Seared Cherry Tomato Spaghettini

As mentioned in the previous post, today I had a surplus of cherry tomatoes.  A week ago, I saw an appealing recipe which used cherry tomatoes and here was an excellent opportunity to try it out.  I made a couple of changes - such as reducing the salt - but it was a definite winner and we'll be having it again.  It's certainly quick and easy - only takes about 15 minutes to make if you have all the ingredients prepared ahead of time.

Yum!  Quick and easy pasta dinner.

Seared Cherry Tomato Spaghettini

12 oz spaghettini
1/2 cup of reserved pasta water
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups cherry tomatoes halved
2 Tbsp dried bread crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
3 cloves garlic sliced
pinch of crushed hot pepper flakes
1/3 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

Cook pasta according to package directions.  Drain and reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water.

Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat 1 Tbsp of oil over medium-high heat.  Saute tomatoes until lightly seared (about 1 minute).  Sprinkle with bread crumbs and salt, toss to coat.  Remove from the pan and set aside.

Add remaining 1 Tbsp of oil to the pan.  Cook the garlic and hot pepper flakes over medium high heat until fragrant and softened (about 2 minutes).  Add tomato mixture, pasta and reserved pasta water, stirring to combine.  Toss with parmesan cheese and basil.  Serves 4.

Harvesting Tomatoes

Cherry tomatoes - Sweet Baby Girl, Gold Nugget and Honey Bee

After our usual dry summer we've had a nice spell of rain.  Nothing waters the ground like rain.  I've been keeping the tomatoes well hydrated, but when I went up to pick tomatoes today, there were lots of cherry tomatoes with cracks.  It happens every time!  Since these tomatoes need to be dealt with immediately, I decided to make tomato sauce with them.  Cherry tomatoes make delicious sauces.  The ingredients were all immediately to hand - tomatoes, onions, garlic and basil.  You can vary it with peppers, thyme and add other ingredients such as carrots, zucchini - whatever takes your fancy.  Here's how I made it today:

Simple Tomato Sauce

3 quarts of cherry tomatoes
1 large onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
3 Tbsp olive oil
3 quarts of cherry tomatoes, stems removed, of course!
handful of basil leaves - chiffonaded*
Salt & pepper to taste and you can add a little sugar as well

Saute the onions in olive oil until they are partly softened.  Then add the garlic and continue sauteing until softened.  Add the cherry tomatoes.  I didn't chop them, just squashed them a little to hasten the breakdown.  Simmer until the mixture has thickened somewhat.  Cool slightly and blend in a food processor.  Put back in the pan and add the basil.  Reheat until the basil is limp and season with salt and pepper.  A little sugar will balance the acidity although cherry tomatoes already have sweetness.  Cool, package and freeze.

I place two-soup ladle scoop amounts in ziplock bags which yields sufficient sauce for two-person spaghetti meals.

* How to chiffonade:  roll the leaves up into a bundle and slice thinly with a sharp knife.  You wind up with thin ribbons of basil which will provide flavour, texture and colour to your sauce.

Oxtail Soup

Yes, really!  Well, I had to buy the oxtails, barley and celery.  Nearly all the rest of the ingredients came from my garden.

Next week, my grandson and his father are coming for a visit while his mother presents at a conference.  My grandson is at that toddler stage in which meat is an anathema.  Some time ago when he was visiting, he really tucked into a bowl of oxtail soup, so I'm hoping this soup will be received with the same relish as last time.

Whenever I make it, this soup is just a little different based upon what I have on hand at the time.  With lots of fresh vegetables available in the garden, there was an abundance to choose from today.  A picking of beans  revealed a number hidden in the leaves which were a little too advanced - they'll soften nicely in the soup.  One Scarlet Nantes carrot sufficed - it was huge!  The dried tomatoes were from last year.  Since this soup takes time to make, I've put the recipe in steps.  It might sound complicated, but it's not and the resulting soup is one of my favourites.  Here's how I made it today:

Oxtail Soup

Step One
4 big oxtails
3 litres of water
2 Tbsp olive oil

In a large pot, bring the water to a boil. Meanwhile, pat the oxtails dry and heat the olive oil in a large frying pan.  Sear the oxtails.  Contrary to what I used to think, this doesn't keep the moisture in.  It caramelizes the outer layer of the meat and lends richness of flavour and colour to the dish.  Put the oxtails in the water, bring back to the boil, then lower the temperature and simmer slowly until the meat falls off the bone.  Don't forget to scrape the frying pan for all the extra bits to add to the soup!  The simmering will probably take about 4 hours.  Take the pot off the stove, cool and then refrigerate overnight.  The fat will congeal on the top, making removal easy.  Next morning, remove the fat.  Take the meat off the bones (which you'll discard along with excess fat) and chop it up small.

