Pflaumkuchen - Plum Cake

Plum Cake

Many years ago a German friend introduced me to the delights of pflaumkuchen.  It’s a tasty little cake with halved plums imbedded in the top.  This year we finally have plums on our Italian prune plum tree.  The previous 2 years yielded nothing because of cool, wet weather when the tree was in blossom.  Fortunately, it was warm this past spring during the crucial pollination time.  The tree isn’t loaded as there was a big fruit drop that we put down to the summer’s extreme dryness, but there’s enough for our needs.  We’ll dry some, eat lots fresh and today I made a plum cake.  Here’s the easy recipe I used.

Plum Cake

½ cup butter

¾ cup sugar

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 eggs

pinch of salt

halved, pitted Italian prune plums (20 to 24 halves)

2 Tbsp sugar plus 1 tsp cinnamon mixed for the topping

Preheat the oven to 350 ° F.

Cream the butter and sugar.  Add the eggs, then flour, baking powder and salt.  Beat to mix well.  Spoon the batter into an ungreased 9” or 10” springform pan.  Cover the top with plum halves, skin side down.  Sprinkle the sugar/cinnamon on top.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  Serve with vanilla ice cream.

This recipe freezes well, so I plan on making more to tuck away for winter usage.

Tomatoes!

Harvest time is exciting because it provides the makings for dishes you create the rest of the year.  Tomatoes are one of the more important crops we grow.  Of course they're great fresh, but when cooked up with other vegetables and herbs from the garden, they're indispensable components of some of our favourite meals.

Today the garden yielded up ingredients for cooking sauces - tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers and basil - which will top pasta or simmer with meat and vegetables to make a delicious stew. Everything except the olive oil, salt and pepper came from our backyard.

The components of a cooking sauce

I am a messy cook, just as I'm a messy gardener, and a professional chef, I'm sure, would cringe at how I put together my cooking sauces, but they're quick, easy and always turn out great.

I start by sautéing the onions until they're transparent, then add the garlic.  Then I roughly chop in the tomatoes, just taking off the stem ends.  Then the pepper (in this case a Hungarian Wax Pepper for a bit of heat) is added with the stem end and seeds removed.  The whole shebang is brought to a simmer and then slowly bubbles away until it's nice and thick.  Near the end, I'll add the basil, salt and pepper to taste.  A purist would shudder, I'm sure, but I leave the skins and seeds on the tomatoes.  When the sauce is done to my liking, I blend it up in my food processor until it's smooth.  I'm a firm believer in skins being a healthy part of the vegetable.  The finished sauce will be bagged in meal-size portions and frozen for use during the winter.

A variety of ingredients make a delicious sauce

Now a word about the tomatoes.  This year I grew Stiletz, Sasha's Altai, Gold Dust, Principe Borghese, Gold Nugget and Sweet Baby Girl.  I've tried to grow plum tomatoes in the past - I know they'd make the best sauces - but have never had much success with them, so I rely on my regular tomatoes to do the job.

This year we had a very cold, wet spring which got things off to a slow start.  When the first Stiletz tomatoes started to bulk up, I was quite startled to see unusual growth.  Several tomatoes were sporting tomatoes on tomatoes on tomatoes out through the blossom end!  I've never seen that before, but then this was the first year I'd grown Stiletz.

Cat-faced tomatoes - meow!

I snapped a picture and sent it to Helen Chesnut who writes a column in the Victoria Times-Colonist.  She kindly replied to my query and also put it in her column.  Apparently the strange tomatoes were the result of our unusual spring weather and sure enough, all the successive tomatoes were just fine.  It's called "cat-facing" although I've never seen cat faces like that!  And I might add, that after cutting off the odd protuberances, these ones tasted great.

The whole house is filled with the fragrant aroma of onions and garlic.  I'm grateful to be able to provide some of the food that will nourish us come winter.  In these days of skyrocketing fuel prices which push up the cost of everything we purchase, it's more important than ever to be as self-sufficient as possible.  Before long, the basic necessities of life will become impossibly expensive.  We need to grow what we can and purchase as much as we can locally, supporting farmers nearby so that they can continue to maintain their operations.

Enough lecturing!  It's time to check the sauce.

It's not just about the veggies

We live on a Gulf Island and Gulf Islands are not known for deep, rich soil.  Our vegetable garden is on the top of a rocky plateau because that’s the area on our property that gets the most sunshine.  We have tucked a pond into the side of the plateau.  

