Days like this are why we garden.....

Some days the garden seems ready to give more than other days. This past Sunday was one of those special days. It wasn't so much the quantity of what we were able to harvest, but the variety that made is seem just a little bit special. We went out to pick things early in the evening when the sun was very low in the sky and the light made everything look just a little more perfect.

I recently posted about the garden changing as the summer passes. I think Sunday night was one of the change points because things from the early part of the growing season were still there but fading a little and being replaced with things that we had planted later and were now thriving.

So, enough waxing poetically -- here's what we were able to pick in just about 10 minutes last Sunday. I like this picture as much as any I've posted in any of my blogs.

Ch-Ch-Ch Changes (In The Garden)

In honor of the recently completed London Olympics I thought this post needed a little nod to a great Brit - hence the Bowie referrence in the title.

One of the wonderful things about a vegetable garden is that it keeps changing as the seasons progress. Here in Northern Virginia we have a pretty long growing season and with the help of a little low level technology, we can make it even longer.

Back when it was still cold we were happily growing things like lettuce, beets, radishes and kale in our simple cold frame. There are few more satisfying things for a gardener than to have to take off winter gloves to harvest some lettuce that you'll wash and eat that day!

As the weather started to warm, our soil amendments made over the winter paid off handsomely in a bumper strawberry crop. Some heavy rains shortened the yield a bit but we really had all we could eat this spring -- and they were delicious. 

Spring and early summer also gave us kale, spinach, swiss chard, garlic (don't forget the scapes), leeks, more lettuces and a pretty wide variety of herbs.I wrote about much of it here.

Then came the tomatoes! And boy did they come -- it's been a really good year.

The zucchini have been prolific and I've written several posts about how we are using them is our Meatless Monday meals.

As we get into the later part of the summer , the garden is changing over once again. We're still getting a good amount of tomatoes and zucchini but several new plants are ready to take center stage. For the 1st time we are growing corn. Admittedly it is a small plot, but it was an experiment to see if we could do it. Well, our tiny little corn "field' seems pretty darn happy.

The stalks are nearly 10 feet high (is that the height of an elephant's eye?) and the ears are forming up nicely. It won't be long before we find out is it tastes as deleicious as it looks.

The hot peppers are ready to pick and the cucumbers seem to be multiplying overnight.

We've picked and eaten our first batch of yellow wax beans (delicious!) and are anxiously awaiting more.

Another first for us is a particularly interesting red variety of okra. They look quite different from the classic green pods I wrote about recently and we'll soon find out if there is any taste difference.

I realize how fortunate we are to have the space to do all of this. I also know that not everyone does.But, don't let that stop you from growing something -- anything. Even if it's just some herbs in a pot in your kitchen window. Or a small patch of tomatoes in that little unused spot in your yard. Once you grow and eat your own produce you'll learn what we did a long time ago -- it is so much better than anyting you can buy at a supermarket.

Happy gardening!

Thanksgiving Dinner: It's all about the sides....

I actually love turkey. I particularly enjoy a fresh turkey sandwich on a crunchy ciabatta roll in the evening following Thanksgiving dinner. I do however, realize that turkey is basically a blank canvas that needs a strong supporting cast. That's why at our house on Thanksgiving, it's all about the sides. This year, there were eleven.

Some were pretty traditional like mashed potatoes, corn and my own guilty pleasure, Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce. You know, that sweet jellied can shaped slab that your grandmother served. Cynthia won't go near it - I think it's the greatest stuff since sliced bread. Oh, those other things are pickled beets - not my favorite.

Then there were the vegetables, lots of them.

The oven baked sweet potatoes had just a hint of cayenne, dried chipotle, maple sugar and Vietnamese cinnamon (who knew?) to kick them up a notch. Wait, no one says that, right? The brussel sprouts were cooked with a little crispy bacon and some apple cider vinegar to brighten them up a bit. I'm pretty amazed to admit that I'm starting to like brussel sprouts. Go figure. The green beans were lightly steamed and then finished in a fry pan with brown butter, winter savory and green (immature) garlic pulled up from our garden this morning.

The carrots and parsnip were both oven roasted in EVOO and sea salt. The carrots were topped with bronze fennel tops and the parsnips with purple top turnip micro greens straight from our cold frame.

What's Thanksgiving without stuffing you say? Well we had stuffing made from red pepper, mushrooms, butternut squash, onion, parsley, sage, rosemary, carrots, celery, turkey stock, spicy sausage, bread and chestnuts. The stuffing was oven baked to get all those little crisy edges that make it so good.

That's ten, right? Number eleven was one of my favorites. It was a scalloped leek, shallot and onion casserole topped with bread crumbs and extra sharp aged chedder. It's up there a few pictures back next to the mashed potatoes.

Tried a couple of new beers to top everything off. The Chatoe Rouge is an Oregon beer in the style of a black lager. Interesting. Somewhere between a typical lager and a stout. Good- not great. The other was from one of my favorite brewers, Dogfish Head in Delaware. This particular style was made in a small batch and was purported to be a continuously hopped imperial pilsner. Wow, never expected to hear that string of words together. My Antonia was actually very nice and worked well with all the rich foods. Hoppy, not like an ale, but still good.

Aren't you glad I didn't bore you with another perfectly roasted turkey picture?