Step Two

2 stalks of celery, diced
3 handfuls of dried tomatoes
2 handfuls of barley (pot or pearl - I had pearl on hand)
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tbsp olive oil

Bring the broth up to a boil (you may have to add more water if the broth has lost a lot) and lower the temperature to a simmer.  Add the chopped meat, barley, dried tomatoes and celery.  In a frying pan, sauté the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is golden brown.  Again, you're caramelizing the onion.  Add to the soup and simmer until the barley is tender.  This will probably take another half hour.

Step Three

1 very large carrot cut in 1/2" chunks
1 cup of sliced beans.
Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste

Add the carrot and beans and simmer until tender.  Then add the Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper to taste.

This soup freezes very well.

Easy Banana Bread with Raisins and Walnuts

There's an excellent crop of grapes this year on the grape arbour at the back of the garage.  The vine is Candice which produces sweet-tart seedless grapes that are small and pinkish - perfect for making raisins.  Raccoons permitting, there might also be an excellent crop of raisins!  I still have lots of last year's raisins as well as a bunch of over-ripe bananas, so it's time to make banana bread.

This is one of the easiest recipes for banana bread I've found.  Since I always seem to have over-ripe bananas on hand, I generally double the recipe, cut the loaves in half and freeze for later use.  The recipe calls for 2/3 cup of sugar, but since I add raisins, I cut the sugar back to 1/2 cup.  The original recipe didn't call for the addition of raisins or walnuts, but we like it this way.

Easy Banana Bread with Raisins and Walnuts

2 eggs
1/3 cup butter
2 ripe bananas, peeled and broken into pieces
1/2 cup sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup raisins
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Combine eggs, butter, bananas and sugar in a food processor (or blender).  Process for 30 seconds or until smooth.  Combine dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Add nuts and raisins.  Add wet ingredients to dry and stir only until combined.  Pour into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until done.  (I usually wind up baking it for 60 minutes) Turn out of pan to cool on a rack.  Allow to cool thoroughly before you slice.  Freezes well.

Volunteers

In any sane, organized person's garden, volunteers are called weeds.  I certainly pull out my share of weeds and use mulches where I can to control them.  There is a definite place, however, in my garden for volunteers.

Foxgloves immediately come to mind when I think of weeds which are welcome to make my garden their home.  Unless they actually show up in a raised bed or the middle of a path, I leave foxgloves alone.  Their stately spires are a good food source for bees and I just think they look lovely.

Currant bush against the potting shed

The currant bush which has grown up against the potting shed is another volunteer.  It looks like a cross between the enormous King Edward bush below the potting shed and the currant bushes I gave up on in the garden as the birds nearly always got most of the crop.  My volunteer has blooms which are a darker pink than the King Edward, but produces berries which I leave for the chickadees and their fluttery babies.  Right now this bush is looking pretty motley because it was pruned back severely so we could install the UV light for the pond, but it won't take long to grow back again and its location means that it must be kept small.

Parsley gone to seed

The flat Italian parsley is another welcome plant in my garden.  I seeded this variety a number of years ago and it turns up regularly in a flowerbed above the pond.  I can nearly always find some parsley thanks to the freely-cast seeds of this useful plant.  Similarly, oregano appears all over the garden - mostly where I don't want it!  There's even a clump of it growing in a grassy area which sends up a delicious, spicy scent whenever it's mowed.

Bright Lights swiss chard growing in the snow pea bed

A couple of years ago, my neighbour Beth gave me some Bright Lights swiss chard plants.  My garden is pretty warm and this variety goes to seed quite easily which is why I generally don't grow it.  A recent weeding in the snow pea bed turned up a lot of little swiss chard plants, easily recognized by their colorful stems.  Some I transplanted to more open areas and others I left where they were growing.  Now that we're heading to fall, Bright Lights swiss chard will be a very useful addition to the winter garden.

Bright Lights in the strawberry bed

I even discovered a well-grown plant in the new strawberry bed!  Of course, I left it.

Beth's Big Fat Tomato

And naturally Beth's Big Fat Tomato was originally a volunteer.  I don't think my plant is producing tomatoes as big as the parent plant, but with a volunteer, you never know what you're going to get.  I do know, however, that this plant is very productive and the tomatoes are just starting to ripen.

Arugula going to seed

Several years ago, a friend gave me several small arugula plants from volunteers in her garden.  This is the wild arugula and of all the varieties of arugula, I like this one best.  It's everywhere in my garden, but quite easy to pull out.

A young arugula seedling popping up beside the snow peas

The bed that is now growing the fall crop of snow peas had the original arugula plants in it and any time the soil is turned over, thousands of little arugula plants appear!   And in my turn, I've passed along lots of little wild arugula plants as well.