The Pond, October 2012

It’s fairly large – about 10’ by 14’ – and about 5’ deep in the middle.  The sides slope steeply to prevent the Great Blue Herons from getting a toehold to feast on our fish – goldfish and one lone koi.  There are some planting ledges, but the koi seems to make water gardening a non-event.

The pond has been in the works for about 5 years now.  We had the area dug out by machine – with all the rocks, doing it by hand was an impossibility! The backhoe operator then bolstered up the side of the excavation to create the pond. A lined drystone creek leads from my potting shed to the pond.  When it rains, water from the roof of the shed falls into the creek and makes its way downstream to the pond.  All water is precious on a Gulf Island!

Frozen Pond Winter 2009

We have slowly (emphasis on the word “slowly”) been working on it – landscaping the sides, planting trees to provide a bit of shade and generally making this garden room a pleasant place to spend time in.  And nature has been at work as well.  Two different types of frogs have made their way to our pond.  They did try to spawn in it, but the koi made short work of that!  And a bulrush seeded itself in a pot of yellow water irises!

Rana Aurora

We are still a long way from completion.  Next year’s – or is it years’ – plans include installing a pump and filter, finishing the walkway on the left of the pond, and paving a portion of the grassy area at the front to create a seating area.  Like any garden, it’s always a work in progress!

Planning for Next Year

This is the time of year when gardeners take stock.  What worked?  What didn’t?  What will next year’s experiment be?  What will I try to do better?

Successes

Fordhook chard is always a winner.  It grows vigorously, is slow to bolt and the stems are just as delicious as the leaves.  This year I planted a fall crop and I’ll definitely do that again.

Young Fordhook Swiss Chard Plant

Stiletz tomatoes.  I didn’t grow enough!  Okay, I had 4 plants, but I needed more.  This tomato is early, big, juicy and doesn’t have a lot of seeds.  The plants are determinate, which means that they don’t need as much staking as the vine tomatoes.  Next year I need to start about a dozen plants for my own needs and to give away to friends.

Lacinato kale.  This heritage kale is tall, but due to its growth habit, doesn’t take up as much room as some other varieties.  And it’s pretty, too – the leaves look like ostrich plumes!  Not really a winter kale, I'll have to grow another variety as well.

Snow pea fence.  I might be able to count this as a success.  The peas haven’t reached full height yet, but so far my zig zag fence is working.  I took a length of wire fencing and folded it back and forth in 3’ sections, then stretched it out a bit and anchored in place with bamboo poles.  It’s stable, providing sufficient support and the bamboo poles threaded through the wire seem to be holding it in place.  When the peas are finished, I’ll burn the dried plants off with a blow torch, fold it up and tuck it away for the winter.

Zig Zag Snow Pea Fence - not the best photo!

Failures

Sasha’s Altai tomatoes.  What a disappointment this one was.  The first tomatoes were small, which is okay if all you plan on using the tomatoes for is salads, but since I need tomatoes for salsa, I need bigger ones.  Its indeterminate growth habit means that it needs stouter staking.  The extra work is just not worth the result.

Rhubarb chard.  Pretty, but not reliable enough.  This chard bolted almost immediately!  I guess my raised beds are just too warm for most chards.

Next Year’s Experiment

Must grow shiso – or perilla.  It’s a member of the mint family.  I bought a bunch at Jollity Farm’s market garden.   Samples of shiso cordial were given out as well as the recipe for making it.  When I got home, I made the cordial, which is wonderful mixed with tonic water or club soda – also gin or vodka!  I plan on buying more shiso, but I’d like to grow it for myself as well.  Now if only I could find some seeds….

Next Year’s Resolutions

Rhubarb.  I have such a problem with this.  We don’t have enough soil to grow it properly.  Last year I cleaned out the “rose bed” which never really got off the ground and planted the rhubarb in there.  I bedded it down thickly with maple leaves and put in drip watering to supply the moisture.  It didn’t work.  Possibly there isn’t enough organic matter in the soil there to hold the moisture as the soil’s pretty sandy.  I’ll keep topping it up with maple leaves and eventually maybe I’ll win.  There’s nowhere else to go.

