My journey of cooking, gardening, preserving and more
Warning: weird vegetable alert. In case you didn’t know it, you can eat the unfurled fronds of an ostrich fern. Yes, you heard that right. You can not only eat them but, if you’re like me, you can enjoy them immensely. Fiddleheads are, at least …
Finally, the warmth is overtaking the cool temperatures and our gardens are starting to burst, bloom and flourish. I always like to give an update or two each summer on how my gardens are doing and what I’m growing. This year, I decided to try …
Hallelujah, it’s finally March. It’s still snowing here in Northern Illinois but March is here and with it the knowledge that spring is just around the corner. I admit that I tend to hibernate a bit in the cold winter months but now, as the days grow a little longer and the sun shines a little brighter, I can feel my energy level rising.
Also rising are all of my seedlings that I planted in early February. This was the earliest I could start them this year, due to an incredible birthday trip to the French Quarter that my husband surprised me with for my birthday.
Though I used to try and start a number of plants indoors, now I just start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. New this year, I also started some Imperial Star artichokes, which I’m really hoping gives us some of my favorite veggies this summer. We didn’t have much luck with these the last time we tried, but this time we got an early start. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
Here’s one of my beautiful tomato plants:
That’s just a little piece of heaven in my book. A lot of my seeds this year are from Sustainable Seed Company and they germinated quite nicely. I don’t usually start my seeds in Jiffy pots but my mom gave me a bunch of them and I think we all know how I hate for things to go to waste. So this year, I’m back to Jiffy pots and everything is looking good.
Here’s a shot of one of my artichoke plants:
I also started some purple Violetta artichokes, which I ordered from Reimer Seeds, but the first batch failed to sprout so I just planted my second round. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for those.
If you’ve not seen any of my previous posts on seed starting, I plant mine in pots with a base of potting soil and then a 2-inch topping of seed starter. This way, the seed starter is light enough to help the seeds sprout well but the base gives the roots something to really latch onto as they grow.
Also, I have a smallish, portable 3-shelf greenhouse with a cover that I use for starting my seeds. This helps hold in the heat and moisture until everything has sprouted. Lastly, I’m very lucky to have tons of windows to provide lots of sunshine and warmth for my seedlings.
It won’t be long now before we’re tilling up the garden and planting leeks – these will be another “first attempt”, so wish me luck. Man, I love leeks! Then come radishes, beets, peas, lettuce, greens, and onions – I ordered some cool black radishes this year that I’m very excited about. Finally, typically in mid-May, everything else will go in – tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, beans, fennel, carrots, etc.
I can’t wait! Are you growing veggies this year? What’s on your garden planner? I’d love to talk veggies, flowers, herbs and dirt…let me know what you’re looking forward to the most.
I grow eggplant every year in my garden because it’s one of our favorites. I’ve grown a few different varieties and we’ve loved them all. The plants don’t require any special care and aren’t prone to many diseases; I’ve never had a problem growing them here …
I admit that I’ve put off posting this fermentation recipe for quite some time. Not because it’s difficult or time-consuming because it’s neither, but because I’m absolutely terrible at photographing the process from beginning to end. (though I didn’t do too badly in showing you …
It was not a stellar year for my tomato plants this season. Though I harvested quite a few, it was certainly not a typical year. Cool nights, flooding rains and cooler-than-average daytime temps do not make for happy, bountiful tomato plants.
The exception to all of this were my cherry tomato plants, which went absolutely insane. Typically, I only plant one cherry tomato plant but, somehow, I mixed up “Cherokee” and “Cherry” in my planting and markings, so this year I had 3. Yeah, 3. Holy moly.
What to do with an overload of cherry tomatoes? Aside from eating them like candy from the bowls on our kitchen counter (for the love of all that’s holy, do not refrigerate tomatoes, please) and tossing them into every single salad I make, we also gave a ton away. Still, the bounty overflowed. If you’re having a party, skewers of cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella balls, and a leaf or two of fresh garden basil make a lovely appetizer. You can also make an amazing fresh tomato salsa with cherry tomatoes, just like you would with their larger counterparts: toss with chopped onion, jalapeno, and cilantro, drizzle with lime juice, sprinkle with salt and serve. Of course, you can also make canned salsa with cherry tomatoes, but that’s a whole other post. Cherry tomatoes are a beautiful thing, so when you’ve exhausted all of the ways to use them fresh, you’ll want to preserve the rest of them.
Here’s one way that I like to preserve cherry tomatoes: roasting them with olive oil, salt, garlic, and fresh herbs. Very similar to my other oven roasted tomato recipe, this one simply involves cherry tomatoes instead of Roma tomatoes.
Cherry tomatoes are typically sweeter than larger tomatoes, but these still work great for soups, sauces, and spreads. And if you’re looking for a great way to preserve cherry tomatoes, this is certainly a delicious way to do so, as these freeze really well.
This is more of a “how-to-prepare” post than it is an actual recipe. How you do this will depend on how many tomatoes you have, how much time you have, and what herbs you’d like to add.
I like to crush the herbs with my hands at this point – it helps release their flavorful oils.
Roast in oven until they begin to break open and caramelize on the tops and edges. I usually speed this process along by gently pressing the partially-cooked tomatoes with a large spatula. Be careful though or you’ll end up with an oven full of hot tomato juice.
I’ve done these long and slow in a low oven and done these fast in a very hot oven. Either way really works, as long as you’re keeping an eye on them and don’t let them burn. If you do them in a slow oven and they’re cooked well but not caramelized, pop them under the broiler for a few closely-watched minutes and they’ll brown right up.
Also, if I’m using whole herbs, I take them off if they roast faster than the tomatoes. Inevitably, some of the roasted herbs break off into the tomatoes and that’s just fine.
Remove from oven and cool.
Transfer to the freezer-safe packaging of your choice and refrigerate until well chilled and then freeze.
These are also great in soups, stews, and sauces. I’ve done numerous trays in the oven at one time, which helps me justify turning the oven on in the middle of summer.
Beautiful stuff, right? This is one of my favorite ways to preserve the fresh summer bounty of tomatoes. I hope you love them, too!
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Every year I’m in awe of just how many eggplants one plant can product and this year is no different. Here are a couple of shots of some of the eggplants I harvested out of our garden last year: Beautiful, aren’t they? This past weekend, I decided …