Susan Sink

A Peck of Peppers

Posted on September 1, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

One of my garden resolutions last year as I struggled to can 8 quarts of tomatoes was to make more recipes to can this year, instead of canning the ingredients.Yesterday I made a big batch of Thai spice tomato soup that will be a welcome treat this winter, and had enough tomatoes to can two quarts as well…

With this resolution in mind, I also devoted a whole raised bed to a food that I don’t really like: peppers. I decided to grow two kinds of paprika (Feherozon and Hungarian Boldog), Jimmy Nardello, Poblano, a Thai variety called Rooster and the always-dependable Serrano.

The end game for these beauties is a red pepper sauce that my boss Ward Bauman makes. He gave me a jar last Christmas and it was incredible. It’s pureed and used just like tomato sauce on pasta. It is made with mostly sweet peppers and peppers that have been seeded, so it’s not too spicy, though it does have some kick (you can decide how many Thai peppers to include). I was determined to add it to my repertoire.

I also have good luck growing peppers. They do very well on the windowsill as seedlings and they grow quite high in the garden and usually produce a lot of fruit. This year was no exception, although it was cool for all of June and July and so they are ripening later. I will have to wait until mid-September or later for the Feherozon to get red, although they can be cooked and eaten when a creamy yellow… The plan is to dry and grind some for spice. However, I have so many good recipes for sweet peppers, including a great Indian one for fall, that they might not make it to powder stage!

Another problem is that somewhere along the line of transplanting the carefully marked seedlings into larger pots, the labeling got a bit off. I’m not a very meticulous gardener, if you haven’t noticed. So I ended up mostly right– lots of Jimmy Nardellos, which is key, but with only one Poblano plant (though it is producing well) and too many Thai Rooster plants! I even pulled one out so that the others could get more sun. I mean, you don’t ever need more than one Thai Rooster plant… I usually keep that on the patio in a pot.

But the paprika pepper plants are so prolific, it almost doesn’t matter. And next year, I’ll be more careful (and maybe try a bell pepper, although I really am not a fan)!

Spicy Pepper Sauce

from Ward Bauman

2 Tbs olive oil
1 lrg red bell pepper, seeded & finely chopped
1/2 lrg onion, finely chopped
3 red chiles, seeded & finely chopped
3 Thai chiles, finely chopped
3 lrg cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbs smoked paprika
2 Tbs red wine vinegar
1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup water
salt & pepper

Saute the bell pepper, onion, red and Thai chiles, garlic and paprika in the olive oil until softened, about 12 minutes. Set aside to cool slightly.

Blend the chile mixture with the vinegar, lemon juice and water in a blender or food processor until smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Return to the saucepan and bring to a gentle boil, stirring, for a few minutes to reduce the sauce and thicken it to a jam consistency.

If using immediately, let sit at room temperature to ripen for about an hour. If storing, put into a canning jar and process as directed. Keep in the refrigerator once opened.

Yield: about 1 1/4 cups

Posted in garden, recipe | Tagged boldog peppers, feherozen peppers, paprika, paprika peppers, pepper sauce, peppers, red pepper recipe, spicy pepper sauce | Comments Off

Canning Days

Posted on August 27, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I’m only working two days this week, in part because the next few weeks will be very busy, but also because it is canning season. I can’t imagine being a teacher now– right when all the work has to be done!

This morning I started by digging up the rest of the potatoes, whose vines died quickly in the last two weeks. These plants were the La Ratte potatoes, a gourmet French fingerling, and I pay dearly for the seed potatoes each spring through Seed Savers. When I had my gopher problem, and as I was spraying and picking off Colorado potato beetles and hoppers, I was considering scaling down my potato bed significantly next year. Was it really worth it?

Last year I had a horrible harvest. The potato bed was in its first year, and though it had been plowed twice and I’d added compost, it was still very compressed, clay-like dirt. Then with the drought, yields of everything were low. I harvested only 14 lbs of potatoes, even though I’d planted probably five pounds of seed potatoes on a long row. Sure, I got back more potatoes than I’d planted. But I had something much bigger in mind.