Onions.  A lot of the Copra and Candy onions went to seed this year.  Much of it was due to the cool wet spring we had, but some of the problem was the shade that the onion bed had.  There was lots of sunshine on the onions, but a small arbutus tree provided a spot of shade at one point in the afternoon.  That tree is coming down this winter, but I’m also going to grow onions in the bed that housed the basil next year.  No shade there!  And grow more!  Copra stores extremely well and you never have too many onions.

Principe Borghese tomatoes.  I only grew 2 plants this year and I needed a lot more.  This little cherry tomato is a mini-plum.  It’s pretty bland when eaten fresh, but once dehydrated it has flavour in spades.  It’s the only tomato I dry.  Next year I need at least 4 plants so I have plenty for my own needs and enough to give away. 

The Best Apple Crisp Ever!

One of the great things about having a garden is getting to cook with your own ingredients.  Today I made an apple crisp using our own stripy Gravenstein apples and the raisins I just finished dehydrating.  The apple crisp recipe I've been using for years has a short-bready type crust and it always brings compliments.  Since I didn't have any walnuts on hand, I skipped that part (the walnuts really finish the crisp beautifully) and added the raisins to the filling instead.

Gravenstein Apples

Filling:
6 tart apples
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp lemon juice

Peel, core and slice the apples into a bowl. Mix the filling ingredients together and put in a buttered oven-proof bowl.

Filling waiting for the topping

Topping:
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tbsp butter
1/4 cup chopped nut meats

Blend the topping ingredients to a crumbly consistency.  Add the nuts and sprinkle over the apple mixture.  Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees F, or until the apples are tender and the crust is nicely browned.  Wonderful with whipped cream or ice cream.

Apple Crisp!  Yum!

Grapes to Raisins

We have a very nice Candice grape vine off the back of the garage.  It grows over an arbour which also shades the dog's yard.  And no, when grapes are ripe and in danger of falling in the run, the dog is not put in there because grapes are very bad for dogs!

We never seem to get many grapes because just when they reach ripeness, the raccoons arrive and clean us out.  The first we realize that we've been robbed again is when we hear thumping on the roof and many rapid little footsteps - and by then, of course, it's much too late.  Grapes are ripe enough when they feel soft to the touch, taste sweet and have a bloom on them.

Only once have we ever gotten grapes for ourselves.  About 4 years ago we had a bumper harvest and beat out the raccoons.  I had enough grapes to give lots to friends and to make raisins!  And this year we seem to have another good harvest, so hubby and I were out last night picking bunches which had ripened. Since there was no time to process the grapes last night and today was a busy day, the processing took place tonight.

Candice grapes washed and ready for stripping

I washed the bunches carefully and picked off wizened grapes.  I think these were exposed to the birds who were trying to get in ahead of the raccoons.  My dehydrator trays were nice and clean from last year, so all I had to do was strip off the grapes and fill the trays.  I know I should have taken more care in placing them so they didn't touch, but too bad!  If some stick together it's no big deal.  After reading up on the Internet, the dehydrator was set for 12 hours at 135 degrees F.

Stripping grapes

I still have a few of the raisins I processed last time.  Perhaps I may have dried them a bit too long, but I understand now that this makes them last longer.  I also read that if you add a wee bit of water to the raisins and give them a few seconds in the microwave, it softens them up.  I've always done it by soaking them for a few minutes in hot water and then using the hot water in whatever I'm baking.

The raisins I've gotten in the past have been superb.  Candice grapes make a really grapey-tasting raisin. Hopefully there'll be more grapes to harvest as there are still quite a few bunches up in the arbour getting riper.  It would be very nice if the raccoons gave me another raisin year!

2 Days Later:  The grapes took much longer to dehydrate than I'd expected - probably 36 hours in all.  At the end of it, though, I have a nice little container of delicious raisins to tuck away.  Here's what they look like.

Quinoa

Today I processed the quinoa.  I wish I'd taken pictures of this, but I was so busy "doing" that there just wasn't time!

Quinoa is one of the valuable ancient grains.  It's related to the humble pigweed and looks very much like it.  I purchased my seeds from West Coast Seeds and started the plants in the potting shed. Once the plants were tall enough, they were transplanted to one of the beds which, of course, had been augmented with compost and homemade fertilizer.  They grew quickly and were kept watered with a drip hose.  To my surprise they topped out at over 6' tall.  I now know that they don't need as much water as I gave them.  When they get too much water they grow very tall and start to tip over.  Indeed, that happened to mine!

