11/1/10 harvest - Fall Salad

With the temperature rapidly dropping in Indiana, the garden offering seems to be shrinking.  This week, I barely managed to harvest enough lettuce, parsley, Jelly Bean tomatoes, and one radish to make two dinner salads. 

The salads were topped with some home-grown alfalfa sprouts.  Although the harvest was small, I did have a proud gardener moment when I realized that everything on these plates came from our organic home garden (pat myself on the back).  After taking this picture, I further dressed the salads with some sunflower seeds, golden raisins, slivers of goat cheese and a drizzle of balsamic vinaigrette.

Head on over to Daphne's Harvest Monday for more fall harvests from other gardeners!

P.S.  During my first year of vegetable gardening this year, I have learned my lesson that a part - okay, MOST - of the effort of keeping an organic home garden is dealing with a huge variety of garden pests.  Even after the arrival of the first frost late last week, I'm still seeing yucky pests in the garden.  I picked off (effective) several cabbage worms on my asian greens and rolled my eyes at (not effective) the aphids on my lettuce.  At this point, I've pretty much given up on the battle against the garden pests, at least for this year.  I'll be better prepared next year with row covers and a variety of different organic pesticides like Bt.  Enjoy it while you can, bugs!

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins

I've been searching the internet high and low for good apple recipes since Keith and I went apple picking two weeks ago.  So far, I have baked an apple tart and made cinnamon spiced applesauce, in addition to eating an unnatural amount of fresh apples.  Next up, we have whole wheat apple muffins using both fresh apples and homemade applesauce.  I found a great recipe from smitten kitchen and made a few adjustment to make my low(er) fat version.  I won't lie to you, these were definitely not the butteriest muffins ever, but they still tasted really good, moist and very apple-y.  If you would like the full-indulgence version, checkout the the original recipe.

This is how the muffins looked in the oven after 10 minutes.  I couldn't help it, I had to turn on the oven lights to look inside.  I fought every urge to keep the oven door closed while I looked!

Whole Wheat Apple Muffins
From smitten kitchen, slightly adapted to make the low-fat version

Yield: 12 Muffins

1 cup (4 ounces) whole wheat flour
1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup homemade applesauce, unsweetened
1/2 cup (3 1/2 ounces) granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, packed and divided into 1/4 cup portions
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup (8 ounces) non-fat yogurt
2 large apples, peeled, cored, and coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 450°F.  Line 12 muffin cups with paper muffin cups and set aside.

Combine the flours, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a small bowl.  In a separate medium bowl, cream the butter and add the granulated sugar and 1/4 cup of the brown sugar. Beat until fluffy.  Mix in applesauce.  Add the beaten egg and mix well.  Blend in the yogurt.  Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the apple chunks.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the remaining 1/4 cup of brown sugar on top.  Bake for 10 minutes, turn the heat down to 400°F, and bake for an additional 5 to 10 minutes (mine were done after about 8 minutes), or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Cool the muffins for 5 minutes in the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack (or any flat surface) to cool completely.

Enjoy!

This post is linked to Greenish Thumb.

9/20/10 Harvest - Jelly Bean Tomatoes

It's another Harvest Monday with two more firsts in our Indiana garden: a carrot of semi-respectable girth and the debut of Jelly Bean tomatoes.

We only have one square foot of carrots left, since we pulled all the other slow growing carrots about a month ago.  We pulled one of the few remaining ones this weekend to see if the micro carrots benefited from the extra month at all.  It looks like the extra time helped this carrot's girth a bit, but not its length.  I continue to be unimpressed with these carrots...

Here are the first two ripe Jelly Bean tomatoes.  One is much larger than the other, but they both ripened at the same time.  I was hoping for more than just two, but these were the only ones ready this weekend.  The tomatoes had fairly thick skin for grape tomatoes and the flavor was on the sweeter side of tomatoes.

We still have many more Jelly Bean tomatoes at various stages of ripeness and dozens of flower clusters on our four experimental Jelly Bean tomato plants.  These were started late this summer after we built our indoor grow box.  I'm hoping that there are enough warm days left in the season for a good majority of these tomatoes to ripen.  The weather has been rather inconsistent lately.  After months of brutally hot summer, it got cold really fast a few weeks ago, but now it's getting hot again, and we're expecting a high of 95F this Tuesday.  I'm sure the tomatoes are just as confused as I am.

The last part of our tiny harvest this week consists of herbs: basil, oregano and thyme.  Keith used these herbs plus lots of other spices and seasonings to make a rub for his roasted pork loin.  It became Sunday dinner with my leftover spaetzle.  If you've never had the pleasure of tasting homemade spaetzle (no, that stuff from a box doesn't count!), I invite you to view my Homemade Spaetzle Recipe post for pictures on how to make this delicious German noodle dish.  You may even be inspired to make it yourself.  If you do, you won't regret it!

