What are you eating from your garden today?

@trolleydriver wrote:Cut into the melon. This was taken from a plant grown from seeds that SR sent to me. It was quite tasty but perhaps could have used more time to ripen.

@countrynaturals wrote:It took 3 years to grow from a grocery store top, but we harvested and ate our pineapple today and it was awesome! I'm not a pineapple fan, but if they always tasted this sweet and mild, pineapple would be my new favorite fruit.  (You don't see them this color at the store. )

@ColleenW wrote:I spent this holiday weekend harvesting and storing my crop. <--- a sentence I didn't think I'd be able to say!    I started harvesting and realized I had way more than I could use right now and so have been learning how to store it, too. I've been having a blast. Here's some of it.



I made the mini eggplants into eggplant pizzas (topped with fresh basil). 



Side note: I ate both platefulls! My husband didn't like them. This turned into a discussion of my telling him I am struggling to figure out what he would like to eat from the garden and that I'm worrying he thinks I'm spending too much time in the garden and him reminding me that he's just not a vegetable guy but that he loves seeing me work in the garden and enjoys how I explain to him everything that's going on in it. Turned into a really good convo but I still want him to eat better! Won't give up on that quite yet ...

I took the tomatoes shown in the above pic, added more from this morning, washed them in vinegar and water (1:3 ratio), cut the stems out, and froze them. Learned a neat trick on YouTube: Put them in a freezer bag and use a straw to create a vacuum pack. Looking forward to fresh sauce and basil when it's snowing this winter! Already asked my husband how he would prefer I prepare the sauce and am looking for recipes to show him. 

The cucumbers get sliced and go into my drinking water and hummus sandwiches all week.

Jalapeños (not pictured but I'm in love with them) get made into vinaigrettes.

And then the herbs: I harvested lemon verbena, chocolate mint, mint, basil, stevia, and oregano and in a fit of initial panic over not being able to choose which method to use to dry them decided to try three methods: oven drying (baking pan), hang drying (colander), refrigerator drying (plate). Here's the chocolate mint demonstrating the prep work:



 The hanging herbs look nice in my kitchen!



The oven-dried herbs will be used in tea concoctions (makes winter coming almost bearable). They're in a rack I got off of Amazon (the bottom row are spices I add to coffee/hot chocolate/oven potpourri). Hoping to get one last harvest from those plants before winter.



And with this task completed, I ended up reorganizing some kitchen cabinets. Who am I?? I like it.

@countrynaturals wrote:It took 3 years to grow from a grocery store top, but we harvested and ate our pineapple today and it was awesome! I'm not a pineapple fan, but if they always tasted this sweet and mild, pineapple would be my new favorite fruit.  (You don't see them this color at the store. )

@CapeCoddess wrote:Mm...yummy salads, TD.

@countrynaturals wrote:It took 3 years to grow from a grocery store top, but we harvested and ate our pineapple today and it was awesome! I'm not a pineapple fan, but if they always tasted this sweet and mild, pineapple would be my new favorite fruit.  (You don't see them this color at the store. )

That's amazing!  Can't believe you stuck it out for 3 years.  Wonder if that's how long they take out in the plantations...?

@ColleenW wrote:Nice salad TD! And cool pineapple CN! I love how your patience and nurturing resulted in something beautiful -and- yummy.

Thanks for the nice words about my harvest. Here's the jalepeno dressing recipe that I use as a base: http://lisasdinnertimedish.com/spicy-jalapeno-lime-vinaigrette/ . I don't always have all of those ingredients so I usually modify it. Lately I've been using this mix of ingredients:

2-5 cloves of garlic (I love garlic, can't get enough), peeled and roughly chopped
2 jalapeños (because I'm using those suckers up), seeds removed and roughly chopped
¼ cup fresh basil (my parsley didn't do well this year)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
juice of 2 limes
½ cup olive oil (or less, I prefer a tart, light dressing)

I funnel that into a saved glass dressing bottle and it lasts for a week in the fridge.

@trolleydriver wrote:Another delicious salad ... All from the SFG ... True Black Brandywine Tomato, Butter King Lettuce, Spicy Salad Leaves, Kale, Mizuna, Cucumber, Nasturtium Leaves and Flowers.

Mrs TD commented on the deliciousness of the Brandywine Tomatoes. She said the inside even looks like watermelon. Definitely will have to grow them again.

@bigdogrock wrote:I got to spend time in the garden today, some tasty things on the plate tonight. All those potatoes came from five store bought potatoes!