Plant Now or Forever Hold Your Seeds

TOMATOES!! Hi, Gillian here with an update on current homestead projects. Our greenhouse has a new roof, not made of glass this time, and although it is still lacking a door it is toasty warm and full of baby plants. The tomatoes are still in the kitchen getting coddled, but they are already much bigger than in this picture. I sure hope the weather outside warms up fast so we can plant them out. As an experiment, I planted two "Cold Set" tomato seeds in an in-ground bed in the greenhouse in March. They haven't come up yet. But if they do, we may get some seriously early tomatoes. Alyssa's dad sent us the seeds from Minnesota and they have been known to survive temperatures down to 18 degrees Farenheit!

Although Alyssa and Dan are the true quilters--they've knocked out three quilt tops in the past week, and nice ones, too--I have been diligently working on my log cabin chain piecing skills to make some blocks for Quilts for Quake Survivors. Anyone can make blocks and go to quilting bees at sewing shops around town to make them into quilts. On May 11th, come to a live auction and buy one of the quilts--all the proceeds will be donated to support Japan disaster victims.



And enjoy this beautiful chicken drawn by my good friend and one of my favorite artists, Claire Michie. We Gocco printed it last week, and isn't it lovely? I wish I could say it's a portrait of one of our girls, but this chicken is no one I know personally...

Salsa Verde

If you are lucky, you now have ripe tomatoes and tomatillos rolling in at a rapid rate. You probably also still have some green tomatoes on the plants, unless you have been hardhearted and practical enough to pull your tomatoes out and make room for your winter garden. Here in Portland, our warm fall days have been the only warm days we've had all summer, and tomatoes only just started to get ripe, so I have not had the heart to pull the plants out!

I would like to share with you my general recipe for tomatillo salsa. It is very general because the measurements depend entirely on what I have on hand. It works out every time for me and I believe that it will do the same for you.

You will need a grill (we have a little gas grill) and a blender for this recipe.

Ingredients:
1-2 pounds of fresh tomatillos, husked and rinsed
A few green tomatoes, if desired
1-2 ripe yellow tomatoes
Several mild green or red peppers, such as bell peppers, gypsy peppers, pasilla peppers, or Italian peppers
A few hotter chilies, such as jalapeno, serrano, or whatever you happen to have--or use a pinch of powdered hot chili
1 large or 2 small onions
1-2 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled
1 small bunch of cilantro, including tender stems
Lime to taste (usually I feel that it's not necessary so go easy)
Salt and pepper

Heat up the grill. Core the tomatoes and if they are large, cut them in half. Cut stems off of peppers, and take out the seeds. With the hot peppers, cut off the stems with a little bit of flesh attached and touch this little bit of stem-end pepper flesh to your tongue. You must check the hotness of each pepper to decide how many to put in. If they are milder, put in plenty, but if you get a really hot pepper, be careful! Even one little super-hot pepper can make the whole batch too spicy for some people (like me). Peel and thickly slice the onion. If desired, push some toothpicks through the side of the onion slices to keep the rings together on the grill.

Throw the whole tomatillos, halved tomatoes, peppers, and onion slices on the grill. Turn them every couple of minutes until they have grill marks and are getting soft--it is usually really fast, maybe 8 minutes total. As individual pieces of vegetable get done, throw them directly into the blender, until all the vegetables are in there. Turn off the grill. Toss the garlic into the blender too, and some salt. If the blender is more than half full, dump some of the vegetables into a bowl. Turn on the half-full blender (you should do the hot-stuff-in-the-blender protocol which is to take out the middle of the blender top to let hot air our and put a folded dishtowel on top of that to prevent a hot blender explosion) and whiz until smooth (salsa verde usually doesn't have chunks). Add more vegetables and blend. If the blender gets too full, pour some salsa into a bowl. Add the cilantro, including a few inches of tender stems, to the salsa in the blender and whiz again. Add the cilantro salsa to the salsa in the bowl and stir. Taste and add more salt and some lime to balance flavors to your liking.

This salsa is great with chips, in a quesadilla or burrito, or used as enchilada sauce. You can add a bunch to the broth for tortilla soup. It freezes well if you make more than you can use in a week!

Fall Preparation

School started again, so I, Gillian, have a good excuse as to why I haven't posted in a while. Everyone else is just slacking. Anyway, this morning we had such a good breakfast that it was gone before it could be photographed: giant popover with poached pear and quince. Mind your p's and q's! I used a recipe from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors, which seems to be my cookbook of the moment. I also failed to photograph last night's pot pie. It makes me very happy that pot pie season has arrived! But I did take a picture of this back-to-school feast that I made a week ago. The pear and quince frangipane tart was the star of the show, but we also deliciously used up a ton of kale in potato-kale soup and Jenn's famous massaged kale salad.


