Cooking Archives : Page 6 of 13 : Cast Iron Garden

November 24, 2022November 24, 2022

11/24/2022 plenty of thanks

We thought it was supposed to rain today, so yesterday we picked up all the tomato cages and put all the vegetable debris in the city compost pile. (I don’t know that ours gets hot enough to kill any diseases.). We piled the dead marigolds on the bed where we’ll put peppers next year. We put some sugar pea seeds there to see if the debris will shelter them. We took the plastic off the greens so they could get rain. We put cilantro seeds everywhere and carrot seeds among the greens.

For Thanksgiving, Paula started our Corrientes cowpeas soaking.

The Turkey is from Paula’s aunt and uncle in Texas where they raise some. All the veggies in the beans are from the farm share except garden poblanos. Wes used some store apples and store ham as flavors. But otherwise the veggies are all our garden or the farm share!

November 13, 2022November 13, 2022

11/12/2022 frosty

Marigolds are done. Photo by Paula.

Winecup rosettes are fine for the winter! Photo also by Paula.

We went to look at Saxon park.

It was fun.

Then we went home. Having dog thoughts in the backyard.

Catctus

Tom kha (Thai coconut chicken soup). Has garden lemongrass in it. Lemongrass is not frost hardy so Paula divided the stems to keep a few indoors over the winter, and froze a bunch of stems to use.

October 11, 2022October 11, 2022

10/11/2022 and other recent foods

Tonight contains garden onions.

The Brussels sprouts in the left side are topped with sweet Corbaci peppers from the garden.

Paula made a bean and potato chunky soup. The giant beans are Royal Corona beans, a type of runner bean, which came in our first Bean Club shipment.

October 3, 2022October 3, 2022

10/03/2022 Bean Club dinner and other excitement

My colleague gave me these delicious tiny tomatoes from her sister’s garden east of here. She said it’s a hybrid between tommy toe and another variety and has bred true for two ish years! I’m saving some!

A yellow iris by the rock garden.

Polenta with cranberry beans from Bean Club and fancy sausage from California. Salad includes farm share peppers and the main mean also included summer squash from the farm share.

A cooked cranberry bean. They were very creamy in texture!

The cranberry bean broth was very savory. The Chef laughed at us taking a picture.

Here’s some of the remaining cranberry beans. They have a tan base but occasionally the red speckles and stripes turn the bean almost completely red!

You can see they are nice chunky big beans. Larger than the average pinto.

October 2, 2022October 2, 2022

10/02/2022 complex dinner

Tomato basil soup (basil, onion, and garlic from garden; celery from farm share), fried farm share potatoes, chicken with garden onions, and farm share peppers on the salad.

September 30, 2022September 30, 2022

9/29/2022 farm share and Bean Club dinner

Jalapeño poppers with farm share peppers, grilled cheese sandwiches with farm share tomatoes, and farm share purple hulled pinkeye cowpeas, French green lentils from Bean Club, and summer squash from the farm share. Thank you Paula!

September 10, 2022September 10, 2022

09/06/2022

The rainbow garden in the morning. Only orange not blooming.

Dinner with garden onions in the quiche and up in the corner, a watermelon salad.

Here’s a close up of the watermelon salad. The feta cheese and balsamic vinegar really helps the bland watermelon. I really hope the next moon and stars actually gets riper.

Tragedy strikes. The scurf-pea got chopped off at the stem. I assume it is too small yet to come back from that.

September 3, 2022September 3, 2022

09/03/2022 popcorn testing again

The tiny bowl on the left contains popcorn from a deeper container. The tiny bowl on the right contains popcorn from a shallow bowl. Both are stored near an air vent. The sample on the right had nearly all kernels pop. The sample on left did not. We have decided we need to at least stir that container.

August 24, 2022August 24, 2022

08/24/2022 giant squash time and other things

I thought I saw something in a firewood piece.

It was a mason wasp!

The Chef made a delicious dinner. BLT with farm share tomatoes and Paula’s sourdough bread. The okra and peppers side was breaded and pan fried, with both farm share and garden okra, topped with cholula hot sauce.

These corrientes cowpea leaves seemed maybe diseased because they were covered in light yellow speckles, so I removed them.

Some sort of fungus maybe on the basil? It is the round dark spot I’m pointing to with my snippers. I have been removing them. If anyone knows otherwise, I’d let a leaf miner live.

Trimmed all the basil this evening for the Chef to do a pesto batch.

This corrientes cowpea stem is flat like a ribbon.

Side view of flat stem of cowpea. A mystery.

Last but definitely not least, the giant green-striped cushaw squash.

I’m not sure if Briar was concerned or unimpressed.

We got out the bathroom scale for this magnificent beast. The squash weighed 14.5 lbs. Last year’s big squash was barely 7 lbs.

August 21, 2022August 21, 2022

08/21/2022 15/22 test kernels popped

We think the popcorn is almost ready! Remember the extension service website said 13-15% moisture and most kernels should pop.