let's see your veggie garden {pics}

[deluxestogie]

Are you sure those things are safe to eat? Let alone palatable.

Wes H.

It says they're safe on the Internet.

I cooked some of the German Green into my ginger and garlic pork with peppers and onions, served over rice with dead rice weevils. Seemed okay. When there are weevils in the rice, you've got to add finely ground black pepper, to trick the eye and the imagination.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Making Light-colored Bell Pepper Powder

Sometimes, a white sauce or other light-colored sause needs a touch of pepper flavor, and no heat. I use a cookie sheet atop a seedling heat mat to dry sliced Golden California Wonder Bell Pepper. Once pepper is fully dried, I grind it, along with any of its seeds, to fine powder using my coffee mill. It then gets stored in a spice jar.

Powder made from a green bell will add a murky color to a white sauce. Even though this light yellow bell dries to a deep orange-red (on the left in the photo), it returns to its light gold color when rehydrated.

Last summer I made a red pepper powder with very modest heat by drying and grinding sweet red cherry peppers, complete with its seeds. A sprinkle of this adds a soft and subtle zing to a bowl of ramen or a cheesy casserole.

If you are a fan of Tabasco or Sriracha or any of the other hot and hotter pepper additives, then you probably won't taste anything at all with the golden bell powder. But my insides become unhappy when I use those.

Bob

 

[CobGuy]

Looks good, Bob!
We just roasted some Hatch Chiles last week and the scent was really fragrant but also very spicy.
My wife made a batch of Pork Green Chile that was gone in two days ... so good!
One thing she added this time that was wonderful were some roasted Pepitas.

~Darin

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

This Japanese radish got to 1.5lbs! As my kimchi is already et, I'll certainly be making more.

I'm saving seed if anyone wants any.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I'm not sure when to pick these squash. They've grown a lot and are starting to look mature to me.







The variety is Queensland Blue, and they've really grown a lot. I haven't tried to weigh them, but the biggest certainly weigh at least 10#'s.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

My one watermelon that looks like it will amount to something has also been growing rapidly. That is to say it is now about the diameter of a cantaloupe, and 10 or so inches long. I'll just let it grow until is seems to be done growing.



Some 10 year old kid had a regular green & white striped watermelon in the fair last week that must have weighed 25 or 30 pounds. I think mom and dad might have helped with that one.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

With all winter squash, wait until the fruit's stem has dried and shrunk, before picking. I'm a poor judge of watermelon.

Bob

 

[skychaser]

I'm not sure when to pick these squash. They've grown a lot and are starting to look mature to me.

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The variety is Queensland Blue, and they've really grown a lot. I haven't tried to weigh them, but the biggest certainly weigh at least 10#'s.

Wes H.

When they change from green to a blue/grey color, they are fully ripe. But you can eat them at any stage. We are growing New Zealand Blues again this year. Very similar varieties. The NZ's average around 8 - 10 lbs, but the Queensland often get bigger. Both are excellent keepers with thick sweet orange flesh. You can bake them, boil them or make some great "pumpkin" pies. My wife makes an awesome chocolate chip cake with them. The recipe is at the bottom right of this page.
http://www.northwoodseeds.com/new_zealand_blue_squash.htm

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Okay...I have been out looking in the garden. The most mature squash I have is starting to change color from a deep green to a more of a grayish tone and the stem is starting to get woody. So I'll guess it will be ready to pick in a week or so. Said squash is a nice big one, so I'm looking forward to cooking some and trying it. Squash makes a good seasonal side dish. As long as it's not one of those nasty old Hubbard's like my mom used to serve to us. Fortunately, squashes have been improved a lot since those days.

I've also been looking at my watermelons, and they seem to me to be losing some of their green and developing more of a slightly yellow color. I think I'll let those go for about another week, and them give them the knife.

The recipe looks tasty and I liked the squash photos. I'll have to plant earlier next year.

Thanks guys.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Don't forget to make some butter and salt soup squash soup. Puree some simmered chunks of squash, then add milk or cream and lots of butter some butter, as it re-heats slowly. Keep salting it until you smile. Herbs and spices (please no pumpkin spices!) are in order. Garlic and dill weed can be excellent.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Bob:

Did you post a recipe for that? I'm thinking you did, but I could be wrong. If so which thread and what page is it on? Which spices?