This year I amended the soil with lots of peat moss and vermiculite and when I hilled, I used a mix of hay, peat and lighter compost, not the dirt I’d dug from the trench. I also didn’t hill as much.

And I must say the results were phenomenal. Though I fretted about what was going on under the ground, and the weeds (mostly grass) were insane, making me once again think about abandoning this bed, there is nothing like success to make one commit to another year of gardening! This morning I went down the row and filled the large bucket (8 gallon?) to the brim– 38.5 lbs (last year I couldn’t even get the regular scale to register them). These things sell in little bags at Trader Joe’s for $3/bag. I’m feeling quite wealthy in potatoes. With the potatoes I harvested earlier (red, Yukon Gold and Kennebec), I easily grew 45-50 lbs of potatoes this year. Now that’s what I’m talking about!! We won’t starve this winter!

It always takes a bit to get back in the rhythm of canning. At first I have to get my head around the equipment. I have to get out the canner, and the big pot, and the lids, jars, and bands, and find the special funnel and tongs, and all of it has to be at different levels of clean/hot/sanitized. Then I have to have enough produce to make it worthwhile, and things come in slowly at first– but are so nice and ripe and tender!

I practice with jam, which is actually the easiest to cope with, although I had some problems with gelling this year. I did end up getting a batch of tomatillo-lime jam that is absolutely perfect and tastes like lime marmalade. Really good.

Then I move on to pickles. And oh yeah, you have to scrub and soak the cucumbers overnight in ice water and allum (but not leave them in there too long). And for the sweet pickles, you have to let the cukes layered with salt, onions and ice cubes sit for 90 minutes before making a batch. Oh yeah, and why didn’t I buy celery seed earlier because now the other canners have completely bought out the stock at Coborn’s (thank goodness we now have bulk at the Co-op). And for the tomatillo sauce, oh yeah, you have to blanch the tomatillos. So it’s always getting out extra pots and pans and it takes a while.

But by the time I’m on my second batch of salsa, I have it down. Everything is organized and within reach, and the big bowls of tomatoes are coming in, and the food processor is doing its thing, and I’m back and forth to the grill with hot pad, spoon and tongs… then the boiling down on the stove in the cast iron pan, into the jars which I washed while the simmering was happening, and voila! Five pints at a time!

Today, in the midst of salsa (yellow and red) and pickles (dill and sweet), I took care of a quart of tomatoes (which I swear each year I won’t can again) and went ahead and pickled some of the smaller zucchini I had on the counter. And when harvesting, I did a fairly good job of prioritizing and stayed away from the tomatillos, which would have sent me in another direction… After looking seriously at the beans, thinking there was just enough for two jar of Dilly beans, I put them in the fridge to be eaten fresh (it’s not that many beans, and I don’t really like pickles if truth be told).

So now I’m ready. When those Romas are good and ripe and ready to go, I’ll be ready for them, with my boiling water, tongs, lemon juice and salt at the ready…

… I just have to run to Fleet Farm for another dozen jars! I hope I don’t have to fight anyone for them… they often sell out and are left only with large-mouth jars, which suck. A few years ago I almost took a box off someone’s industrial-size cart when she wasn’t looking– she had all of them, like 10 dozen! I figured if I got caught I could pretend I thought it was for restocking the now-empty shelf.

Still on the docket for canning: tomatillo sauce, pepper sauce (OMG, you should see the paprika peppers), sweet relish (if I get enough cucumbers) and tomatoes. But no more salsa (step away from the chipotle in adobo).

Posted in garden, recipe, the Farm | Tagged canning, canning produce, fingerling, garden, La Ratte potatoes, potatoes, saving produce, vegetable canning, vegetable gardening | Comments Off

Blogosphere

Posted on August 24, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

First, just had to share this photo of a little tree frog on a cucumber outside my front door last night. I guess he just wanted to be this green! Usually I have one on the metal part of my grill. I think he likes the warmth and enjoys being gray.

I’ve been surprised lately as people have been “endorsing” me for blogging on my LinkedIn page. Surprised, because blogging is not something I consider part of my work life. From the beginning, I’ve never set out to be a real blogger.

