Goodbye garden. Hello fun!

Volunteer cosmos populated with bumblebees a couple years ago.

Here we go again. Preparing to vacation for a month and scrambling to get the garden ready for our absence. 

It's like parents leaving the kids just when they've been potty trained. The hard and dirty work is over and it's time to reap the benefits.

In a few weeks, our garden will be at its most beautiful.

It won't be pumping out ripe tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants quite yet, but it will achieve its most colorful and lush vegetative mass.

It will be thick with birds and bees, berry thieves, and pollinators.

Even yesterday, when I snapped most of these garden shots, one could almost see the chlorophyll burgeoning in young leaves, and savor the sweet, salty, sharp aromas of tomatoes, mint, dill, eggplants, basil, and alyssum, all muddled with the rich scent of soil warming in the summer sun.

It will get even better.

Like this, taken a few years ago in early August.

But we won't be here to see it, smell it, taste it or have any other of those smarmy moments gardening can induce.

Instead, we'll be having real fun!

The last rapid on the Middle Fork of the Salmon trip is big! It is actually on the Main Salmon River close to the takeout for the Middle Fork just a few miles after the tributary enters the larger river.  PK is rowing. I'm staring into a bus-sized hole, which was easily avoided. I don't think a rapid this gnarly is fun, but he does. One thing for sure, I was not thinking about the tomatoes.

If you've followed this blog for a few years, you've heard how we struggle with whether to have a big garden, as it doesn't fit with our relatively new traveling lifestyle. Or, coincidentally, with our aging bodies.

This storyline is getting old, right?

It sure is for me. For us. Getting old. As are we. And time is a wasting.

I think that without saying it, we've settled with having a messy imperfect garden so that we can also have messy imperfect road trips and international episodes. We can have both.

On our coming adventure, we'll raft for seven days the best of the West's most extensive wilderness on the Middle Fork of the Salmon  River in Idaho. One hundred miles and 100 rapids. There will be a blog post.

Then I'll meet up with a Texas girlfriend for the Red Ants Pants Music Festival in White Sulphur Springs, MT, and PK will row another legendary river, the Main Salmon River in Idaho. Can't wait!

Then she and I will have a leisurely road trip back home to Oregon.

Yes, PK and I are driving separate vehicles to Idaho and parting ways after the MFS. And we'll be fishing/dancing/singing/rowing/ without much thought of what we left behind.

At home, our garden will be advancing on the surrounding fields and our neighbor will be beating it back with a hoe and a harvest basket. We couldn't do it without her. (Of course, we pay her, and not just with all the zucchini she can shove into her refrigerator and her family's mouths.)

The following are a few recent photos from our Southern Oregon heritage garden.

Heritage? Where did that come from? I guess when you've reached a certain time in life, and have worked a piece of land for decades, it becomes heritage, which means.....a legacy, a culture, a custom, a tradition, an inheritance.

We have two adult sons who were born and grew up here. We had a "family meeting" last week during which we inquired whether either hopes to someday live here. Not anytime soon, that's for sure. But giving it up, as we sometimes ponder, is a point of sentimentality and ambivalence for us and our family.

The closest we have come to changing venues is when we discuss going on the road for a lengthy time and renting the house and land. We also consider, in an offhand way, selling it and relocating to a different home to try on surroundings that do not require so much attention.

Will we do it? Not this year. But sometime. Maybe.

In the meantime.....we love where we live and, at the same time, can't wait for our next adventures.

                  A few recent home photos.

Now that we have a fence that has them stymied, we are entertained by our resident deer, including this young buck who was likely born here. 

Honey bees LOVE leek flowers. We've never harvested a leek to eat. They're all for the bees, except for those cut and dried as decorative fresh and dried flowers.

PK says that we now have a savannah look with our 25 or so apple trees (reduced from 300+ when we bought the property in the 1970s). The deer trim them all to approximately the same distance from the ground. We still harvest way more apples than we can give away. 

In an ongoing attempt to cut back, we devote at least two garden rows a year to a nitrogen-fixing cover crop such as the young red clover above. We allow volunteer cosmos, dill, sunflowers, and chard to share the space.

By the time we return, this area will be alive with colorful zinnias and sunflowers complementing the marigolds. The fig tree will have grown dozens and dozens of fruits that won't yet be ripe enough eat.

One almost-ripe cherry tomato will be joined by literally hundreds of others on one
indeterminate plant. Indeterminate means it reaches and wanders without end. 

The "garden" on the backside of the house looks as good as it ever will right now. Why? the daylilies bloom and are gone. The Shasta daisies bloom and then fall over and are gone. They all slump onto that sweet walkway that PK built soon after he retired 10 years ago as part of his first "five-year plan." Replacing some of this vegetation, especially the daisies, is on his (our) to-do list.

Bad daisies napping on the walkway.

Onions are flanked on the left by pepper plants, which
 look healthy and happy. 

Massive onion crop coming on. Yahoo! We're thinning and eating now.

A walkway around the front porch is guarded by a metal rooster and ivy that will reach out and strangle you if you stand still long enough. 