Theresa and I were motivated by rain-free but distinctly cool weather to move a couple of tomato plants into the greenhouse to see how long we can keep the tomatoes ripening. I dug out some potatoes that had been very ill-treated all season, from when I accidentally let them sprout in the cupboard, to throwing them out in a dark corner of the garden to fend for themselves, to deciding that even that location was destined for more glorious plants and planting tomatoes much too close to the potatoes. I got a whole big bowlful of potatoes from only two much-abused plants, which I think is pretty good! We also did our first planting of garlic--about 20 heads. I'd like to plant at least that much more, but we are out of garden space until we pull out the rest of our tomatoes, and they're still producing.

House Breakfast!

Hi, it's Gillian again. It's always a minor celebration when several of us are home in the morning to have breakfast together. Although I had already gotten up early and eaten this salad (yes, those are my very own tomatoes, although I had to pick them half ripe and let them ripen in the kitchen), I was still tempted when Alyssa offered me a freshly made decaf latte...


So for second breakfast I made waffles, at Alyssa's request. Our waffle iron makes heart-shaped waffles, so they're really cute. And I used freshly ground white wheat (from last year's Staple Crops CSA) so they had a great flavor and texture. And it didn't hurt that we had butter, apple butter, maple syrup, blackcurrant jam, and crabapple jelly to put on top! Those last two are specialties of Alyssa's dad, who is also famous for his pies. I hope we will have an opportunity to post pictures of one of his pies at Christmastime (also known as Alyssmas since Alyssa and the baby Jesus share a birthday).

There's No Place Like Home

This is how State Fair, the massive Brandywine tomato, ended up--on toast with butter with coarse salt. I was too hungry to take many pictures before eating it so I apologize for the blurry photo...


After a week in Arizona, which to me seems as inhospitable as the moon, only much hotter and without that fun-looking low gravity, it is a relief to be back in cool, rainy Portland. The first thing I did upon getting back was to eat some good food at Pho Van. Then I ran around the garden seeing how things had developed while I was gone. Jenn and I picked four big Gold Rush squash and a bowlful of ripe tomatoes...and then picked twice as many tomatoes at Neighbor Dan's house. Of course, we had Alyssa's famous Zucchini-Tomato Gratin for dinner! The squash plants finally have powdery mildew so their season is just about over, but this summer I achieved my lifetime goal of growing more squash than I wanted...almost.


While I was away, the lettuces I planted a few weeks ago with typical despair ("it's already too late", "they'll never get big enough to eat before winter", "it's just a waste of seed because they're going to bolt right away if they don't just die in the heat") grew nice and big! Red mustard, mizuna, kale, carrots, radishes, and broccoli raab are also growing in a way that gives me hope. I was tempted to make a tiny salad last night, but I think they should grow just a little more before I start harvesting. Also typical--now I'm kicking myself for not succession planting lettuces every two weeks. I am transplanting some of these salad greens into the greenhouse where I hope they will grow all winter. Something to look forward to--homegrown salad in January!


A final story from the garden...Long Keeper tomatoes. I have just one plant of these and started harvesting them today. They never ripen on the vine, but when they reach full size you pick them and wrap them in paper and store them...and they ripen slowly over a period of many weeks. We grew these once before and had the last tomato ripen in January. That time we picked them too late though, after they had been out in the cold and lost some of their texture, and although they turned red, they were mealy. I'll let you know if we have better luck this year. Regardless of taste and texture, it's exciting to have a red, homegrown tomato in the middle of winter...but it would be even better if the tomato tasted good.

State Fair!!!

Theresa and I literally went to the State Fair today (says Gillian) and we also picked State Fair, our massive Brandywine tomato! Here it is:
I don't know exactly how much it weighed because that scale is kind of funny. It went up to 16 ounces and around again to the 3, which you would think would be 19 ounces, but there is a big space after the 16 and before the 0, so I think it's really at least 20. I'm going to buy a loaf of really good white bread and have a tomato and mayonnaise sandwich for lunch tomorrow! Theresa asked for a BEAT--veggie bacon, egg, arugula, and tomato sandwich. We don't have any harvestable lettuce at this time of year, although the lettuce seeds I planted a few weeks ago are now one-inch-tall plants with tiny true leaves. But the rustic arugula we planted in February, although it has already gone to seed and we've even already collected dry seed for next year, is still healthy, alive, green, growing, and edible! Rustic arugula has a different leaf shape from the usual kind, more deeply lobed and lacy-looking, and it has a spicier flavor. I've heard that it naturalizes easily and I'm hoping it will become a weed in my garden.

