From sunrise until sunset I made a retreat, preparing for winter.
Categories
Day of Work Photos
Tag: local food
Categories
In the Apple Grove
After a shift at the warehouse, I stopped at the orchard to get Honeycrisp apples. Contrary to what one sees in the mega market, they are seasonal, and the season is short. We hadn’t had enough.
The orchard staff was busy with a tour group, so I went straight to the display near the cooler in the sales barn. Sad remainders, absent of value besides pressing into cider, I ventured into the orchard wearing my white shirt, black slacks and blue shoes from the warehouse.
I had directed hundreds of people to the Honeycrisp groves the last two Saturdays. It was uncertain whether any could be found, but following my own advice, I looked near the trunk of the trees and was not disappointed. I picked eight pounds from two trees in a few minutes.
As I headed back, past the pumpkin patch, across the creek and up the hill, it was invigorating to be out in the orchard where ideas meet reality and bear fruit.
Categories
Fall Arrived Unawares
LAKE MACBRIDE— The chill in the air is undeniable as summer activities wrap up— ready or not.
The last share from the CSA picks up tonight, and Tuesday is to be a full day of outdoor activities, with Wednesday the rain date. It is time to harvest and prepare the yard and garden for the apple harvest and winter. The neglect of this summer may or may not be overcome with a single day’s work, but that is the time I can afford.
Yesterday I arrived home from the warehouse in time to hear Hillary and Bill Clinton’s speeches at the Harkin Steak Fry telecast on C-SPAN. The finality of this last annual event is one more reason Senator Tom Harkin will be missed. The 2006 steak fry is where I met Barack Obama in the rope line. The full video is archived on C-SPAN and readers can listen and decide the meaning for themselves if interested.
Despite the abundance of food in our house, the amount of cooking has declined over the summer. Sandwiches, soups, stews and other stored fare have lingered in the fridge, and make quick heat and serve meals. Tomorrow is expected to bring in most of the tomatoes, peppers, celery and kale, all of which will require some processing. The Red Delicious apples look quite good this year. Tomorrow will be the first taste test before an onslaught of apple dishes. What food we have prepared has been seasonally fresh and tasty. What more could a person ask?
Categories
Braised Eggplant with Potatoes
LAKE MACBRIDE— What to do with all of the eggplant?
The image in this post is a bit of a protest because despite their colorful variation, eggplant is a vegetable that could be absent from life and few would notice. The fact is they are abundant, easy to grow and cheap at the market. Despite their limited nutritional value, they provide interest when they are in season. A saving grace in the deluge of summer abundance.
My repertory of eggplant dishes includes a recipe for eggplant Parmesan, ratatouille, a layered casserole using tomato sauce, zucchini, onions and other seasonal fare, and now braised eggplant with potatoes. Here’s the recipe that produced savory results.
Braised Eggplant with Potatoes
Ingredients
One pound of eggplant, cut into one inch chunks with the skin on
Two pounds small potatoes, halved
3-4 medium onions, medium dice
Quarter cup dried parsley (fresh if you have it)
One cup fresh basil, chiffonade
1-1/2 pounds seeded and chopped tomatoes (slicers or plum)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1-1/4 cups water plus 1/4 cup water
Salt to taste
4 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons flour
Preparation
Soak the eggplant in water for 30 minutes
In a Dutch oven, combine the onion, tomatoes, parsley, 1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil, 1-14 cups water and salt. Bring to a boil and cook over medium heat for 15-20 minutes. Add the potatoes and the rest of the water, and cook until the potatoes are fork tender, or about 20 minutes.
While the sauce is cooking, drain the eggplant and season it with salt to taste. Heat the 4 tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan over high heat. Dredge the eggplant cubes in flour and fry until golden brown on all sides. When finished, place the cubes in a strainer so excess oil will run off.
Add the eggplant to the potatoes and sauce, stir, cover and cook another ten minutes or so. Turn off the heat and leave the pot on the stove until ready to serve or store.