Faithful lilies show up every year in front of the solarium, which we consider
 the front of our house.

Sadly, roses don't last forever and this beauty is in decline. It is an old-fashioned rose and no one seems to know the variety. I would love to plant another. Please let me know via the comments below if you can identify. It is wonderfully fragrant and its blooms turn several colors before the final pink.

Missing from our garden: sweet corn, green beans, beets, potatoes, and many types of winter squash. We really are cutting back! Tomatoes, peppers, onions? Gotta have em.

Best thing we ever grew - our sons who continue to make us proud.
 Chris on the left and Quinn on the right.

    A proud sun salutation if ever I saw one by a volunteer sunflower.

  Old gardens like ours are blessed with a variety of welcome volunteers.

They show up every year in different configurations.

They will all be here when we return!

Previous posts about gardening angst

The garden - refuge or tether?

Cutting back on gardening to travel? Really?

New take on marinara and gardening ambivalence 

New take on marinara, time-saving tips and gardening ambivalence - UPDATED 8/26/2021

The basics for a grand marinara sauce are right here: Sun Gold, Brandywine and San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, onions and basil. Even a few Romas.

I've been making homemade marinara sauce since we started gardening lo these 40 years ago. If that sounds like a lot of years to you, believe me, it sounds even more unbelievable to me. The years fly by and blah blah blah.

So maybe I've learned a few things? Well. Maybe. If so, among the tidbits is a new revelation; when making marinara fresh from the garden, use the sweetest, ripest, and most tasty tomatoes no matter the variety. Duh!

Usually, those are not Roma types, which have been the mainstay of ALL previous marinara/tomato seasons. Every single batch! This year, it dawned on me, after searching around for new ideas for marinara, to simply use the tomatoes with the best flavor. WHAT A CONCEPT!

Our generous garden obliged with luscious Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, succulent Brandywines, and the marvelous San Marzanos. The San Marzano is a cherished Italian tomato grown in a specific soil type in a small area. We have three wild San Marzano plants, snaking their indeterminate tendrils in all directions.

Thick, rich, almost creamy marinara made mostly with San Marzano tomatoes. If you don't grow San Marzanos, as we didn't for most of our gardening years, they're also sold in cans and are reportedly excellent for making sauces.

San Marzanos define tomato goodness. They're super sweet when ripe, and meaty, meaning that they don't have a lot of seeds. They're not bomb-proof like Romas, but they have a deeper flavor. 

I was able to make one batch primarily with San Marzanos from the garden. But other batches made with mixed varieties have also been good. My stainless steel fry pan holds five quarts of whirred-up tomatoes and estimated quantities of other ingredients are based on starting out with five quarts of liquefied tomatoes.

A typical harvest. Most above are Roma types with a few San Marzanos
in the white box, and small Brandywines peeking out from below.

Guidelines for making fresh-from-the-garden marinara and time-saving tips*

If you're hunting for a recipe with precise measurements, this is not for you. If you're an adventurous cook eager to make it work with what you have, stick around. The idea is to use tomatoes in season and freeze the resulting sauce to produce wow-worthy dishes during the dark days of tasteless expensive supermarket tomatoes. (Isn't it odd that mealy tasteless tomatoes can be found in supermarkets even during tomato season?) 

I HAVE DISCOVERED THAT SOME OF THE MORE EXPENSIVE COMMERCIAL MARINARA PRODUCTS ARE ALMOST AS GOOD AS HOMEMADE.  SUCH AS FROM SONOMA WITH ❤️

* Do NOT peel the tomatoes!

Well, you can, but I NEVER do when making marinara, and no one has noticed. Peeling is time-consuming and unnecessary.

I've had enough of dipping tomatoes into boiling water and "slipping off the skins, ha ha" to last a lifetime. Done with that!

In perusing recipes online I noticed that peeling skins from tomatoes, or not, is a point of contention with purists. Let them contend! Maybe they don't have food processors or good blenders, maybe they have all the time in the world, maybe they like peeling tomatoes. But if you don't have the time or inclination, but have a kitchen device to do the trick, use it!

For years the Cuisinart food processor was my marinara friend, but recently I bought a Vitamix blender, which does an even better job of pulverizing lumps, seeds, and skins. Plus it can handle a greater volume, making for even less work.

What you'll need, more or less

• Enough dead-ripe tomatoes, preferably heritage, sweet cherry tomatoes, and/or San Marzanos, but also Romas, Celebrities, Big Boys, and other varieties, enough to make around five liquid quarts. The tomatoes must be ripe ripe ripe. About 15 pounds of fresh tomatoes.
• One large or two medium onions, preferably not sweet, chopped
• Six to eight large garlic cloves, or more, chopped
• Salt to taste
• Generous handful of fresh basil to add late 
• Dried blend of Italian herbs (not herbs that have been languishing in your cupboard for 10 years, but recently purchased or dried by you. The fresher the better.)
• Olive oil to saute onions, garlic, and herbs, but not the fresh basil
• 4-oz can of organic tomato paste if you choose to reduce cooking time

Onion, garlic, Italian herbs. Saute before

 adding blended tomatoes.  