Being a real blogger involves committing to one topic. You can be a food blogger, or a garden blogger, or a movie review blogger, but not all three. And where does poetry fit in? If you’re going to be a food blogger, you need to take beautiful photos of your food, not just take a few shots before someone digs in or of the pot on the stove… You need to be attentive to recipes.

To be a real blogger, you need to post all the time. Every day is best. And you also need to read other blogs a lot, and “like” the posts and “follow” them (though I think most bloggers send the notifications to a bogus account and don’t return to the blogs they’re following). That’s how you get people to follow you.

If you do this, you might get a lot of followers. If you’re lucky, they will also comment on your blog. If a few people comment, more bloggers will follow suit. And when you have some statistics, then maybe you can get an advertiser or two. But mostly what I think you can get is free stuff. Which you then review on your blog.

I used to regularly read the posts from a food blogger who would daily chronicle and describe the very mundane meals he made. And then I would get jealous when companies sent him all sorts of kitchen gadgets for free. This guy’s endorsement would not convince me to buy anything!

The big prize for food bloggers is to write your own cookbook. Then we get to read endless comments on the progress of the cookbook and anxiously await its publication.

I was in Stanford’s creative writing program with poet Christian Wiman and he once said something that has stuck with me. He said “Poetry is a chronicle of the emotional life.” For me, this blog is a chronicle of “life on these 80 acres.” It is a chronicle of my mind and my body in this place. Very quickly it became a way to chart the seasons– reviews in the winter, gardening in the summer, cooking and poetry all the time.

I am gratified by this portrait of life. And I am grateful for the responses by readers. I am always happy to know about readers, some of whom come and go, and the “activity” on the blog still comes primarily from friends and family, mostly on my Facebook page rather than the comments section.

I almost never look at my “stats,” but every once in a while I’ll notice a spike. A recent spike was due to, of all things, Pinterest. The photo of my jars of blueberry-rhubarb jam from 2010 was being pinned here and there. It is a nice photo, and a great recipe!

Because I’m a bad blogger, I accidentally deleted the photo of the canned goods in their lovely, raffia-lined box. But look at how pretty this mulberry sauce is and these garlic pickles! And yes, that is chocolate soap…

And sometimes, I get gifts, not from companies but from real people! A woman whose company rents our retreat center for meetings brought me a bag of homemade soaps. They are in my bathroom and I love them. And I don’t know her except through the blog– when I use the soap, I feel the love for the blog and feel how I’m part of a community that values homemade things and traditional crafts.

Recently, we got a lovely box of canned goods from one of Steve’s former students who reads the blog. Wow.

Again, that connection to people who are also embracing canning, growing food, and restoring our small patches of earth for the bees and butterflies, is moving to me.

“Visits” and comments from friends new and old, far and near, are more gratifying to me than any newfangled kitchen gift. So today I say thank you, everyone. Thank you for reading this chronicle.

And today, a photo of a frog on a cucumber!

Posted in garden, the Farm | Tagged blog, blogging, cucumber, gifts, homemade gifts, tree frog | Comments Off

Indian Marker Trees

Posted on August 22, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

Dakotah campsite on St. Croix River

Most Americans are Romantics when it comes to Indians. A large number of people will tell you that they have a Native American ancestor, although this is mostly the stuff of myth.

I remember interviewing 99-year-old Sister Suzanne Helmin at the monastery before she died. She was born in 1912 and grew up the first child in her family not to live in a log cabin. Her grandparents lived nearby and her mother said that early in her marriage she would walk through woods between her house and her mother-in-law’s house and see Indians. They camped at various spots around there. This seemed as mysterious and wonderful to Suzanne as it does to me.

Last week Steve was working on a property out on Kriegel Lake, one of the small lakes in this area. The guy who lives there has moved an old streetcar from St. Paul up to the lake and turned it into a house. While they were planting trees, he pointed down the shore and said, “What do you think of my oak tree?”

The oak is bent near the base, stretches out across the lake and then suddenly makes a 90 degree turn and goes straight up. It is a crazy tree.

