit yet.
eggplant, beans, cucumber and squash
I used some of the greenhouse cucumbers plus basil to flavor a few bottles of kombucha I made last week. I juiced the cucumber, and it makes for a surprisingly good flavor for the tart kombucha. I also like using both the Italian and Thai basil for flavorings. The basil is growing nicely in the heat, and I made a small batch of pesto with the Italian basil last week.
homemade kombucha
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!
It’s time for Harvest Monday, where we celebrate all things harvest related. The bush beans are setting on here and made several appearances last week. They were a welcome addition to our harvests, with a promise of more to come. I’m growing a short row of Derby beans, my favorite round podded green bush bean. Many of these got tossed with olive oil and roasted in a cast iron skillet. The pole beans are just now starting to bloom and it won’t be long before the early ones are ready. I like to plant a few bush beans to give us early beans, and the last couple of years I’ve been replanting in early August to give us a second crop in the same space. That strategy of planting runner/pole beans plus two crops of bush beans gave us 50 pounds of beans last year, which certainly kept us well supplied!
Derby green beans
Cherry tomatoes are producing well now, and I even oven roasted a few of them last week. I also dehydrate them when we have a lot, but we’re not quite there yet. It’s a mix of Sun Sugar, Sunpeach, Jasper and Fire Fly in this batch, and we enjoyed them on salads and fish tacos last week.
cherry tomatoes
One new cherry tomato I’m growing here this year is called Cherry Bomb. It’s a late blight-resistant hybrid that also has the crimson gene which makes for a deeper red color and a higher lycopene content. All that is great, but what really got me with this one is the flavor. It’s sweet with a rich, full classic tomato flavor. I sampled my first one out in the garden (and my second one), and the ‘wow’ factor reminded me a lot of the first time I tasted a Sun Gold tomato. Unlike Sun Gold though, Cherry Bomb is larger and none of mine are splitting. We ate most of these babies as a snack, and I can’t wait for more to ripen. For more information on this variety, Johnny’s tomato breeder Emily Rose Haga has a Youtube video that serves as a great introduction. I’ll be growing this one again for sure.
Cherry Bomb tomatoes
I also got the first ripe slicing tomatoes last week, a couple each of Perfect Flame and Chef’s Choice Orange. We enjoyed those on sandwiches, and by themselves. I lost a few of the earliest ones to rot, but with drier weather they are looking better now and more should be ripe soon.
Perfect Flame and Chef’s Choice Orange tomatoes
The squashes and cucumber are producing enough for us to eat and some to give away. I gave a couple of the white Itachi cucumbers to our friend Ange, and I didn’t realize one of them was going to be on TV the next day (at 1:26 in video)! Itachi has a mild flavor and tender skin, which makes it useful in the kitchen as well as visually striking. A cucumber with a white skin is somewhat unusual to say the least, though some heirloom varieties have certainly been around for years. The green cucumbers are Corinto, a greenhouse type I’ve been growing for several years. The striped yellow zucchini Sunstripe is also nice to look at and a colorful addition to our meals.
squash and cucumbers
We spiralized some of the green and yellow zucchinis along with a carrot to make a side dish for dinner one night. The veggies are sauteed briefly in olive oil, just long enough to soften a bit and then we added some of our fresh basil. We had more spiralized zucchini on Saturday night as a base for a bolognese red sauce.
spiralized zucchini and carrot cooking
It was a summery harvest in the below photo with blackberries, more Derby beans and two kinds of summer squash. The blackberries and blueberries are slowing down now but we’ve had lots of them to eat and to freeze for later use.
harvest of summer veggies
I finished digging the garlic last week. I won’t know exactly how well it all did until it’s cured and I weigh it, but it appears to have done reasonably well given the wet growing conditions this spring. That said, it will be one crop I’m scaling back on next year. I plan on growing perhaps 40 or 50 bulbs of ones I really like, and buying storage garlic (silverskin types) when that runs out. I need to remind myself I don’t need to grow everything, and garlic is one example of that.
Mild French and Nootka Rose garlic
It was not a great year for cabbage here, with many heads rotting before they got big and the rest never really sizing up like they should. I pulled a few that were usable and the rest went on the compost pile as I prepped that bed for a fall crop of turnips and radishes. All of the napa cabbages rotted, but I’ll try them again this fall when they generally do better anyway.
sad cabbage harvest
I did have enough cabbage to make a few jars of Garlicky Dill Pickle Kraut. To the sliced cabbage I added several chopped pickling cucumbers, a bit of chopped onion, about 8-10 cloves of the fresh minced garlic, dill seeds and 3% salt. I will let it ferment for a couple of weeks before refrigerating.
Garlicky Dill Pickle Kraut
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!