SKIP IT! THIS IS A WORTHLESS STEP

Seasoning your sauce

There's also a camp that goes super simple using canned tomatoes, preferably San Marzanos, maybe a bit of onion and/or garlic, and a sprig or two of fresh basil. The basil is added late to the party, and is dragged through the sauce to extract flavor.

Maybe they do this in Italy. Doesn't work for me. I'm good with fresh basil, without stems, added late, but just leave it in the sauce.

Depending upon what's in the larder or the garden, I may add, along with ingredients listed above:

• chopped sweet peppers 
• chopped hot peppers, just a kick for back flavor
• garlic chili or serrano sauce, a Tbsp or so
• crushed fennel seed (love this flavor in marinara) 
• a sprig of fresh rosemary (remove after cooking) 

Directions

First prepare the onions, garlic, and herbs, and lightly brown them in olive oil in the same pan you'll use to cook your sauce.* Browning, according to numerous sources, adds depth of flavor whether you're making soup, gravy, or sauces.  OK TO SKIP THE BROWNING 

Then rinse, core, and cut in half the tomatoes before whirring up in a food processor or blender, about 15 pounds in batches. You should have enough liquid tomatoes to fill a five-quart heavy metal pan, preferably a stainless steel skillet. A soup pot may be used instead, but it takes longer for evaporation to produce a rich thick sauce.

Simmer for 3-4 hours until the volume has been reduced to roughly half. A 4-ounce can of organic tomato paste hastens the process, in case you're planning marinara sauce for dinner. 

More - if you're interested in my mental state, plus links to earlier garden-fresh recipes 

If you've read earlier posts, you know I have a continuing struggle with gardening, trying to cut back so we're not tied down. Trying to get a grip on the reality of being retirees and getting older every minute, and not needing all this food and work—spending hours in the kitchen chopping, blending, and trimming to can, freeze or dry the tons of stuff that lands in the kitchen. No no no!

THIS SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE WHAT I WAS THINKING THIS MORNING. 

But then there are the other parts. The tender parts. The pleasure, during the drab winter days, or even spring, while tomatoes are still a dream, of grabbing a bag of frozen tomato deliciousness and turning it into an easy feast. STILL TRUE.

The spring asparagus feasts. The blueberries all winter. The onions and garlic hanging in the PUMPHOUSE IN THE GARAGE.  

And also the garden immersion experience, which occasionally transports me into the sweet world of birdsong, bees, and butterflies. The wild randomness of volunteer sunflowers, cosmos, clover, spearmint, and dill make a fragrant disorder that somehow creates order in my life. Even the work - the tomato harvesting, the weeding, the flower deadheading - is a methodical Zen practice where my hands and body do the work but my attention is elsewhere. Floating.  

I AM STILL TALKING MYSELF INTO IT!

I can lose myself writing (once I'm at the computer and get started) but also in gardening chores, which need to be done. How can I give this up? How can I not? 

There is a time, turn, turn, turn, you know the Pete Seeger song made famous by the Byrds?  One of my favorites.

To everything - turn, turn, turn There is a season - turn, turn, turn. And a time to every purpose under heaven.A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep.

Now. Which way to turn, turn, turn?

I loved being in the messy volunteer garden recently, with the wildfire smoke rendering breathing unpleasant but whose eerie light heightened colors. The garden is a reliable rest and release valve, a place of comfort at being alive. Why do I sometimes resent it?

SIGH. PK AND I ARE STILL TALKING TO OURSELVES AND EACH OTHER ABOUT SERIOUSLY CURTAILING GARDENING.  NOT GIVING IT UP ENTIRELY, BUT NEXT YEAR RATHER THAN 13 TOMATO PLANTS WE'LL HAVE 3 OR 4. ZUCCHINI - 1, WE ARE, I BELIEVE, MOVING CLOSER TO THE REALITY OF TURN, TURN, TURN. A TIME TO PLANT A TIME TO REAP. OR NOT.

Earlier posts about feasting from the garden

Our go-to salsa recipe - We keep returning to this one, cutting back on the black beans

Tomato Love Casserole - Too good!

Rich, thick homemade marinara sauce - this precedes the recipe above, but is still good, using Roma tomatoes.

Eggplant Parmesan with Low-Carb notes - I went through a serious low-carb period and posted lots of recipes. If you'd like to see some, type "low-carb" into the Search box on the upper lefthand corner of the page.  Warning: some of the older posts have lost their photos. No idea why. 

Ratatouille with Rosemary - Roasted, not fried. 

spaghetti squash lasagna is here - Our spaghetti squash crop failed this year, but half a squash is all that's needed for this and most recipes. I hear they have spaghetti squash down at the Farmer's Market.

Rosemary Ratatouille, Roasted not Fried

            Roasted ratatouille requires less toil than frying each ingredient separately. 