Here is some real state fair food:


No, really--curly fries. It's not the State Fair without curly fries. And I should have taken a picture of the Oregon Dairy Women's red barn full of ice cream. Did you know that milk is Oregon's official state beverage?



And here is something else fun to do! See the Chapman Swifts. The real ones, not the band. They're performing live every night in September and it's an amazing show. Show up at Chapman Elementary School about half an hour before sunset. Take a picnic or get some food at Saint Honore or Food Front, bring something to sit on and a blanket to keep yourself warm, and watch a tornado of tiny birds swirl down a huge boiler chimney. If you're lucky, you will even see nature drama with a hawk swooping in to catch one of the little birds and all the swifts forming hundred-bird attack shapes and chasing the hawk away. We went tonight and yes, they are here! I plan to see the swifts at least a couple more times before they head south for the winter.

P.S. Pear Picking with Portland Fruit Tree Project on Monday in Hood River! Be there!

Breakfast In the Greenhouse

Ah, vacation at last! I, Gillian, have been in an accelerated nursing program all summer and it's only now, in September, that I have a couple of weeks off. Perfect timing for food preservation! If only the tomatoes would ripen...


None of MY tomatoes are ripe yet, but the two CSAs and our next-door neighbors are providing some...for example, the ones in my breakfast salad along with Sunroot Gardens radicchio, Neighbor Dan's famous cucumbers that are trying to take over his whole yard, and fresh basil.


I've been thinking about our list of useful homesteading skills. Alyssa and Dan can build and repair anything; I can make all the jam and pickles anyone could want and preserve them safely; Alyssa and I can make quilts (like the one you can see here that will be finished on Monday!); Theresa and I can knit and crochet; Jenn can identify lots of edible and medicinal plants and can also shovel with amazing skill and speed. Dan can do all sorts of things with a chainsaw, Alyssa can sew her own clothes, all of us are good bread-bakers, Jenn knows a million games that don't require any equipment, Theresa and Jenn can sing and play instruments, and I can make paper for all the letters we'll write on long autumn nights. What are we missing?

Mixed Grain Rice

Can you believe that the greenhouse is even more finished than this now? It has rafters! Soon it will have a roof and a door and it will be finished! Here are (from right to left) Theresa, Dan, and Alyssa showing it off.



And now, for some recipes.

Gillian says:

Medium grain, Japanese-style white rice is one of my major comfort foods, especially for breakfast. I love it with a super-fast donburi-style egg on top (lightly beat an egg with a couple teaspoons each of soy sauce and agave syrup or mirin, then cook like scrambled egg; while it's still soft and somewhat undercooked, put it on top of hot rice and eat.)


In Japan I often saw multi-grain rice mixes, but I never tried them. They looked to contain flattened barley flakes and millet along with white rice. Today I made my own multi-grain rice by taking 1 1/2 cups of rice (that is two "rice cooker cups") and adding 2 tablespoons of quinoa and 1 tablespoon of amaranth. I washed the rice and cooked it as usual in the rice cooker, adding a little extra water (I filled it to the 2 1/4 cups line). It turned out delicious and perfectly cooked--I would definitely make rice like this again. The amaranth grains were like tiny sparkling caviar balls and the quinoa added a nutty flavor, while the white rice kept it all soft and mild. I ate this rice smeared with a little ume shiso paste and wrapped in sheets of seasoned nori. Any kind of nori is OK by me, but Korean nori sheets with sesame oil and lots of salt are my #1. You can get dozens of kinds at Uwajimaya or a smaller but perfectly adequate assortment of nori choices at Anzen, and People's Co-op even sells a version that is from Oregon-grown seaweed. When I get into a rice mood I will make a rice-cooker full in the morning and eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

For the sake of continuity, here's a portrait of State Fair, the tomato of my dreams, which is going to be ripe very soon:

Thursday dinner

I, Gillian, said "I've given up hope. We're having fried green tomatoes for dinner."

Jenn said "That sounds better than hopelessness usually does." (Or something like that. We're always misquoting Jenn.)

And we did, in fact have some pretty good fried green tomatoes for dinner--with basil aioli, stewed green beans and sunburst squash, and Neighbor Dan's cucumbers. And I did feel despondent while watering the garden this morning because I have hundreds of green tomatoes and not one of my full sized tomatoes has ripened yet...and it seems to be fall already!


But I secretly have not given up hope, even though the weather forecast puts our high around 70 for the rest of the week. I've been harvesting a small handful of red and yellow currant tomatoes daily, and State Fair, an enormous Brandywine tomato that will be the biggest I ever grew if it ever turns red, was blushing just slightly pink today...