Edible Jewels

We mined over two pounds of amethysts from the earth this weekend.

I knew the first purple potatoes were ready when, upon harvesting some squash, I noticed that a set of potato vines had withered and largely separated themselves from the roots. So out they came.

Varied in size but not in their deep purple color, the fresh potatoes nearly filled our large colander. The timing was perfect as well: it was already late on a Sunday and I needed a carbohydrate to serve with a grilled chicken dinner.

Potatoes are usually cured outdoors for a few days before consumption or storage, but these begged to be savored fresh. Like last year, with the large russets we ate freshly-dug, these purple potatoes were pillowy soft and delicately nutty in flavor. Once gently cleaned, they glistened and glinted like deeply colored gemstones.

All they needed was 15 minutes of steaming, a pat of Plugra butter and a finishing crunch of sea salt.

The curing hardens the skins, which protects and preserves these jewels during winter storage. I’ll do so with the rest of our harvest. I found it odd that only one set of the purple potatoes were ready, but did not question the wisdom of Mother Earth. We dug carefully but thoroughly so as not to disturb the others. There are three more mounds of purple potatoes with hardy vines still going strong, plus a row of red potatoes and another of Yukon Golds maturing beneath the earth.
As an aside, the meal was a real farm-to-table last grasp of summer with volumes of just-picked produce: I grilled the pattypan squashes that I was picking when I discovered the potatoes, herbed-up the chicken before my plants die down next month and served some of the last corn on the cob of the season. But the nights are arriving earlier and growing colder. School began two weeks ago. I fear there’s not much time left.

Peach Picking

And more crucially, peach pie making!

We went peach picking over the weekend at a nearby farm. It was tremendous fun, and we must have picked a peck of ‘em. But I was transported into another world.

I was utterly captivated by the orchard, the soft and glossy leaves, the arching canopies of perfect peaches above, each peach more blushing and beautiful than the next. It was odd in a way. I’ve been apple picking and to farms many times before, but there was something almost unearthly about being there. I could have meandered all day, unaware of the time or any other being around me, wandering from tree to tree as the perfume of the ripe fruit and rich earth enveloped me.

I did, however, have my daughter with me to bring me back to earth. She started strong, respected the trees, and knew to twist the fruit just slightly in order to pick it and not damage the branch. Mike tends toward the orange peaches and took his time filling the bag given by the farm with our tickets. I wasted no space for them in my bag, and waited patiently for us to reach the white peach grove just down the hill. I couldn’t fill the bag with enough, it seemed. In the end, I think Mike, my daughter and I ate her weight in peaches before riding back on the tractor-rig. The sticky, dribbling juice on our chins and collars was a dead giveaway.

Once home and out of “context,” what seemed like an OK amount of fruit in the orchard turned into four insurmountable mountains of peaches that consumed the kitchen counters. We gave some to all the grandparents, ate a few more after Saturday dinner, sliced some at breakfast on Sunday, but were still left with a ton of fruit.

“Make a pie already!”

I think Mike expected one to magically appear from my oven the second we arrived home on Saturday afternoon. Good things come to those who wait: it was a warm and juicy midnight snack on Sunday night when Mike came home from a late news shift.

The ripe peaches peeled perfectly. Use the same process as for peeling tomatoes: shallowly score the bottom with an “X” . Briefly plunge them into simmering water. Remove, cool momentarily and slide the skin off.

As outlined in Pie 101, I flavored this crust with some cinnamon, doused the peaches in honey-bourbon, added the requisite cup of solids and made a lattice top. Baked peaches can be even more flavorful and concentrated than they are eaten raw.

We still have a lot of peaches left. We have a tentative get-together planned later this week, and if it comes together I’ll do a sponge base drenched in Amaretto simple syrup, a vanilla bean pastry cream (or maybe I’ll simply flavor some Mascarpone cheese), and sliced peaches overlapped in a radiant sunburst. A garnish of toasted, slivered almonds is optional – I’ll see if the mood strikes me. There’s no hot oven heating the summer kitchen involved in that one, and the peaches are ripening and sweetening as I type. Imagine what they’ll be like by the weekend.

Waiting for the Rain

The rain was supposed to come on Sunday, so we headed out in the morning to check the beds and harvest what had grown while the weather was still dry.

Pay dirt!

The chard was tall, thick and plentiful – just look at the glossy green leaves on the white variety. The radicchio (the last two of four heads) was huge, with green outer leaves and large, burgundy spherical centers. I removed the outer leaves (they can be pretty bitter), but kept them to wilt on a hot grill, which mitigates the flavor. The lemon cucumbers are coming in nicely, adding to the Kirby cucumber haul. We’ve been picking both red and orange cherry tomatoes for weeks, which never make it to the table; they’re so sweet straight off the vine. But our first really large tomato (German Gold, a pale orange variety) came off the vine with ease on Sunday. We left her blushing sisters to ripen just a bit further. We’ve got both Rosa Bianca and slender white eggplants on their way, as well as three dark green acorn squashes (too early!) almost ready to be picked and vines full of tennis-ball sized babies that should ripen into a basketful come September.