I wrote this post in 2009 when the idea of cutting way back on gardening had not yet occurred to me.(It was updated in 2015 and again today.) Those were the days! Now I'm in the throes of weaning myself away from a prodigious garden. I'll miss this ratatouille. But I hear they sell eggplant at growers' markets?

Ratatouille is one of the best possible ways for turning a garden bonanza into flavorful freezable gold bricks to mine during the bleak winter. In August and September, we have so much garden glory that I have actually chased people down the road, waving zucchini and cucumbers. I leave produce in the mailbox for our rural mail carrier, and deliver cukes and zukes to the community center's "free food" area. Someone came to buy a vacuum I advertised on Craigs List, and she went home with tomatoes, cucumbers, and a spaghetti squash. Anyway. ratatouille is a wonderful way to use up a lot of summer produce all at once. 

About Rosemary Ratatouille

Rosemary isn't a huge ingredient in this recipe, but the fact that it's there to the exclusion of all other herbs is key. Ratatouille has been a favorite way to use summer bounty for years, but I usually included handfuls of fresh basil and sprigs of oregano and never even considered rosemary. I also fried each ingredient in separate batches to develop individual flavors, then combined to blend. Big pain in the arse!

But a recipe I discovered in 2009 at recipetips.com makes the BEST ratatouille ever. I would link to the recipe, but it no longer exists at that site, or at least I couldn't find it. This recipe is a lot less work than frying, and high temp roasting boosts the flavors. The four teaspoons of chopped fresh rosemary are key to the deliciousness of this heavenly dish.

This recipe requires 15-20 minutes of prep and 45 minutes to 65 or 70 minutes of roasting time, depending upon the pan size and the volume of vegetables. You'll need two large rimmed baking sheets or shallow roasting or broiling pans, and parchment paper to make clean-up easier.

Rosemary Ratatouille, Roasted 

Ingredients
2-3 large eggplants, 1-11/2 pounds
2 sweet red peppers
2 yellow peppers
3 small/medium zucchini
2 medium/large onions (not sweet onions)
4-6 cloves garlic
6-8 tablespoons olive oil, or more
4 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
6-8 large tomatoes, more if small
kosher, sea, or smoked salt to taste (smoked salt is divine!)

Directions
Preheat oven to 400
Cut eggplant, peppers, squash, and onion into roughly 1 inch chunks. Peel garlic and slice lengthwise 3 or 4 times. Combine and toss with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and the chopped rosemary. Salt lightly. Oil a rimmed baking sheet or other large shallow pan and spread the vegetables into a single layer and place in preheated oven. If you have too many for a single layer, don't sweat it. After they've roasted for 20-25 minutes you should be able to spread them out.

Line the second rimmed pan with parchment paper making sure that the paper is larger than the pan. You don't want the juices to get underneath the paper. Cut tomatoes into halves or quarters depending on size and arrange them in a single layer. Drizzle with olive oil and salt lightly. Put in preheated oven.

Roast vegetables, turning with a spatula once or twice.

Tomatoes don't need to be turned, and they roast faster than the other veggies. When roasted, they should be soft enough so they go flat when pressed lightly. The juices may brown, and that's good. If you put tomatoes and the other veggies into the oven at the same time, the tomatoes will be ready as  much as a half hour before earlier than the veggie mixture.

This is an extra-large load  for a double recipe and required about 90 minutes of roasting at 400.  

Remove veggies when roasted. You'll know they're roasted when they're beginning to brown and are soft.

These tomatoes could have  roasted another 5-10 minutes. This batch made a good puddle of juice, which when mixed with the brown bits, was added to the other veggies.

Let the tomatoes cool. Turn each tomato half or quarter over and pinch the skin; it will come right off.  Place the pan with the roasted veggies next to the tomatoes. Carefully lift the parchment paper and pool juices and tomatoes in the center, then slide it all into the  roasted veggies to mix. Alternatively, you could use a spatula to transfer the tomatoes then pour the juices. Mix thoroughly. May be served hot, warm or room temperature.

Ratatouille freezes beautifully and is a wonderful reminder of benevolent summer during winter's churlish days.

Other ways to use the harvest

Rich, thick homemade marinara sauce

Eggplant Parmesan with Low-Carb notes

Eggplant Parmesan + Low-carb notes

Revised August 23, 2015
Email subscribers, please click on the blog title to get to the website where photos look better and text is easier to read. 

Most everything you need for eggplant Parmesan is right here. Jalapenos optional.

This time of year all our dinners look the same—red and green—mostly red. That's because of tomato bounty, tomato beauty, and so many greens and eggplants and onions and garlic and basil and on and on. Truly an embarrassment of dishes/riches from kitchen bitches. Of which I am apparently one. I'm a little bossy about diet and cooking. An eggplant Parmesan recipe follows, pictures first. This year I have had to beg or buy eggplants as we had a mysterious eggplant crop failure.