Spaetzle with Emmentaler/Gruyère cheese and caramelized onions

Makings of roasted pork loin with garden-grown herbs

Please visit Daphne's Harvest Monday for more harvest pictures!

Homemade Spaetzle Recipe

While I was in college, I lived in Germany for six months and developed a great fondness for all sorts of things German, including Spätzle.  In the U.S., "Spätzle" is often written as "spaetzle." My best interpretation of the proper German pronunciation of this word is sch-PEHTZ-luh, although in some areas like Bavaria or German-speaking Switzerland, it may be pronounced sch-PEHTZ-lay or sch-PEHTZ-lee.

Spaetzle is German egg noodles that can be served as either a main dish or a side dish.  Within Germany, this dish is considered to be a Swabian speciality.  As a main dish, spaetzle is often served mixed with melted cheese and caramelized onions and called Käsespätzle (Käse means cheese in German).  As a side dish, the noodles are simply served as is or with a light coating of butter.

The word Spätzle is the diminutive form of Spatz, and it's literally translated as "little sparrow."  This name apparently comes from the fact that manually cut (and cooked) spaetzle batter resembles little sparrows (at least the old Germans must have thought so), hence the cutesy name.  The first time I made this dish, Keith thought that the individual noodles resembled cartoonish little sperms, and said that we were eating "Little Spermies."

(Click on any picture for a larger view and click once more for an even more detailed view.)

Homemade Spaetzle

Makes about 4-6 Keith-sized servings

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
4 eggs
1/2 cup milk (I use fat-free milk)

Beat eggs well in a medium bowl.  Mix all dry ingredients in a small bowl.  To the egg bowl, alternately mix in dry ingredients and milk until the batter is smooth and just slightly thicker than typical pancake batter.  Set aside at room temperature for 30 minutes (this relaxes the gluten in the batter).

Bring lightly salted water to a boil in a large pot.  Load about 1/2 cup of batter into your Spätzle Maker* and press/drop the batter into boiling water (be careful, the boiling water steam is hot!).  The noodles will first sink and then float to the surface when they are done (10-15 seconds).  Fish out the finished noodles with a slotted spoon into a colander placed inside a separate bowl (I use the small bowl that initially held the dry ingredients) to drain.  Repeat until all batter is used up.

Finished spaetzle can be served with a quick toss of butter in a skillet as a side dish.

*Some industrious Germans make Spätzle by placing the batter on a special wooden board (Spätzlebrett) and rapidly cutting/scraping it into tiny pieces with a wide knife (Schaber).  For those of us a bit more mechanically challenged in the kitchen, there are many devices created just for spaetzle making, including some pasta makers with special spaetzle attachments.  But if you don't have one, no worries.  You can still make this delicious dish with just a regular kitchen colander (as long as the holes are big enough to push the batter through) or a large slotted spoon (again, with decent-sized holes).

To make Käsespätzle:

3 tablespoon butter
1 large onion, sliced thin
2 cups shredded good swiss cheese (I use half Emmentaler and half Gruyère)

Caramelize onions by cooking thinly sliced onions and butter in a large skillet over medium heat for about 20-25 minutes, stirring as necessary to avoid burning (I do this at the same time while I'm making the spaetzle noodles).  Mix in finished spaetzle and shredded cheese. Stir to blend everything together and allow the cheese to melt (1-2 minutes). Remove from heat and serve immediately.

It take a bit more effort, but I promise that there's a world of difference between homemade spaetzle and pre-made spaetzle from a box.  It's really delicious!

Note:  I fully intended to make käsespätzle this year with homegrown onions from my garden, but my onions didn't size up properly so I don't have any garden onions.  But if I had garden onions, this would definitely qualify as a garden dinner recipe. :-)

This post is linked to It's a Blog Party and Food on Fridays.

Cinnamon Spiced Applesauce

With my first attempt at homemade applesauce, I have now joined the ranks of "people who process and preserve their produce."  Well, maybe I should say semi-joined, or joined as a junior member, since I neither grew the apples myself nor properly canned the applesauce (I opted for the refridgerator version in recycled glass jars).

To make applesauce, I used Cortland apples that Keith and I picked ourselves last weekend from a local orchard.

I can't remember if this is a picture of a Cortland apple, or a Jonathan apple, which I used to make an apple tart/pie.  If you'd like, check out my yesterday's post about apple picking and tart baking.