I certainly have my share of weeds - chickweed, herb robert, snapweed, wild geranium and many others whose names I don't know - but many other so-called weeds, judiciously transplanted, are more than welcome to take up a spot in my garden.

Onions and Garlic - Chores for a Grey Day

Today our weather is cool and cloudy.  There are possible showers on the horizon which will be very welcome on our dry little island.  The onions aren't as dry as I'd like them, but I want to keep them that way, so it was time to complete the harvest.

I'll have to use these onions first.

I started cutting the tops from them and putting them in a plant tray.  The cut tops, however, still looked quite juicy and it occurred to me that the onions might lose more moisture through the cut tops than was good for them.  I'd attempted braiding onions before - quite unsuccessfully, I might add - but perhaps it was time to give it another try.  This time the work went much better.  I'd hate for a true efficient to view my amateurish efforts, but it does the job.  I discovered that if I place the onion being added to the braid at the side that's being brought to the centre, the whole process is a lot smoother.  I tied the tops with twine, made a loop and hung them from nails in the potting shed.  They can complete their curing there and then eventually be brought indoors for storage.

Amateurish onion braiding!

Then it was time to turn my attention to the garlic.  As I said in an earlier post, this year's crop is a bit disappointing.  Next year's garlic, which will be planted in a few weeks, will get the benefit of lots of SeaSoil.  Today, I trimmed the tops and roots, dusted the worst of the dirt off and put the garlic in open brown paper bags.  They'll be stored in a cupboard that has an outside wall.  Of course, I kept the best 2 bulbs from each variety for planting next month.

Two varieties of garlic - plainly distinguishable.

I plan on ordering some new garlic from Salt Spring Seeds as soon as their 2013 catalogue is available. There's nothing like fresh garlic!  It's crisp, juicy and so fragrant.  It's such an easy crop, anyone can grow it.  I've even given starter bulbs to people who can only grow in containers!

Beans!

One of the things I've learned from the Three Sisters Garden is that I've planted too many beans!  I'll go into all of the things I've learned when the Three Sisters Garden is finished, however, today I'm processing beans.

I normally only plant about 8 pole bean plants and in the past I've always grown Fortex.  This is a bean that produces lots of extremely long, tasty beans which freeze beautifully.  This year, with the gift of seed from my husband's friend, I've grown instead heritage Italian beans.  I put in 16 plants amongst the corn and now realize that's waaaaay too many!  These beans have enormous leaves and I think they're even more vigorous than Fortex.  They've broken the tops of the corn stalks - fortunately corn is finished for the year - and formed a huge mat across the tops of the corn.  It's very hard to grope in the jungle to pick beans!

I've been picking for a couple of weeks now and today there seemed to be enough to process for freezing.  I picked half a big wicker basket full of the purple-splotched beans and carefully left those which are growing on the bean rack I've placed to hold up one of the patches.  Those will be left to mature so I have seed for next year.  I'm sure I'll also discover lots of mature beans inside the jungle when I dismantle it in the fall!

I process beans by first of all topping and tailing, then cutting them up into 1" segments.  I plunge them into boiling water for a minute or two until they turn bright green.  This important step stops the enzyme action which matures the beans.  Most of the purple disappears at this point.  Then I drain them and cool quickly under cold running water to stop the cooking process.  An ice bath, which is how you're supposed to cool them, takes too long and probably uses more water by the time you make huge quantities of ice.  Then I blot them to take out most of the moisture, spread them on cookie sheets and pop them into the freezer.  Once frozen, I vacuum seal them in plastic.  I've learned not to take too much air out of the bags because the sharp points of frozen beans can pierce the plastic.

This is only the first proper picking and there are so many more beans developing as well as lots of flowers.  I think I may have grown enough beans to feed an army!  Next year?  If I do the Three Sisters Garden again, I'll probably only plant half a dozen beans with the corn.  The beans are too heavy for the corn to support more.  I'll probably also bring the bean rack back into use and grow more beans on their own for ease of picking.  In the meantime, we'll enjoy fresh picked beans with our dinner tonight and dream happily of many dinners to come in the winter thanks to the produce of our own labours.

Cantaloupe and Onions

Sounds like an odd combination, doesn't it?  However, those are the crops that capture my interest today.

Cantaloupe vines climbing the walls of the compost bin

I seeded Tirreno Cantaloupe this past spring, gave away 1 and planted out 2 in the compost bin.  They got off to a slow start because resident wood bugs in the bin were feasting on the stems.  I protected the plants with water bottle collars and they eventually thrived.

They spill out the front as well!

Now they are busy escaping the compost bin - spilling out the front and climbing up the walls.  And there are nice little cantaloupes forming.