Steve works with a guy, Jeff, who seems to know everything there is to know about plants and trees. We have yet to find a plant he can’t identify on the spot (he is always right), and as Steve says, he can “read” the landscape, pointing out signs of different things that have happened to the land, types of vegetation and cultivation.

“That looks like an Indian Marker tree,” Jeff said. Neither Steve nor the home-owner had ever heard of that before.

It seems the Native Americans used to bend and stake trees to mark trails and campsites. They are all over the place, giant trees that were bent over when young, staked until they healed and then allowed to grow back up. An internet search shows they are prevalent in the Great Lakes region, with a number of them documented in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan by a researcher named Dennis Downes (who may have even trademarked the name).

Of course, there is also controversy. What is just a damaged tree– a lightning strike, or a place where a tree fell on a sapling and shaped it, then decomposed over time, releasing it?– and what is evidence of Ojibway or Pottawattamie trail marking? There is no question that these trees exist, just a question of their number. And meanwhile in Highland Park and Glencoe and other suburbs of Chicago, trees are getting plaques and being protected.

documented trail marker tree in the 1960s in Lake Forest, Illinois

The homeowner on Kriegel Lake said that he thought Indians had been on that land– it had that spiritual energy. I don’t really know what that means. In a nation where Native Americans make up less than 2 percent of the population, we like to imagine the time– an unspoiled time before the genocide– when they were everywhere. We have folded them in with our idea of the sacred with regards to the land. A sacredness we fear is lost or don’t feel we are up to ourselves, we children of the suburban and urban landscapes. We want to live there.

Jeff is part Native American, though you wouldn’t know it to meet him casually. He has some great stories about his family. He works long shifts as a mechanic at the chicken processing plant and spends all other available time restoring prairies, busting buckthorn, pruning trees, and reading the landscape and telling us its stories.

Trail marker tree in Traverse City, Michigan

photos from: http://www.printsoldandrare.com/indians/index.html; http://www.greatlakestrailtreesociety.org/trail_tree_gallery.html; and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_trees

Posted in St. Joseph | Tagged Indians, marker trees, midwest prairie, Native Americans, trees | Comments Off

Tomatillos Every Way Possible

Posted on August 20, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

I’ve been distracted by my tomatillos. So very many tomatillos. The issue is that I haven’t really integrated them in with my other veggies. In fact, I am struggling with that in general. Last night I made Thai basil pesto and mixed it into ground beef to try to make the Thai burgers I love so much from our local bar, The White Horse Tavern. It was close– it was certainly flavorful– but it didn’t have that flavor that grabs you by the jaw and makes you pay attention. Not “heat” exactly, but some kind of Thai awesomeness that is definitely in the peppers. Of course, the only veggies it used were onion and garlic– and the basil.

So there’s the Asian cuisine. And then I have my Indian cuisine going, which is where I’ll use my bonus cauliflower. Almost everything else lends itself to a sort of default Italian: zucchini, basil, beans, tomatoes and red peppers… and American: Brussels sprouts, potatoes, carrots, cucumbers and watermelon.

But I have all these many, many tomatillos. Mexican. So far I’ve made tomatillo simmer sauce, which is fantastic with chicken, and I mixed cuisines when we had it tonight in order to serve a salad consisting of a gigantic sliced tomato Caprese style (olive oil, basil and fresh mozzarella).

Update 2016: Since so many people are still looking at this page, let me give you two more recipes I love (can the salsa!). But this is about the jam. Don’t wimp out on the jam! It’s absolutely delicious.

Tomatillo Guacamole!! Bright and delicious: http://www.thekitchn.com/phoebes-scallops-with-tomatill-95654

The classic roasted tomatillo salsa by Rick Bayless (don’t be afraid to use cilantro chutney:
http://www.rickbayless.com/recipe/roasted-tomatillo-salsa/

I have also made tomatillo-lime jam. Tomatillos are like tomatoes in that they are a fruit. Although, like the tomato, they are in the nightshade family, they are more closely related to the “ground cherry,” which also have husks and a citrus-like flavor. Many people around here, including my neighbor Rita Palmersheim, grow ground cherries and make jam from them each year. So when my friend Danielle from Southern California mentioned tomatillo jam, I was determined to try it.