The dish serves well hot, warm or at room temperature.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Yesterday began with two and a half hours of volunteer work at the CSA. The labor in our barter arrangement has already been provided so I’m free to volunteer for general farm chores like working onions.
Once the seedling operation moved outside, the germination house was used to cure onions on the long wire racks. They are ready for the next step, which is cleaning and sorting.
There are five sorting types: big and small storage, ready for distribution, seconds, and those to be composted. I trimmed the tops and roots and sorted. The onion worker got to keep the seconds, so last night was salvaging usable sections of onion. By bedtime, a couple of big bags of peeled onions were in the ice box ready to use.
Basic pasta sauce is of onions, garlic, basil and tomatoes, so as I write, a big batch simmers on the stove. All of the produce is from our garden, or the CSA. Except for the salt, it is 100 percent local. There is always an exception in local food. The tomato sauce will be frozen in quart zip top bags.
Making tomato sauce is elemental. This batch is from the edge between fresh garden produce and compost, where we often live our lives. In cutting away the bad parts of the onions and tomatoes—picking through basil leaves—there was more compost than usable produce.
Between our concept of ourselves and our inevitable transformation to dust is a sliver of life. If we don’t grow food and make tomato sauce, what else would we do? There really is nothing else, except to go on living.
Categories
Making Vinegar
LAKE MACBRIDE— From the moment an apple falls from a tree, deterioration begins. Over 20 years of tending our small orchard, I learned to keep the ground under the trees picked up to discourage bugs and worms from spreading throughout the trees. Before the main crop is ready, there has been usable fruit on the ground. One recognizes when it is time to pick based on how many apples fall in a day. I brought about five pounds of apples to the kitchen to make vinegar.
Making vinegar is pretty simple. Core and cut away bad spots, including bruises, from a bowl of apples and juice them with a kitchen juicer. (One can also make apple cider, but securing and using a cider mill is a big production not suitable for small baskets of fallen apples). Strain the juice and pour it into a half gallon canning jar. Add part of the mother from the last batch, or a small amount of last year’s vinegar, and cover with a cotton cloth to allow it to breathe. I use a scrap of our daughter’s diaper, as the warp and woof is just right to let air out and prevent bugs from entering. Set the jar in a dark cupboard and leave it alone for a couple of months, inspecting it occasionally to see if the process is working.
A process byproduct is straining and bottling the last batch. A lot of mother was produced in last year’s effort, and what I couldn’t use went into the compost. The jars in the photo have vinegar from apple cider, the new batch and from apples juiced in the kitchen. The latter is by far the best tasting and most acidic.
Cucumbers and onions are in, so maybe a batch of refrigerator pickles to recipe test the results.
Categories
Leaves Fall, Harvest Coming In
LAKE MACBRIDE— The season turned— to sweet corn, celery, pepper and aronia berries— before we knew it. Now it’s a game of keeping up with the fall harvest, making some delicious meals with the fruits of labor, industry, genetics and climate.
Sweet corn is a favorite, and my spouse spent the better part of Sunday putting up 180 ears with her sister. We don’t have room in the freezer, so it is stored in theirs. We also have two dozen ears fresh from other local sources and ready to cook in the kitchen. Over the years I’ve gotten away from growing our own sweet corn as the yield has been small for the amount of space it takes. Leveraging the work of others makes more sense.
Peppers are coming in and this year’s crop looks great and is abundant. A little goes a long way with hot peppers, but the three types are doing exceptionally well. There will be plenty of them to preserve and eat fresh.
The experiment in celery produced a couple of bunches. The quality is very good, so it is worth expanding upon again next year.
We bought two pounds of aronia berries from a local grower. Here’s what he wrote in the promotional literature:
What we do have for sale right now are aronia berries. They were unfazed by the winter. Aronia berries are native to North America; they are very astringent, like a wine grape, and have twice the anti-oxidants of cranberries, four times that of blueberries.We have used aronia berries for jam (alone and with blackberries), in bread, in muffins, and in salsa. There are many recipes available on the Internet. We can send recipes if you are interested.