But no zucchini. Or pattypan squash. Naturally, just as soon as I’d made the boast that I was giving away mountains of produce did nature strike me back for the brag.

Last Sunday, we experienced a long, torrential downpour with force so violent that the beds were severely beaten down and some structures blown over. We lost power into the night as well. After righting the tomato cages and pole bean obelisks when the rain let up, I surveyed the damage. The center bed consisting mainly of squash had really taken a hit.

“Oh, they’ll bounce back,” I told myself. “They always do.” By midweek, some leaves were back up and filling in, but not many. Yesterday, I really looked: the storm severed a lot of the rambling vines right off of their main stems. Whatever little orbs I had growing on the vines before the storm were hollow, soft or simply dead. The vines themselves are bleached and turning dry. The main stems are trying to send off new shoots – nature is amazing – so I’ll keep you up to date on their success.

This weekend’s rain never did come. I really need to water, not just to keep up production, but to nurture the squash bed back to health.

But for now, let’s break even on Eco-nomics – I knew the chard would put me over the top. To be honest, I more than broken even a while ago. I haven’t been keeping up on the harvest tally like last year, and beyond this date, I may not do it to the dollar. Oh, the garden is producing – don’t get me wrong, I’ve picked more salads than I care to calculate, not even tallying the first two heads of radicchio – but I think I’ll keep a roundabout running total offline and approximate at the end of the season. And anyway, my pricing is admittedly somewhat less than scientific this time around and as last year, a bit on the low side.

Triple bale of chard $5
Radicchio $5
3 lbs cukes @ $.99/lb $2.97
3+ lbs cherry & other tomatoes @ $1.29 $3.87
2 lbs purple and yellow beans @1.29 $2.58
From $6.86 in the red last time: Ahead by $12.56

Mâche Salad with Quail Eggs

You’re only as good as your ingredients.

Well, if the fresh-picked mâche I served last night together with soft-boiled quail eggs, fragrant blushing apricots, soft baby sage leaves, glossy thyme and you-could-cut-it-with-a-spoon pork tenderloin were any indication, then I was Thomas Keller.

I’d been dying to use the lamb’s ear lettuce that I allowed to grow into little poufy bouquets. When I stumbled upon a dozen-pack of quail eggs at the farmer’s market this weekend, I knew I had to get them. Paired with the mache, a sweet sherry-shallot vinaigrette and just the right amount of yolk-ooze for richness, it was divinity on earth. Plus, my daughter loved just peeling and eating the little taupe and brown speckled orbs.

Also at the farmer’s market I found not just apricots, but fresh, firm, fragrant blushing apricots, boxes upon boxes that someone was physically removing from a trolley and emptying into a bin. I halved them, added a very little drizzle of honey, fresh chopped thyme, a crack of black pepper and canola oil. The honey is optional, really, because the fruit will caramelize into its own glossy glaze on the grill. The apricots behaved perfectly: they kept their shape once cooked, and developed the most sensuous sheen and sweetly savory flavor. I topped them with a drizzle of fig balsamic vinegar upon serving, and ringed them around the pork tenderloin on the serving platter.

For the pork, I blended in a Ziploc bag at least 1/4 cup of honey, a good dose my husband’s Evan Williams Reserve Honey Bourbon, two large cloves of microplaned garlic, sea salt, ground pepper and chopped thyme. The honey helped create the most incredible crust, further enhanced by a final sprinkle of sea salt before serving. I put the tenderloin on a blazing hot grill, turned it only twice, and that was it. I grilled the apricots while the pork rested.

To round out the meal, I went with an old favorite: white potatoes and sweet potatoes tossed in my Sherry vinegar, shallot and sage dressing. They’re good hot, cold, room temperature and especially the day after. I believe I’ve written about them before.

This all sounds elaborate, but the integration of ingredients on hand and the thread of common herbs and flavors across each dish was both fluidly intuitive and deliciously complementary. Each element just made sense. And it was, honestly, all fairly quick. Only peeling the potatoes was somewhat time consuming. The rest was toss, grill, serve and – most importantly - enjoy.

Honestly, I picked up my daughter from camp and gave her a snack after arriving home at 4:00 p.m. We chatted, she wanted some TV, and out of nowhere it was suddenly 5:00. To the tunes of Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons Greatest Hits, I started by picking my herbs outside and had everything on the table at 6:00 on the dot. I was completely in the zone.

I feel guilty for admitting the ease, because it also felt so good to serve a special weekday meal like this for just the three of us.

Eco-Nomics
Mâche from the garden: $5 (easily. I can’t believe what a single miniature plastic shell of this costs at Fairway, if they have it.)
Still in the red by $6.86. So close and yet so far!

Stuffed Squash

Earlier than anticipated, I’m already giving away produce.

One eight-ball zucchini plant produced her first little squash well over two weeks ago and the rest of them, obviously jealous, have been pumping them out to keep up. I had forgotten how productive summer squash can be once you pick the first fruit. The pale, tender green variety has been the most productive, but the sunny yellow and dark green types are catching up.