Like my strawberry-rhubarb jam, the tomatillo jam did not set properly, but not for lack of sugar (maybe not enough time on the stove). The recipe didn’t call for pectin, but next time I’ll use that. And I do want to make another batch. This will go on ice cream or in yogurt or, really, you could drizzle it on a popover, English muffin or biscuit!

I’ve also, of course, made green salsa. I don’t have cilantro, but I have a LOT of parsley, so I’ve just been making it with parsley, lime or lemon juice, shallots, tomatillos, Serrano peppers, white wine vinegar and a little oil. It is very fresh and delicious. In fact, I used some as a condiment on the Thai burgers last night. Topped with a slice of tomato that was bigger than the bun. ‘Cause I’m getting all mixed up with these many cuisine options. And because I’d like to use more than one thing from the garden at a time… It worked.

I want everyone to make tomatillo jam, so here is the recipe. You can cook it down like any berry mixture with the sugar, add the pectin and boil a minute like other jams, then process in a canner for 10 minutes– or at least that’s what I’m going to try next. This recipe is from Pati’s Mexican Table.

Tomatillo and Lime Jam

Mermelada de Tomate Verde con Limon Makes about 1 1/4 cups

1 lb tomatillos, husks removed, rinsed and roughly chopped
1 1/2 cups sugar 1 cup water (I skipped this)
4 Tbs fresh squeezed lime juice
Rind of a lime, whole or chopped (I took out the large pieces before canning)
A pinch of salt
3 Tbs pectin (I doubled the whole recipe and would also double the pectin. That will give you about 6 jelly jars/half pints)

Place all of the ingredients except the pectin into a saucepan set over medium heat. Let them come to a simmer and stir occasionally, letting them cook until it has thickened and achieved a soft and loose jam consistency, (about 20 minutes if using pectin. When not using pectin, the recipe called for cooking it for 35-40 minutes. I cooked it about 50 minutes and it was loose but I expected it to thicken more as it cooled. It didn’t– but I also put it in a canner for 10 minutes. Not sure if that affected it.)

Don’t wait until it has thickened too much, because it thickens considerably as it cools. Once it has cooled down, pour it into a container, cover tightly and refrigerate. (I would imagine you could freeze it as well.)

(If using pectin, once you’ve made the recipe, pour in the pectin and stir at a boil for one minute. Then remove from heat and put in jars. Process them for 10 minutes in a hot water bath and they will seal.)

Posted in garden, recipe, the Farm | Tagged chicken and tomatillo, cooking from the garden, garden cuisine, tomatillo, tomatillo jam, tomatillo recipes, tomatillo salsa, tomatillo sauce | 10 Comments

Thai Basil Pesto (and tomatoes)

Posted on August 17, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

There is so much going on in the garden it is hard to write a post on a recipe instead of the daily harvest. But I have to at least show you some tomato photos before I start picking them. I feel guilty for maligning my tomato plants so badly. Despite the unavoidable blight, they have produced many large fruits. I have this beautiful Paul Robeson on my kitchen windowsill that I’ve been watching turn from nearly green to purple (don’t you love the montage? The Virgin Mary that S. Lois gave me, the Robeson and the mutant cherry which I choose to see as having a big nose and furry eyebrows/glasses so get your mind out of the gutter).

The Paul Robeson plants in the garden (this is not one of those) are just loaded with fruit. The last time I planted one I received exactly two tomatoes.

And I always plant one giant beefsteak with a great name like “Mortgage Lifter” or “Boxcar Charlie.” This one has a more mundane name I can’t remember or find in my files! Anyway, it grows big tomatoes! We’ve eaten the first giant sliced on sandwiches and it was delicious. Now we’re just waiting for the heat promised to come next week to work its ripening magic.

OK. On to the pesto.

This is how menu development works in my house. Today, a great gadget arrived, a spiral cutter, recommended by a reader of the blog, one of Steve’s former students at Cathedral High School, Alisha Kirchoff. She recommended it on the zucchini post and I had this Amazon gift card from my birthday, so…

So it arrived. And it is German. See the great motto? “Nur Essen machen oder Kochkunst?” I love German because, basically, why say something in two words when you can use three or four? A literal translation is: “Only food make or cooking-art?” Who wants to make food when you can make culinary art?