I published an earlier eggplant Parmesan recipe that included this step: slice and salt the eggplant. Let drain then rinse and dry before proceeding. The next time I opined about how to make it, I said this:

Eggplant Parmesan is so much easier when you skip the salting-the-sliced-eggplant-then-rinsing-and-drying steps and also the dredging-in- flour-or-crumbs part. I omitted the flour/crumbs step because of my carb-avoidance behavior, but discovered that dipping the slices in a beaten egg and frying in olive oil is just as good, if not better, than the carb-dredging routine. Oh joy! I left out the salting part when I was in a big rush and discovered THAT doesn't matter either. So right there you lop off another 15 or 20 minutes.

I am sticking with the no-salting method. Anything that saves prep time is good, especially when you can't tell the difference with the finished product. 

Most eggplant Parmesan recipes direct you to dredge  the eggplant in a seasoned flour mixture before frying or baking. No, no, no. Not at all necessary. Some suggest you bake the eggplant after dredging in flour mix, ostensibly to save you from fat. No, no, no. No need to be saved from olive oil! The need to be saved from flour is, however, compelling.

Layered egg-batter fried eggplant. Full recipe below.

This is the deluxe eggplant Parmesan, which means I needed to use sweet onions and peppers, which are undulating toward the kitchen from our crazy pumped- up garden. A very aggressive garden indeed. Onions and peppers are optional.

More layering. Did we talk about the homemade marinara sauce?  Only if you have time and tomatoes to spare.

Eggplant Parmesan

Let's make some assumptions. You have fresh tomatoes and nice firm glossy eggplants. You have time. (The biggest assumption of all.) But listen. If you don't have time to make your own marinara from fresh tomatoes, but still want to make a fabulous eggplant Parmesan, buy a good marinara sauce and pump it up with garlic, a little pesto, some pepper flakes, and your desire to make yourself and others glow at the dinner table.

Do what you can do. Good cheese helps no matter what.

This makes enough for 6-8 servings in a 9X13 inch pan. It freezes well, and keeps for several days refrigerated.

Ingredients
2-3 medium to large fresh eggplants
1.5 to 2 quarts marinara sauce, more or less, homemade preferable
8 - 10 ounces grated Parmesan cheese
12-16 ounces shredded mozzarella, jack, cheddar cheeses, mixed
salt and pepper to taste
salt for treating eggplant slices
2-3 medium eggs
2-4 Tbsp olive oil
1 cup thinly sliced sweet red pepper or jalapeno pepper or combination—deluxe version  
1 cup thinly sliced sweet onion—deluxe version.
   
Directions
1. Slice the eggplants into 1/2 - 3/4  inch rounds.

2. Beat the eggs in a small bowl. In the meantime, heat half the olive oil  over medium heat in a non-stick pan. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, coat the eggplant slices in beaten eggs and fry in olive oil until lightly browned on both sides. Add more oil as necessary. (May be more than 4 tablespoons.) Set aside fried eggplant slices on a grate to cool. Blot with paper towels, if you're weird about oil. If you have leftover egg, fry quickly, chop, and add to casserole. It's a sin to waste food.

3. When all eggplant slices are fried, spoon a layer of marinara on the bottom of your casserole dish. Add a layer of eggplant, sprinkle with cheeses.

4. If you're using sliced sweet onions and/or peppers, spread some atop the cheeses
.
5. Add another layer of eggplant topped by more "deluxe" items, if using, then cover with marinara.

If you have leftover eggplant slices, place a piece of waxed paper between slices and freeze for later use. 

Pop uncovered into preheated 350 degree oven. Bake for 35 - 45
minutes, or whenever sauce is bubbling around the edges. Remove from oven and apply the final layer of mixed cheeses plus a few fresh pepper/onions, if you like.  Return to oven and turn off the heat. Allow the cheese to melt for five to seven minutes. Remove from oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes before serving.

Low-carb notes
Eggplant is low-carb to the max. One medium unpeeled eggplant has about 13 grams of carbs plus 19 grams of fiber. Which, with fiber grams subtracted, is a minus-carb count.

Peppers are also very low in carbs, but onions are not, and fresh tomatoes, depending upon sugar content, may be high in carbs. However, they also have a lot of fiber, especially if you follow my directions for using the entire tomato, skins included, to make homemade marinara.

Do you know about subtracting the fiber content from carb content to figure out how many carbs you're consuming? Example: a half cup of chopped raw tomato has 4.2 grams of carbs and 1 gram of fiber. Subtract the fiber gram and you get carb 3.2 grams. (The Complete Book of Food Counts by Corinne T. Netzer)

People who are serious about losing weight with low-carb diets count every carb and most try to keep their carb consumption at 30 per day or fewer. That's roughly the equivalent of two thin slices of bread, One large baked potato with skin has about 50 carbs and just 4.8 grams fiber. You could run on that thing for two days! Except that after eating that many unbuffered-by-fiber carbs, you're likely to feel hungry a couple hours after eating.

So long, tomatoes. I'll miss you!

October tomatoes. Pitiful!

This sorry batch is now cooking as the last marinara sauce of the season. 