Either way, those sweet little orbs have made their way to friends and family. In our household, they’ve been cut into sticks to dip in hummus, halved and grilled, sliced and steamed, and as of last night, stuffed.

I first prepared cous cous then blended in Greek gigante beans in a light tomato base with a touch of garlic. I cut the stem tops off the squashes, hollowed out the inside, the slicked them (inside & out) with a little olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper. I quickly grilled them to blister the outsides and lightly sweeten the flavor while keeping the squash still firm. Once removed from the grill, I spooned in the cous cous mixture, topped them all with a final crunch of sea salt and a drizzle of olive oil, then served them with roasted red and yellow peppers fresh from the grill, which my husband chopped roughly and used as a garnish.

Squash aside, we’ve also harvested two pounds of wax beans and easily two pounds of Kirby cucumbers. Those barely make it to the table or into salads, as they’re just so crisp and delicious eaten whole while sitting on the patio, straight off the vine.

2 lbs wax beans @ $1.29 / $2.58
2 lbs cukes @ $.99 / $1.98
Conservatively, 5 lbs zucchini @ $.99 / $4.95
Many Salads of green & red looseleaf lettuce $2
Harvested: $11.51
Offsetting last “in the red” total of $23.37:
Still in the red by $11.86, but quickly closing the gap.

Grilled Butternut Squash

Sunday may have been Father’s Day, but the evening was a veritable celebration of Mother Earth.

I served a fresh-picked salad, added a flurry of basil over the main chicken dish and a chiffonade of sage over the sides, and presented a rhubarb pie sprinkled with fresh black raspberries for dessert - all of which came from the backyard.

Plus, I used the last of my butternut squash that was harvested last fall. Which is good, because I have eight Waltham Butternut Squash plants growing like gangbusters in my middle bed.

I couldn’t believe how well the squash was preserved after all this time. Once cut open, it was sweetly glistening and still as orange as I remembered that the first-picked were.

I wanted to go beyond the wintry preparations and pureés of squash that we’re all used to, so I thought of a classic combination to vary: butternut squash, sage and shaved parmesan cheese. I cut the two large squashes lengthwise, then spritzed some cooking spray on the outer skin sides. I then rubbed a blend of olive oil, garlic, sea salt, pepper and a touch of white wine vinegar to the flesh. I topped it all with the sage I’d picked while gathering basil leaves and salad greens.

I preheated the grill to about 400 degrees – a good roasting temperature – then placed the squash on, flesh side up, and closed the top so the grill would act as an oven. I turned them over after 15 minutes, when the sage had frizzled a bit and the garlic and olive oil had sizzled their way into flavoring the flesh of the squash.

Two rotations later (got to get those grill marks!) I removed them and immediately re-seasoned with a little salt and pepper, then the parmesan.

The skin was delicate and papery, but nutty and earthy, completely crumbly and edible. The flesh was soft and tasty even after a full period of winter and spring storage. In a way, I was sad to see the last of my squash go, but am really looking forward to this year’s harvest.

Eating Our Way Through the Backyard

It has begun.

On Saturday evening, my daughter ate her way through the backyard. Starting with our black raspberry bush, whose canes are producing like gangbusters this year, she picked the outer few while I waded into the thorny underbrush to get the rest. Dee-lish! After that, we hit the sugar snap peas, swollen from recent rain for the loudest “snap” with each sweet bite. She ventured on to both purple and green basil – a nice garnish, she said. I nibbled some outer leaves of my mache to try, but she took a pass and “traded” me for my share of the sugar snaps. We’ve also picked the equivalent of a $3.99 grocery-store clamshell of mesclun for a few salads so far this year.

It wasn’t exactly a feast that night, but it was fun and it really felt like summer again.

And, like last year, things are just coming up on their own from seeds, compost, buried kitchen scraps or whatever wintered over. So far, we’ve got two types of climbing beans and no fewer than a dozen “secret” tomato plants popping up in the squash beds and elsewhere, which I have thinned to six of the strongest plants. The biggest surprise? Our secret potatoes. I looked out the back window last month during a rainy weekend and kept wondering about this weed, or something, that just kept getting bigger and bigger. When I ventured out on that finally-dry Monday afternoon, I recognized it immediately: it was a potato plant! Did we miss one of the fingerlings or russets during the harvest last year? I laughed so hard.

The funny thing is that when I told my daughter upon picking her up from kindergarten, she bolted out of the car and into the backyard, hunted around a bit then quickly identified it. Yes, we all know what a potato looks like, but how many of you out there know what the actual plant looks like?

That’s my girl. I’m proud of her. And the fun really has begun.

Eco-nomics update:
Romano Bean Seeds $0.80
Kirby Cucumbers $1.99
4-Pack of Tomatoes w/5 plants $1.99
Acorn Squash $1.79
Eggplants – 2 pks @$1.99 $3.98
Sugar Baby Watermelons $1.98
Subtotal: $10.55
Added to previous total $18.31
Total Spent: $28.86

Harvested:
Picked salad greens $3.99
Handfuls of sugar snaps $1.50

In the black by: $23.37