I started spiraling everything, of course. (My assessment is that it works best on zucchini. If you had large carrots, that would also be good. But it produced a lot of waste with my stubby carrots and fingerling potatoes, because you can’t push those little guys through without shredding your finger [the finger guard is useless]).

Since we had salmon in the fridge, I was thinking Asian. I have lots of Thai basil in the garden, and haven’t done much with it besides throw it in herb mixes or stir fries. But wouldn’t it be great to coat these veggie noodles with a Thai basil pesto?

I love the internet. Love, love, love. Because in seconds I had a recipe for Thai basil pesto. I wish I’d spent more time looking through them, but I was hungry, so I went with the first one that had things in it that made sense– and didn’t make you scroll through the Chinese text first.

I also have not been attending to my kale. So I served the salmon on a bed of garlic/sesame-oil sauteed kale. With the pesto, the zucchini was by far the best. The carrots and potatoes were just too different a texture and not “noodle-like.” (I’ll spiral carrots in the future for salad and the potatoes for fries.) Also, this pesto would be amazing on soba noodles or spaghetti. I’ll give you the recipe with a few variations I’m going to try next time. And now I can make batches of this and freeze it as well!

Thai Basil Pesto

adapted from here and here.

1 1/2 cup loosely packed Thai basil
1/3 cup raw peanuts (I used dry roasted, which other recipes call for. Any nuts will work, but peanuts make it more like Pad Thai)
1/2 tsp chili oil (I put in 1/4 tsp of Sambal Oelek chili paste and that gave it a good kick without overwhelming the other flavors. You could also use a fresh chili.)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 clove garlic
1 half-inch piece ginger
lime juice (some recipes also call for fish sauce… I left it out)
4 tsp oil (Peanut oil would be best. I just poured in vegetable oil at the end until it was the right consistency)

Blend all the ingredients except the oil in a food processor. Drizzle in oil while processing until it is the consistency you want.

Posted in garden, recipe, Uncategorized | Tagged gardening, Paul Robeson tomatoes, pesto, thai basil, thai basil pesto, tomatoes, vegetable gardening | Comments Off

The Varied Prairie

Posted on August 13, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

Every year the prairie is different. Last year it was glutted with black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia) and this year I have hardly seen any. The burn this spring has activated seeds of flowers we’ve never seen before. Among these, the most dramatic is the rough blazing star. Wow. Even before it blooms, it is a stunner. The smooth stem is studded with baubles that burst open like fuzzy pom pons. They are popping up in pairs, scattered throughout the prairie. This prairie is 10 years old, and it’s still surprising us.

I’ve been out to photograph the blazing stars several times, and can’t quite capture their impact. This is the best photo I’ve got.

It also shows the prairie sage and some of the big bluestem.

The prairie has really had everything, often in small sprays– purple coneflowers and a couple types of yellow coneflowers, including one a friend from Texas calls Mexican hat for its sombrero-like cone. The bergamot and most of the purples have faded, although there are still occasional sprigs of blue vervain here and there, and of course the blazing stars just coming alive. What is really prominent now is the goldenrod, really a fall flower, which will mellow into the browns of late autumn.

I also don’t remember seeing this particular variety of sunflower (Maximillian sunflower) rising above the prairie. I think it has just been there in such large quantity that it didn’t stand out like it is this year.

Also, there have been so many pollinators I swear I can hear a buzz even standing next to the house. Of the bees we’ve been landlording, one colony never really got started (they discovered flies got in and laid maggots in June and took the box away), but the other seems to be thriving. I hope these prairie bees, which are also active in the vegetable garden, and which are loud and attentive though not aggressive, are the ones in the honey hive. They seem a vigorous bunch.

I swear, it’s been among the most beautiful summers in the prairie. There has been nothing especially dramatic, just these small pleasures you have to walk out to see. Still, especially in the evening, I could sit and look at it for hours.

