Fall Harvest 2010

I love this time of stocking up.  We are going mushroom hunting, and plan to cook a bunch of sauces and store them in the freezer, and also to dry them. Even though we don't have that many tomatoes that are ripe on the vine, we do have enough to make a few dishes, and the leeks have been one of the best things we have grown- hardly any work for the effort. I can cut up a leek and make the entire dish taste better. I made a leek, carrot, celery, and burdock stock that will make a great base for either soups or for cooking rice or quinoa. 

Marc is the Souper boyfriend in the winter time! He loves to make soup on the top of our wood stove, getting up periodically to stir while relaxing after snowboarding on Sunday afternoon. I just harvested burdock root from the farm, and made a stock from it for the freezer. This stock plus an endless supply of leeks, potatoes and kale will make his job easier! You should have seen Marc's face when I showed him how to plant the leeks. He tried to put the whole 4" pot of leeks in one hole and complained that they were falling apart. I showed him that each toothpick sized leek had to be separated and planted about 2-3" apart from one another.... His mouth had dropped and he just glazed over and mumbled something about feeding the worms and walked off. I only had to weed the area a few times during the season, and I grew squash up the fence next to them. Definitely worth it!

Next year I plan to plant shelling beans to save seeds for winter soups. I was afraid they would be too much work to shell, but I think given the potential taste factor I am going to give them a try. I have Jacob's Cattle and have an affinity to them because I have a friend named Jacob who's family raise cattle in Africa.

Vegetables keep coming

Yum, Dinner!
Well, We are getting plenty of squash of all kinds out of the garden, and cukes and leeks, and green tomatoes. I forgot to take a picture of the fried green toms we made. I just cracked an egg and added a little water to whisk it up, then dredged it in flour with a little salt and pepper, and a little Thyme. I think one of the secrets to the toms is that you have to cut them really thick, and fry them for enough time for them to be cooked all the way through. The spices could have been better, but I finally got the texture right. I think we will be having a lot more of these!

Our friend brought us 2 king crabs that were caught and cooked that day on the San Juan Islands! We ate those up one day, then cooked up the shells at a soup base. We used that and these veggies to make a great soup for dinner, and froze the rest in 2 serving containers. We will see if they ever come out of the freezer, but I would add more cream and potatoes and it will be even better the second time around!