The annual garden shutdown is a woeful certainty. We haven't had a frost yet, so the cold-sensitive plants haven't blackened and gone into final meltdown. Those plants would be, in order of their intolerance of cold: basil, zukes, peppers and tomatoes. With the exception of the peppers, they are all behaving badly, cranky in their old age with curling leaves, refusal to grow, and developing age spots like crazy, as if to say, Let's get it over with! 

Me too, especially as far as food preservation goes. However, I absolutely mourn garden-fresh tomatoes once ours are gone because I know it will be at least 10 months!! before we'll have them again. I always break down in the spring and sneak a store tomato into a salad. I can fool myself into believing that it grew somewhere hot and will taste like a tomato. But it never does, and PK can't refrain from curtly observing that I've once again weakened. I promise never to purchase a commercial tomato that must have been picked green, "ripened" in a chemical fog, shipped for thousands of miles, and is exorbitantly overpriced. Hard tomatoes, I've learned, are inedible, even if they're blushing red.

This is how our tomatoes looked in mid September. Perfect. 

We'll have to make do with the quarts of canned tomatoes and salsas and jars of dried ones in the pantry, plus bags and bags of marinara and salsas in the freezer. It will be tough, but I know we're up to the challenge. Goodbye to a great garden season. (With a fond nod to the much-smaller fall/winter garden coming soon.)

Spring Cleaning—Fast-Forward, Freezer to Mouth

Winter/spring greens at their most tender and succulent flourish in the south-facing cold frame.

No corners are being reamed or closets cleared here at the ranch. Not that they don't need it. The cleaning has to do with freezers, pantries, and all the other nooks and crannies where last year's harvest was stashed. Potatoes, now history, were stored in burlap bags in the chilly pump house; winter squash occupied shelves in the cool dark pantry in the back porch, sharing space with garlic and onions, canned salsas, dried peppers and tomatoes. Fresh garlic and spaghetti squash remain pantried in small amounts. Spaghetti squash lasts at least six months in cool dark storage. Impressive!
Onions may have persevered as long, but we ate them way before they could rot. And garlic? Well, we're still using what we harvested last June, but it is yearning to reproduce or decompose. The 2011 garlic crop, planted in October, is vigorous and will be ready to harvest in June.

2010 garlic is trying to have babies in the pantry. It's still good, even at the early sprouting stage.

But the freezers! Two refrigerator top freezers and one small chest freezer were crammed after the 2010 fall harvest. Items that now need to be exhumed ASAP? Pesto cubes; chipotle cubes; blackberries; kale; chard, and two-cup portions of grated zucchini in anticipation of zucchini bread throughout the year, which, of course, I never did bake. I'm not at all into throwing any of this into the compost, although it may come to that.
Yesterday was the first of the serious "clean out the freezers" meals. Since spring has arrived, at least in name, and we're full tilt into eating wonderful spring things such as fall-planted broccoli, kale, chard, and spinach and soon the asparagus that will begin fingering through the mulch, followed by peas, and more chard, kale, and spinach, and on and on throughout summer and fall. It's difficult to dip into the freezer for last year's harvest. But it must be done.

2011pepper, tomato, eggplant starts in the solarium soon-to-be transplanted into 4-inch pots.

With so much food insecurity going on around the world, and in our own community, it is humbling to outline our excesses. We share, but we need to share more—or grow less? Maybe somebody's up for frozen grated zucchini in two-cup measures? I know that PK will pot many more pepper, tomato, and eggplant seedlings than we'll be able to plant, and he already has in mind people who will welcome them. But on to clearing the deck for the coming bounty, as a recent prodigiously caloric menu exemplifies.

An out-the-freezer dinner combined with  2011-spring-garden menu:

• Smoked trout (A yoga friend gave me frozen trout last fall. We used our Traeger Grill to smoke it a couple days ago. I buried the trimmings under where we'll plant corn.)
• Steamed fresh broccoli and kale with ample butter, fresh Parmesan. salt and pepper

Spaghetti squash Mexican/Indian casserole center  on the left with fresh spring salad on the right, and a little
smoked  trout front and center. A big dollop of chipotle sauce spices up the casserole.

• 
  Last year's baked and shredded spaghetti squash casserole seasoned with frozen basil pesto, dried tomatoes,  fresh onions, olive oil, canned salsa, and a couple T spoons of commercial  red curry unearthed from the freezer, an unlikely but delicious combo. This was baked topped with Parmesan, and then dabs of mayo and sour-cream-loaded chipotle sauce. Wow! A testament to fusing Mexican and Indian flavors, which I would not have considered if I wasn't spring cleaning.

Cole crops in March on an island. Too much rain! But they survive, and recently provided a load of broccoli and kale. Coming soon, I hope: cabbage and Brussels sprouts.

A seasonal staple for salads, soups, and side dishes.

"Fresh" from the freezer, soon-to-be soup. Ham bone, ham broth, pepper/tomatillo broth. 

Today it was soup made from freezer dregs and fresh garden greens. But mostly freezer dregs. Here's what it looks like tonight, thawing for a gourmet treatment: ham bone; ham broth; pepper/tomatillo concoction; grated zucchini; semi-dried tomatoes that needed to be frozen, and dribs and drabs of salsa and marinara. Wish me luck. 