Posted in the Farm, Uncategorized | Tagged bee on coneflower, bees, coneflower, marsh blazing star, prairie, prairie flowers, prairie restoration, wildflowers | Comments Off

Garlic Festival

Posted on August 10, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

There is no doubt that tomatoes continue to rank very, very high on my list, mostly because garden tomatoes are so infinitely superior to grocery store tomatoes. However, the most expensive, most precious crop is garlic.

When I first started to try to eat local, the big shock came when I realized that grocery store garlic comes from China. I still buy Mexican avocados, California citrus, and southern fruit (though I try to get it in season), it was unacceptable to get garlic from China, especially when I learned that Minnesota is a good place to grow it.

Last year, I discovered the Minnesota Garlic Festival in Hutchinson, Minnesota, sponsored by the Sustainable Farming Association. I couldn’t get Steve to go out until the afternoon, and when we arrived there were pretty slim pickin’s in terms of seed garlic. The scarcity was compounded by an illness of some sort that struck Minnesota garlic last year.

This year I made sure we left early and we arrived at 10:30, shortly after the gates opened. I have seldom been so excited. Really. All that big, beautiful garlic! So much less expensive than the prices from the seed companies where I’ve been ordering it!

And by inexpensive, I mean $14/lb or $1.50- $2/head. If a head has four cloves, that means 50 cents/head of garlic if it all germinates (and it usually does all germinate). I spent about $45 for an abundance of gorgeous bulbs in these varieties: Music, German Extra Hardy, Montana Giant, Indiana Brown, and others I didn’t bother to write down. Last year I only got German Extra Hardy, and it is delicious, but small. The heads are lovely and have good, thick skins, which means they will keep well. I managed to get about 60 heads, which means they don’t really have to keep, as I’m going through about 3 heads/week and will use even more when I make pickles and salsa.

Here is a photo of the Montana Giant and the Indiana Brown. I asked the farmer if he was from Indiana. He said he lived there for a few years as a child and that his family had been growing Indiana Brown garlic for about 30 years. They got it from a neighbor in Indiana who had it growing wild and they cultivated it. I hesitated because I don’t like the idea of brown garlic– will I think that it is not good when I dig it up? But the story sold me. I had him write the name on the bulbs and will try to track them (given the fact that my peppers and tomatoes are turning out to be totally not what I thought they were, I greatly question my tracking abilities. Somehow the IDs got confused in the transplanting. Garlic is only planted once.)

The garlic festival was very crowded and a great time. There were two stages, one for music and one for cooking demonstrations. We heard a folk band, mariachi, and an Indian cookbook author talking about spices. We also ate a delicious veggie burger and excellent ribs. And what festival would be complete without a few princesses… These were waiting for someone to get them some food. (Princesses don’t stand in line for food.)

Posted in garden | Tagged garlic, garlic festival, growing garlic, Hutchinson, seed garlic | Comments Off

Happy “Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor’s Porch Day”

Posted on August 8, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

For some reason, having a lot of a single vegetable makes us panic. What will I do with all these zucchini? What will I do with all these tomatillos? Instead of just continuing with our simple preparations, we begin looking for more complicated or unusual recipes– maybe even ones that disguise the flavor so we don’t get tired of it.

The poor zucchini is the most maligned of all vegetables. August 8 is actually “Sneak Some Zucchini on Your Neighbor’s Porch Day.” Here is a list of ways to ditch those extra zucchini, including wrapping them like sub sandwiches and having children sell them to relatives as a fundraiser…

Now that the big recipe sites and magazines have gotten on board with the local and seasonal craze, you can find interesting recipes to use the squash. I found one that looked really good in August’s Bon Appetit which I made last night with a few additions. It was SO good, and quite filling. I will be making it again (especially since I made too much bread crumb/Parmesan topping). It is a skillet dish, but because it is bon appetit, it gets called a gratin, which inspired me to add Gruyere!

Squash and Tomato Gratin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss 1 cup coarse fresh breadcrumbs with 1/3 cup grated Parmesan and 1 Tbs olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Heat 2 Tbs olive oil in a medium ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat. Add a layer of sliced cherry tomatoes (or one large tomato), chopped small onion, minced garlic clove and 1-2 cups sliced mushrooms (optional) and cook, tossing occasionally, about 5 minutes.