Wes H.

P.S. Strike-through makes your document like you are amending a law somewhere. That's how legislatures do it when they are changing an existing law. Is this the new RCB? (Revised Code of Bob.) If so please site Title, Chapter, etc. etc.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I mix pureed pumpkin into various red lentil soup recipes as half the volume of the soup.

I also shred it, salt it, squeeze the juice out, mix in olive oil, and ground wild game as a base for sausages or pies, casseroles, etc.

 

[deluxestogie]

Last summer, I posted a nutritionally healthy and quite delicious recipe for North Georgia Candy Roaster squash: http://fairtradetobacco.com/threads/lets-see-your-veggie-garden-pics.933/page-42#post-140495

I am sometimes rather conservative with posted recipes. If you want to go all the way, then season as described (and possibly stricken out) above.

Using a food processor, you can do this with most veggies. Just today, I simmered a small pot of baby carrots, then pureed them along with a can of diced potato. To this, I added milk to achieve a smooth, thick soup. Seasoning was black pepper, mild powdered sweet cherry peppers, chives, garlic, more garlic, dill weed and salted it until I said, "Wow!". It was barely recognizable as carrot to my taste buds.

This sort of approach can make fabulous soup from tomatoes or canned beans or string beans or fresh broccoli or asparagus or frozen spinach. And I'm not really a soup person. As long as no dairy or oil or butter go into the food processor, the mess it makes will easily rinse away without detergent.

So, in reality, this isn't a recipe, so much as a seat of the pants, easy to prepare way to consume veggies in the most hedonistic manner.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Ah! My memory is correct. The food processor is no problem, mine is all shiny stainless steel with mucho power. Look up a Blixer BX3 (made in France by Robot Coupe) on the internet.

When I have squash ready I'll try this "recipe".

Wes H.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

What you need is a Vitamix. The blades cause so much friction that you can literally boil soup in it.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

A couple of squash photos.



First photo, the squash that was nibbled on about a month ago. This squash is now much larger, about 12" in diameter and getting darker, and starting to show some of the bluish gray color it is supposed to.

Second Photo, the squash that is growing through the fence. This one hasn't gotten much bigger. It is 7 or 8 inches in diameter, but is also slowly changing color. My seed vendor apprises me that you can pick and eat these any time, but, since I have time, I'll just leave them on the hoof for now.

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I picked my first squash today. This is the first one in my garden to set fruit.

Well, I was going to post a couple of pictures but I get the message "the uploaded file is too large for the server to process". I used windows paint to reduce the size as I have been doing successfully in the past, but that doesn't seem to be working.

Any way, my squash, which is described in the seed catalog as growing between 10 and 12 pounds weighed in at 13#'s 6 oz. and was about 13" in diameter. I have two others still in the patch which are significantly larger than the one than I just picked. I'll make a post when I crack it open and cook and taste it.

Maybe by then someone can explain to me how to post photos (again!).

Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Squash photos I tried to post two days ago.



Wes H.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

I dissected that squash less than an hour ago. A quarter went to one of my neighbors. I will be interested to see if they liked it. One of the quarters is in the oven right now, and I'll be trying it with my supper.



They are nice meaty squash. I hope it is tasty. The cutting board the squash is setting on is made out of a single piece of Large-leaf or Split- leaf Maple native to Western Washington and Western Oregon. An attractive and functional item.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Golden California Wonder bell pepper

In years past, regardless of the variety of peppers I grew, I would get a modest number of okay-sized peppers, then the pepper plants would give up the ghost, well before the first frost.

I don't know what I did right (or maybe wrong) this year. So far, I've harvested over a dozen truly massive bell peppers, and the plants are still loaded with them--all growing larger than in any year of the past decade. And that's after tossing five or six peppers that had been munched by critters.

I assume they taste good. I haven't eaten any of them. Instead, I've been thinly slicing them, and drying them. I should end up with a generous jar of mild, gold pepper powder. Since I dry the vanes and seeds as well, the powder should have at least a twinkle heat.

Bob