Tirreno Cantaloupe

Little football-shaped fruits are hiding under the leaves.  I've counted at least 4 so far and there are probably more.  They are quite toasty in the compost bin as they're protected from breezes there, but get very hot and droopy in the afternoon.  I hose them down to help out a bit, but so far this doesn't seem to be affecting the fruit production.  I'll have to do some research now to find out when they're actually ripe as I've never grown cantaloupe before.

Copra Onions curing in the sun

It's been an excellent year for onions.  Only one plant went to seed as opposed to last year when over half of the plants did it.  Last week, most of the plants had drooped to the ground, signalling that it was just about time to harvest.  I pushed the rest of them down and today I pulled them up.  They look to be in excellent shape and have good size.  They'll cure in the sun for a couple of days (unlike garlic which needs shade while it cures) and then I'll move them into the potting shed until all the roots and leaves are dry.  We store our onions in a vented bin cabinet that my husband made just for the purpose.  Copra is a great onion for storing and lasts well into the spring maintaining excellent quality.  This year I think I only had to buy a couple of onions!

Working on the Pond

This last week we finally got the equipment we needed to circulate and clean the water in our pond.  It's a fairly large pond - about 10x14 and 4.5' deep at its deepest.  We definitely have too many fish, but haven't resorted to eating them yet - which was a suggestion the owner of the water garden nursery had for us!  It would be very nice to be able to sit by the pond and watch the fish, though, so over the last two days, we set about making that possible.

Filter & UV at the potting shed.

First, we set the filter into the ground at the front of the potting shed.  It does stand out, but perhaps I can make a small flower bed around it to make it less obvious.  It was the best place to put it.  Then we mounted the UV system on the side of the potting shed.

Pump ready to go into the water at the far end of the pond

Then we pulled up a water lily at the far end of the pond and repositioned it at the front of the pond, so the pump could go in its place.

Electrical joint covered from elements - it'll soon be hidden

With the components in their appointed spots, we could now put in the hosing and electrical to the pump.  The cord on the pump wasn't long enough and so where it joined to a heavy duty extension cord, it was encased in a tin can, wrapped thoroughly with duct tape and hidden under a pot.  The cotoneaster which creeps down the wall will soon cover the pot.
The cord was taken up the rock wall and around to the bottom of the stream where it joined the hose, which took the low road at the base of the rock wall.  We carefully covered the hosing with rocks.

Tucking the hosing and wire under the top side of the stream

Both were then tucked under the stream liner on the high side and taken up to the potting shed to join up with the filter and UV equipment.

The flow is just enough to create lovely sounds and stay in the stream bed

Then for many trial runs!  There has to be a secret for joining flexible hosing to smooth pipe!  We haven't discovered it yet.  All our joins leak to various degrees.  We will find a solution - silicone sealant? PVC cement applied generously?  It'll happen.  In the meantime we can put up with a little leaking until the solution presents itself.

Stream at the bottom just about to enter the pond

Now we have to do some landscaping - covering the liner where it's now exposed.  Rearranging the pebbles and rocks in the stream so that we still hear the lovely rippling noise of the water coursing down, but that they don't force the water outside the stream liner.  Happily, we're now a lot closer to having that pond we've always wanted.  One that fully satisfies the senses of sight and sound.  Beth - just look what you started!

Fall Planting of Peas

Raindrops on a leaf of Russian Red Kale

Last night we got the blessing of rain.  It's been an extremely dry July with no measurable rain at all.  This always makes people who live on Gulf Islands very nervous as we get so many visitors during those hot dry months who think nothing of tossing aside a live cigarette stub.  There's already been one emergency at the ferry terminal which was thankfully quickly extinguished!  But last night we got rain - and rain which actually sank into the ground.  That made today an excellent day to plant the fall crop of snow peas.

I didn't have enough of the snow peas I planted last spring - Oregon Sugar Pod II - and wasn't able to find more of them at Buckerfields in Nanaimo.  Instead, I purchased a package of Sugar Lace II which is a snap pea.  Not quite the same as a snow pea, but it'll do.  The Sugar Lace package says it's a "good candidate for fall harvests" and has "sweet, stringless pods...borne on 24-inch semi-leafless vines".  Sounds like it will work.

Bed prepared for planting

I prepared the spot where the garlic had grown by removing some soil which I tossed on one of the new 4x4 beds, adding a wheelbarrow load of SeaSoil and turning it over.  The zig zag fence was once again brought into action and staked in place.  Homemade fertilizer was spread and scratched in where the peas would be planted.  The Oregon Sugar Pod II snow peas were planted at the front of the zig zag fence and the Sugar Lace II took the back portion.  I think I left a blank area which will help me remember which is which.  I hope the snap peas are as delicious as the snow peas are.  I guess we'll soon see!