They are frozen, waiting for suitable use.
Lastly, there is everything else from gifts, the CSA and from our garden. The kitchen is a processing way station, counters clean and at the ready for another day of putting up.
Side note: one of the neighbor’s trees has begun to drop leaves. A precursor, perhaps, to an early frost.
Categories
Canning Tomatoes
LAKE MACBRIDE— As mentioned previously, there are a lot of tomatoes in the garden and kitchen. So many it is a struggle to preserve, eat and give them away before they turn to compost.
I took a bag of mixed color cherry tomatoes with me on the Great March for Climate Action Wednesday. Interest was mixed— even with exercise and the resulting thirst. Cherry tomatoes are a great snack to eat while walking, but even so, there was resistance.
Roma-style tomatoes are great for canning and part of this year’s abundance is being skinned, cut in half, then cored before processing. It’s not that we need more canned tomatoes, but having a crop each year has its own benefits, and there is a certain comfort in having a well-stocked pantry.
Before heading to work in the warehouse, I hope to finish the current batch and get ready for the next wave. Life with tomatoes is pretty good.
Categories
Pushing the Tomato Limit
LAKE MACBRIDE— A friend declined my offer of a bag of tomatoes yesterday, indicating we have entered that time of garden tomato abundance— ready or not.
It has been a mixed tomato bag during this summer of cool nights and no rain. The heirloom tomatoes are producing, but traditional varieties, notably beefsteak, are not doing as well. My garden is producing more because of its diversity of seeds (12 varieties), and large number (32+) of plants. There will be no tomato shortage in Big Grove.
After abundance, and limited outlets to get rid of the fruit, the pressing urgency to preserve what we can’t eat fresh has arrived. A couple of thoughts about that.
A friend suggested frozen cherry tomatoes hold up well, so a tray or two will be devoted to an experiment. I have my doubts, but it is worth a try.
The Roma-type tomatoes will go into sauce and juice. The pantry already has enough diced and whole tomatoes to last until next season, so the focus will be on thick tomato sauce to use with pasta and in chili. The juice is a by-product, and the thought of discarding it gains no traction, so it will be canned in quarts.
Roma is also a good tomato for salsa and hot sauce. There was plenty canned in previous years to meet our needs. I should say my current needs, since I am the only person in our household who eats it. At the same time, by following lessons learned at our CSA, there will be a bumper crop of Serrano and jalapeno peppers, which shouldn’t go to waste. Some form of canned salsa or hot sauce seems inevitable.
I planted a smaller tomato for canning whole, but they haven’t begun to come in yet. If and when they do, I’ll execute the plan and add them to the storage shelf.
It is tomato heaven or hell, depending upon your perspective. It’s all good here, although it adds more work to an already busy season— part of sustaining a life in a turbulent world.
Categories
August Tomatoes Have Arrived
The garden is producing a lot of tomatoes, with the cherry and plum varieties coming in. I picked a bowl last night, and those still on the vines continue to grow and ripen.
There was a mature jalapeno and a couple of Serrano, which with the banana pepper, garlic and onion from the CSA will make the base of a nice tomato hot sauce.
Marketmore cucumbers are forming on the vines. They’re at the stage where close monitoring is needed to pick them at the perfect size and before they balloon to gigantic. The celery is reaching a recognizable stage, and basil is ready. Despite the failures of this year’s gardening, there is a variety of produce to harvest.
News of the Listeria monocytogene scare in some California fruit reached Big Grove. We have a few plums past their prime in the ice box, so it was a good enough reason to compost them, even if there was little trouble from the rest of the box as we ate them. They looked so good in the store, that despite the long trip they made to Iowa, we bought and enjoyed them. Apples and pears will soon be ready in our garden, taking us away from a desire for imported fruit.
The advent of August tomatoes marks a turning point in the season. It’s time to plant the second crop of radishes, turnips, and spinach. That work is scheduled for in the morning.
Journey Home 
You must be logged in to post a comment.