Since I had never made applesauce before, I looked up a few recipes on the internet and realized that making applesauce is less science (like baking) and more art (like cooking).  So my own improvised version went something like this:

*   *   *   *   *

Cinnamon Spiced Applesauce

5 lbs of apples - peeled, quartered and cored
1 1/4 cups water (or 1/4 cup water per pound of apples)
5 Tablespoons brown sugar (or 1T per pound of apples)
*1 1/4 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (I used a few generous shakes)

*In retrospect, about 1-2 teaspoon cinnamon would probably suit most people's tastes.

Add all ingredients into a large pot.  Bring to boil over high heat, then reduce heat to medium, cover and cook for about 20-25 minutes, or until apples are very soft.  Remove the pot from heat and mash apples with a potato masher.

*   *   *   *   *

Aside from the slightly tedious chore of peeling and coring apples, which I did by hand with a small knife, making applesauce was surprisingly simple and intuitive.  I only used 1 tablespoon of brown sugar per pound of apples because I wanted very lightly sweetened applesauce.  Sugar can be left out altogether or increased up to four times this amount (probably grocery store level of sweetness at that point) depending on your taste.

The resulting applesauce had a slightly orange/brown tint to it, even more so in this picture due to poor light quality in the kitchen at the time.  I think it's from the brown sugar and/or the amount of cinnamon, because peeled apples are supposed to give you light golden/yellow applesauce.  Next time, I will probably reduce the amount of cinnamon by half and use only about 1-2 teaspoons.  The reason we used so much this time was because Keith was in charge of adding the spices and he LOVES cinnamon.  He thought this batch of applesauce tasted great, but I would prefer somewhat less cinnamon.  I might also try sprinkling in a little bit of ground cloves and allspice to add another depth to the spice flavor.

This applesauce was served warm right after I made it and also cold the next day for after-dinner dessert.  Both times, it was delicious.

Apple Picking and Tart Baking

If I had my druthers, I would grow apples this beautiful and perfect right in my backyard.

However, life does not always let me have what I want, exactly the way I want it.  So, since Keith and I don't have a single fruit tree in our garden, we went apple picking last weekend at a local orchard.  Other people's apples are better than no apples, right?

This orchard is located a little over 20 miles from where we live, and I have to say, I had no idea we lived so close to "country."  It's been almost two years since I've been in Indiana, and granted, I've worked out of state for more than half that time, but it still amazes me every time I see what seems like miles and miles of fields planted with corn or soy so close to "where people live."  It really is a big change from living in ultra-urban compact cities like San Francisco or the sprawling concrete jungle of suburban Los Angeles.

The orchard was beautiful.  Once I got over my initial shock and slight panic at how many apples were lying discarded due to pest damage, rotting or just accidental falling off the tree branch while you're trying to pick another one, I had a lot of fun picking apples.  I heard several parents tell their kids "don't pick up any apples off the ground!"

We ended up picking about 16 lbs of apples of three different varieties: Jonathan, Cortland and Gala.

With 2 lbs of Jonathan apples, I baked a simple apple tart with buttery pie dough made from scratch.  Well, the recipe was for apple tart, but I didn't have a tart pan, so I baked it in a regular pie pan.  It wasn't perfect, but it still made a delicious apple tart/pie. Next time, I may have to break down and get a tart pan so I can bake a proper apple tart.

This post is linked to Tuesday Garden Party.

9/6/10 Harvest - HOT Pepper

We harvested our first hot cayenne pepper this weekend, just to test its hotness.  Keith took a quarter inch nibble off the tip, thinking "it's still green and unripe, so it can't be that hot, right?"  Then he almost died.  His exact quote afterward was: "It tasted like firey death."

I just took the cut side of the pepper (after Keith took his nibble) and touched the tip of my tongue to it.

WHOA.

This was one hot pepper!  It tasted hotter than any other peppers I've tasted in recent memory.  I have read that hot peppers get a bit milder when they are ripe and red.  We'll have to do another taste test when the peppers are bigger and riper.  A question for any of you pepper growers out there: do you ever harvest cayenne peppers when they are still green, or do you always wait until they have turned color, either partially or completely?

The rest of our harvest was pretty wimpy this week.  We finally got the last of the cucumbers and pulled the vines.  The cucumbers were small, distorted and damaged by bugs; but they were still edible.  I also harvested two green onions I grew from seed.  These things really take forever to grow to a decent size from seed.  There are more in the garden, but we only needed two for cooking, so that's we took.

Since I didn't have much of a harvest this week, I wanted to share a few colorful pictures from our Labor Day barbeque.  The produce was unfortunately not from our garden, but Keith and I have high hopes that we will be able to supply our own vegetables for next year's Labor Day weekend barbeque.
 

We also grilled some chicken breasts and pork chops, but I don't have any pictures of those because I was already too busy eating my burger.  Priorities, you know!

Please visit Harvest Monday for other gardeners' harvests.