They were very attractive plants - sorry no pictures - with frothy red, yellow and orange seed heads.  I watched them carefully as August came to a close and handled the seed heads frequently to see when the seeds were going to start falling.

When I noticed seeds in my hands, I started cutting the more advanced plants and lay the tops out on shallow trays in the potting shed.  When all were totally dry, I stripped the dried flowers and seeds into the trays and put the bare stems in the compost.

The attempt at winnowing wasn't much of a success.  There was a light wind and I poured the mass back and forth, managing to lose some of the chaff - and some of the seeds.  Finally gave up and poured the whole harvest into a huge bowl of water, drawing off the floating chaff as the seeds fell to the bottom.  Okay, mission accomplished.  Now on to the processing!

Quinoa seeds are covered with saponin, a soapy coating which means that birds don't eat them.  It's bitter and unpleasant tasting.  This has to be removed.  I'd read that you can put the quinoa into pillow cases and give them lots of rinses in the washer, but I don't have that much, so I spun them in my food processor with a dull, plastic blade.  Many, many, many times!  And rinsed between processing.  It's a very messy procedure indeed!  When seeds chewed finally didn't taste bitter, I dumped the seeds into a baking tray, spread them out and they now sit in the potting shed to dry.  I could dry them in my dehydrator, but I'm afraid that might be too warm.  I only hope that after all the work I've put in they don't go mouldy on me!

Will I grow quinoa again?  Probably not.  They take up a full bed that could be put to use growing something else.  And all the work involved for about a litre of seeds doesn't seem to be all that worthwhile.  However, if I change my mind, I'm sure there'll be millions of little quinoa plants sprouting up in the garden to choose from!

September Song

This blog is intended for my own purposes - to chart my progress in the garden and help me remember what I'm doing.  I decided to start it in the fall as this is the time for planting garlic - that wonderful, easy and so worthwhile crop!  Most of our gardening is done in concrete raised beds with solid bottoms which drain.  This is because of the cedar trees which insinuate their roots everywhere!  I like my hard work to go to vegetables, not trees.

The Garlic Bed

This year the garlic will grow in a bed that previously was home for quinoa - this year's experiment.  Before that, corn and beans took pride of place, so this would be a good year to grow garlic.  The bed was readied by turning over, incorporating 2 wheelbarrows of compost - complete with red wiggler worms and more turning over and watering.  Finally a good dose of my homemade fertilizer, courtesy of Steve Solomon, was sprinkled over the bed, lightly turned over and raked in.

Garlic Cloves Ready for Planting

Now it was ready for the garlic.  I am growing 2 varieties which I originally bought from Salt Spring Seeds and have now forgotten the name.  Could be Mountain, could be Northern Quebec.  I do know they are lovely big cloves.  One is tall (30 cloves planted) and the other shorter (20 cloves planted).  The whole bed was finished off with a mulch of finely shredded maple leaves and watered in well.  Now I wait until late winter to see the first green shoots breaking their way through.

This year I have also planted some fall crops.  With advice from a fellow gardener, I planted carrot seeds in 6" pots - 9 to a pot) and once spouted, put the whole pot in the ground.  It works extremely well!  Much better success with carrots this year than in previous years.  Beside the last planting of carrots I put in a short row of Fordhook Swiss Chard.  It's a lovely big chard with tasty ribs which is slow to bolt.

Fordhook Swiss Chard and Scarlet Nantes Carrots

Finally, I planted snow peas on a zig-zag fence which is anchored by bamboo canes.  I'm hoping this will be more successful than on woven canes which I set up for my last planting of this variety - Oregon Giant.  Was the name perhaps a give-away that the printed information of 4' tall was perhaps incorrect?  Anyway - gardening is always an experiment, isn't it?

Oregon Giant Snow Peas Almost Ready to Flower

And I finish off with a shot of some of the Copra Onions which have been harvested and are drying in the potting shed.  This year I also grew a sweet onion variety called Candy which is supposed to store well.

Copra Onions Drying in the Potting Shed

Oh, and about the quinoa!  It's one of those wonderful ancient grains and this year I decided to try it.  The plants grew well, topping off over 6' which seems to me quite tall for being grown in what is essentially a container.  Once the seeds started to separate from the frothy yellow, orange and red tops, I cut them and am drying them on trays in the potting shed.  The fun will come when I try to separate the seeds from the chaff - or whatever you call non-seed material on quinoa.  But that's a subject for another day.