10/30/2023 last peppers

The last peppers of the season piled on the gray ceramic kitchen table. There are long curly skinny yellow corbaci, big red bell, green bells, and brown-purple bells, and two little triangular apple peppers.
Before the hard freeze I cut down all the pepper plants (plus a few stray and unfortunately sized okra) and put them in the garage. The next day when I had time, I sorted and weighed them. we got a good last bunch of all our pepper varieties for this year! Paula notes of the sweet peppers, the apple peppers were sweetest when both red and green. The California wonder bell and chocolate bell were both more bitter when young/green. The Chef likes the thin and easy to cut corbaci peppers.

10/05/2023 three chef meal

Credit for fancy salad to Paula. The Chef made the bacon cheese chicken rounds and sautéed veggies. All of us and our guest rolled out potato gnocchi. The potato gnocchi is topped with pesto made with garden basil. the sunflowers are the ones from the garden from two days ago.

Williams’ Pride Apples harvest year 2

Last summer we waited too long to harvest our first Williams’ pride apple. This year as soon as they started turning red, I went reading to figure out when they ripen. We have been looking to see the background color go from green to yellow, and several sites said the apple should easily fall off the tree with a tug. This has been working well! I think at first we were tugging too gently as one apple was still rotting on the tree but all the rest have been good since.

This is the only tree I bought from Raintree nursery but I would try them again if I have to replace any trees. It has had the most enthusiastic start of all our young fruit trees. You can see there are still multiple apples left ripening plus a few more in the house.
Good job, Professor Williams! They are sweet and tart and crispy!

06/19/2023 garden flavors

Notes from the Chef: “a cream and wine sauce with basil leaves to cover the onion, zucchini, squash, and sausage mix.” Claire’s note: onion and basil from the garden. “The potatoes were cooked with pecan oil, salt, and garden sage. When they started to crisp on the bottom, I added a cup of chicken stock and white wine with garden lemon balm leaves stirred in to steam.” The pecan oil was a gift from Mom and Dad. Walking onions are the garnish.