Garden on a plate - can life get any better? (don't answer)

Chard, tomatoes, spaghetti squash, garlic and more make an amazing no-noodles low-carb lasagna.

October already!! Can it be? October means that at any moment, winter will set in and the late summer and fall harvest we've been relishing will come to a frosty halt. We will mourn the garden's passing the moment it begins in earnest. That's one bad thing about getting older. You know what's coming. 
But still. We now have soooo much! We're still collecting zucchinis, tomatoes, cukes, chard, a few eggplants, basil, dill weed and seed, parsley, and winter squash.

It's prime time for making summer-culmination dishes such as the voluptuous spaghetti squash and chard lasagna in the photo. No noodles, folks. And you won't miss them, especially if you're privy to fresh veggies.

This lasagna's success depends on fresh everything, including, of course, homemade from-scratch marinara sauce. The thing about the "recipe" linked in the previous sentence, is that it understates the amount of time required to reduce fresh tomato puree by half. For a large deep skillet or a soup pot full of freshly whirred-up garden tomatoes, figure at least eight hours at low heat.

Garden-fresh cooking requires devotion and patience. A good shot of tequila doesn't hurt to carry you along. First you must plant the seeds and grow the vegetables, then tend them throughout the growing season. You must be able to put up with stooping between the rows to tug at weeds and dodge the multitudes of birds and bees that have set up house in your microcosm. You'll be forced to endure the rich earthy aroma that arises in waves from between the tines of your pitchfork or garden shovel as you turn the soil or compost. Sometimes it's enough to make you swoon.

You'll need to brace yourself against the wildlife dramas that may play out, such as bluebirds being driven from their nests by swallows, or hawks swooping in to catch critters outside the garden fence. You must be steeled against the time-telescoping that gardens so brutally illustrate—that spring-summer-fall-winter cycle that you can't help but notice applies to all living things. Me? I'm maybe late fall, early winter. But I do have that grandbaby, Noah, in his earliest of spring seasons, to keep me grounded. I am so enjoying his sproutiness and even the ever-so-slight wilting of his over-worked parents' leaves. (See you soon, little sprig!)
Well, enough of the life/garden analogies. On to more photos and important cooking stuff.

Sour cream and vinegar cuke and onion salad, with classic Caprese on the right. This photo is my current screen saver, not that I'm a foodie, or anything. I am so shameless I could lick the screen. Cuke/onion salad recipe is below.

A couple days later, leftover "lasagna" on the left, with sliced tomatoes with dabs of chipotle sauce atop, and zuke, onion, and pepper stir fry. It's easy. See below. And a link to chipotle sauce recipe and more.

Spectacular spaghetti squash/chard lasagna
Ingredients
1 medium- large spaghetti squash, baked whole, seeded and removed in strands from rind
(To bake squash, prick with fork, place on oven rack and bake at 350 for at least an hour. Check with fork. When fork will penetrate easily, remove from oven and cool before handling.)
1 large bunch chard leaves, steamed and drained. Squeeze excess water before adding to casserole.
1/2 qt. ricotta cheese (or combination of ricotta, sour cream and cottage cheese)
1-2 eggs
1/4 cup pesto sauce (optional but recommended)
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1-2 cups grated Italian cheeses
1 quart + marinara sauce
1 pound good spicy Italian sauage. ( I use Diestal turkey sausage)

Directions

Cook and crumble sausage and add to marina sauce.
Add an egg or two to the soft cheeses. Add pesto, if using. Mix well.

Ladle sauce to cover bottom of a 9X13 baking dish. Not a deep layer, just a thin covering. Add a thin layer of spaghetti squash. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Spread soft cheese mixture over all. Add a layer of steamed chard to cover completely. Sprinkle with Parmesan. Add another thin layer of spaghetti squash. Cover with generous layer of marinara sauce.

Put into pre-heated 350 oven and bake for 45 minute, and check then to see if the casserole is bubbling around the edges. If not, bake another 15 minutes. Turn off oven and remove casserole. Cover with Italian cheeses, including more Parmesan, and return to cooling oven for five - ten minutes to melt cheeses.
Let it rest/cool for 15 to 20 minutes before serving. Serve with grated Parmesan and pepper flakes.

Cucumber/onion sour cream salad
As with all my cooking advice, this "recipe" is a rough guide. Use your  instincts.
Ingredients
4-6 medium-sized cucumbers. I use the long burpless type. If the skin is bitter, peel the cukes. I generally use a vegetable peeler and make stripes.
1 small onion, preferably sweet, sliced thin
1/2 cup sour cream
2-4 tbsp. cider vinegar
2 tbsp. olive oil
1-3 tbsp. sugar or Splenda or other sweetener
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Peel, or partially peel, the cukes. Slice thinly and spread in a colander. Sprinkle with salt on both sides. Let rest/drain for at least 10 - 15 minutes. Shake off water and squeeze gently. Put cukes in bowl with onions. Mix the sour cream, vinegar, oil, sweetener and salt and pepper then add to cukes and onions. Taste and adjust seasonings.