Top with 1/2 cup Gruyere (optional), then a few cups of thinly sliced summer squash and breadcrumb mixture. Bake at 350 degrees until squash is tender and breadcrumbs are golden brown, 20-25 minutes.

And you might want to guard your porch…

I’ve had my eye on this neighbor’s porch for a week…

Posted in garden, recipe | Tagged gratin, recipe for summer squash, squash on porch, summer squash, tomatoes, vegetable gardening, zucchini | Comments Off

Surprises

Posted on August 4, 2013 by susanmsink@gmail.com

tomatillo plants August 1, 2013

I’ve been vegetable gardening now for five years, and I’m no longer completely surprised that when I put in a seed, food grows. It is still amazing how much food grows from a single seed, but I also get downright crabby when those dang peas don’t put out an abundance of pods. Michael Pollan, in his gardening book Second Nature, talks about what an amazing thing it is that vegetable garden produces so much matter. I mean, the inputs: water, soil, seed, are not at all in relationship to the green stuff and roots and fruits that come off a single plant. In bulk and in weight (think about potatoes), the plant seems to give back from nothing. At the end of it, we have the soil, mostly, minus maybe a tablespoon of minerals (but we probably also have more worms and their castings) so the only thing that’s fully “consumed” is the water and that invisible energy from sun and air.

So yes, that does amaze me, but I don’t walk around my garden gasping all the time like I did those first two years at the first sign of a 2 ft Jimmy Nardello pepper or a cluster of cherry tomatoes.

But this week in the garden I did, during a marathon weeding and watering session, have two occasions where I actually gasped.

The first was when I was this:

Yes, that is a watermelon. A sugar baby I grew from a seed saved by my friend Scott Pauley and given to me at the beginning of the 2012 season. I had such low hope for watermelon, I considered not giving it bed space. But instead I decided I’d do the best possible for them (in the past I’ve stuck them in with other “winter” squash and the plants have been paltry and without fruit. In four years I’ve gotten exactly one small watermelon. It was perfect and sweet and juicy, but it was solo.) So this year, their last chance, I gave them half a bed, next to two tomato plants. And what do you know if they aren’t thriving. In addition to this guy (I pulled all the purslane that was hiding it out before taking the photo), there are TWO more fruits and a number of blossoms like the one at the right of the picture. Wowee.

Then I went over to where the Brussels sprouts are growing their enormous staffs covered with leaves that are actually starting to tighten into heads (another first). I’d recently pulled out the flowering broccoli plants and hadn’t thought much about two plants left behind. So when I caught sight of this, I gasped again:

That is a large cauliflower head! I thought I was only going to have the one head I harvested earlier, but once the plants were given room, TWO cauliflower plants have appeared and are putting out heads. Here’s the other one:

It is tiny and covered by leaves, which is what keeps the cauliflower head white as it develops. Clever, huh?

So those are my two gasps for this week. Additionally, however, I have been so happy about my tomatillos. I don’t understand why all gardeners, especially Minnesota gardeners, don’t grow them. Especially if they knew about tomatillo sauce, which I’ve made a batch of and am using with chicken for dinner tonight.

I was a little worried that tomatillos might be another hot-weather princess like tomatoes and peppers, but no. My friend Lynn from Texas even said he has trouble growing them in Texas. They like heat, but they don’t like lingering or too much heat. They are ideal for Minnesota’s climate, which cools off in August (yes, just when tomatoes hit their stride). Well, I’m not sure what it is, but my tomatillo plants started strong and early and are putting out literally hundreds of fruits. They are blight free and happy as any plant in my garden. I will be making lots of yellow and green salsa (especially if those lemon drop tomatoes come in) and tomatillo sauce in a few weeks! (And to think, last year when my plants broke off in a storm I had to buy them at $3/pint and scrounge to even find them at the Farmer’s Market!)

Posted in garden, the Farm | Tagged cauliflower plant, garden, growing tomatilloes, growing watermelon, sugar baby watermelon, tomatillo, vegetable gardening, watermelon | Comments Off