Hotszie tozie zukes, onions, peppers
Ingredients
4-5 small to medium zucchini, cut into equal-sized pieces
one large onion, thinly sliced
12-16 peppers, a combination of New Mexico types, bells, jalapenos, poblanos, whatever you have, chopped. Chop the hot peppers into smaller pieces.
olive oil
salt and pepper

Use younger zukes. Nothing with seeds developing. Slice into like-sized pieces. Saute in olive oil over medium-high heat, stirring frequently. When pieces are beginning to brown and becoming translucent, remove from heat and set aside in a bowl.
Add a bit more oil to the pan, then dump in the sliced onion. Saute for a few minutes, then add the peppers and saute for a few more minutes. Turn the cooked zukes back in there and mix. Turn off the burner and give the cattle call. Expect a stampede into the kitchen because of the great aromas wafting off the peppers and onions. (Add a little garlic, if you feel the need for more chopping and aroma.)
Serve with sour cream or chipotle sauce or shredded  cheese, or all of the above.

Making a Mean Marinara- updated

Updated August 23, 2015
Email subscribers, please click on the blog title to get to the website where photos look better and text is easier to read. 

There's a lot going on here. Fresh cucumber/sweet onion salad, zucchini noodles, balsamic glaze drizzled over all, but the star of the show? Thick and rich homemade marinara.

We could about fill a bathtub with the tomatoes from our garden.  We could take turns lolling in the red, lush and lovely Romas, Celebrities, Early Girls and Brandywines to convert them to mush in preparation for making marinara. The sticky sweetness would drip from our limbs, and we could funnel some of the juices into our upturned and smiling mouths before diverting them into pots to boil and bubble into wondrous sauce for eggplant Parmesan, lasagna, spaghetti and so on to bring summer back during the inevitable dark, dank, dreary months.

Romas are the best choice for marinara as they are meaty with not as much juice to cook down.

But don't worry. You don't have to watch for hair or scabs in your spaghetti sauce, should you be invited to dinner. My best friend in the kitchen—the Cuisinart food processor—does all this squishing and smashing in a hot minute.

Process thoroughly to puree the tomato skins, which you do

NOT need to remove. Keep the fiber and the vitamins.

I ignore recipes when making marinara, especially any that require plunging tomatoes into boiling water first to remove the skins. DO NOT DO THIS! It adds immeasurably to the work and makes no difference in the end. Except for you've salvaged for your sauce all the fiber and flavor in the tomato skins.

Here's a rough guide on how to take advantage of tomato season to make a mean marinara for dinner and also the freezer. I'm not being coy with the "rough" stuff. So many recipes are approximations. When you're dealing with fresh garden produce, either from your own backyard or from farmers' markets, exact amounts depend on the cook's creativity. (Except, of course, when you're canning and absolutely must adhere precisely.) So here's how I make marinara, and you can adapt to fit whatever you have on hand.

Rich Delicious Marinara using Fresh Tomatoes

Ingredients

• 12-15  pounds of fresh tomatoes, mostly romas, cored and pureed
• 6-7 ounces of prepared basil pesto, without cheese. In the absence of pesto, process in a food processor 10-12 cloves of garlic, 2 packed cups of fresh basil, 1/2 + cup of olive oil, a 2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/4 cup of pine nuts or walnuts 
• 2 large winter onions, chopped fine
• a teaspoon each of finely crushed dried fennel seeds, oregano, thyme and rosemary
• 2-3 finely chopped jalapeno peppers, seeds removed, if you relish a little hotness. Or you could add pepper flakes to taste.
• salt and pepper to taste, using kosher, sea, or smoked salt. Smoked salt adds a whole new dimension.
• 1-2 tablespoons honey, if needed

A cheat: If you lack the patience or inclination to simmer anything five or six hours, add a small can or two of tomato paste early on. It'll still be a great marinara.

Directions
Start with dead-ripe fresh tomatoes, the redder the better. Roma types are best, but I also use round tomatoes that need to be used. Rinse, then cut off the stem end and core. Squeeze out seeds (and a lot of juice), tear or cut once or twice and load up the food processor. Process until there's nothing but air-fluffed tomato puree, then dump into your cooking pot. Often I have a couple pots going at the same time. Keep adding pureed tomatoes until the pot (uncovered, of course) is full.  Cook at low/medium heat until the volume is reduced by half.  Stir often to make sure it's not sticking. When the volume is about half add the rest of the vegetables and seasonings.

This is A LOT of pureed whole tomatoes! I had to scoop three 

cups out so it didn't spill over the sides. This large deep stainless

steel pan has become my favorite for making marinara.

That's it. Simmer until it is reduced by at least half the original volume. This can take hours. There should be very little watery stuff at the top. I always have to tinker with the seasonings near the end. Taste and adjust to your satisfaction. What we don't eat for dinner, I freeze flat in quart bags.