Eating in Season: The End-of-Summer Lull by Patty G. Leander

Below are several easy and tasty recipes that will allow you to get the most out of those late season summer veggies that are still producing.  Photo by Bruce Leander

Below are several easy and tasty recipes that will allow you to get the most out of those late season summer veggies that are still producing. Photo by Patty Leander

It’s the end of August, the kids are back in school, 100 degree days are still in the forecast and here in Central Texas we are experiencing the end-of-summer-lull in the vegetable garden. The bounty of the spring garden has passed and we are not quite revved up for fall, but for now the heat-loving (or in some cases heat-tolerating) mainstays in my garden include okra, Malabar spinach, Southern peas, hot peppers, yardlong beans, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes and eggplant. The Northern half of the country may be boasting a summer harvest of juicy, ripe tomatoes and fresh picked sweet corn, but bless their hearts, they were still waiting for the soil to warm up on Mother’s Day and before you know it they’ll be pulling out their jackets and snow shovels again! Yet we lucky Texans will soon have another opportunity for cucumbers, green beans, tomatoes and squash followed by a round of broccoli, cauliflower, beets, peas, greens and more to finish out the year. It’s good to be Texan.

Since “grow what you eat and eat what you grow” is the vegetable gardener’s motto here are a few of my favorite recipes for enjoying the current harvest.

Shelling-Peas

Many hands make light work when shelling southern peas

Fresh Southern Peas

These heat- loving peas are so versatile – enjoy them fresh, freeze some for later or dry them on the vine for winter storage. When cooking a fresh pot of peas harvest and snap a few immature pods to add to the pot the last 15-20 minutes of cooking.

2 slices bacon, chopped

½ cup chopped onion

3-4 cups shelled cream, crowder, black-eyed, purple hull peas

2-3 cups water or chicken broth

½ tsp sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

Cook bacon until crisp. Remove from pan.  Sauté onion in drippings. Add remaining ingredients and simmer 45-60 minutes, until peas are tender, adding more liquid if necessary. Season to taste. Serve with crumbled bacon and hot cornbread.  Yield: 4-6 servings

Ninfas-Green-Sauce

You can make the world famous Ninfa’s Green Sauce at home with your late season vegetables. Photo by Bruce Leander.

Ninfa’s Green Sauce

Recipe courtesy of The Original Ninfa’s on Navigation in Houston, Texas.

3 medium green tomatoes, coarsely chopped

4 fresh tomatillos, husks removed and chopped

2-3 jalapeños, coarsely chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

3 medium avocados

3 sprigs cilantro

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups sour cream (no disrespect to Mama Ninfa but I use half this amount, and sometimes even substitute yogurt)

Combine tomatoes, tomatillos, jalapeños and garlic in a saucepan. Bring to a boil (tomatoes will cook down and release liquid), reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes. Remove from saucepan and cool slightly.  Peel, pit and slice avocados. Place all ingredients in a blender with avocados. Add sour cream and blend until smooth. Spoon into a large bowl, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. Serve in small bowls as a dip for tortilla chips. Refrigerate leftovers.

Vegetable-quesadillas

Vegetable quesadillas are a great, lower cal way to use your late season veggies with a Southwestern flair! Photo by Bruce Leander.

Vegetable Quesadillas

1 mild pepper, diced

2 zucchini/yellow squash, diced

1 tablespoon oil

1 cup fresh corn kernels

2 small tomatoes, diced

¼ cup cilantro

1 tablespoon lime juice

4 flour tortillas

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

Heat oil in skillet and sauté peppers and squash 3-4 minutes. Add corn and cook 2 more minutes. Stir in tomatoes, cilantro and lime juice and season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Heat one tortilla in a non-stick skillet until lightly browned. Flip tortilla and top with ½ cup vegetable mixture, then sprinkle with ½ cup cheese. Top with second tortilla and carefully flip over. Heat 2-3 minutes, remove from pan, cut into 4 wedges and serve.  Yield: 2-4 servings

grilled-okra

Yum, yum, yum…if you have an aversion to slimy okra be sure to try this – no slime at all, I promise! Photo by Bruce Leander

Grilled Okra

Toss whole, dry okra pods in olive oil, season generously with salt and cracked pepper.  Grill 10-15 minutes, until slightly charred and tender.

roasted-tomatoes

Roasting tomatoes really brings out their flavor! Photo by Bruce Leander

Roasted Cherry Tomatoes

Roasting tomatoes brings out an amazing, concentrated flavor – these beauties can be used in sauces, salads, sandwiches or simply as a savory snack. They don’t last long around my house, but they can be stored in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks or frozen for up to three months without compromising the flavor.

Toss whole cherry tomatoes generously in olive oil, season with salt and pepper, and roast 4-6 hours at 300°.

Aloo-Bhindi

Spice up your summer with this Indian classic! Aloo Bhindi is another way to use your okra and the last of those spring potatoes. Photo by Bruce Leander

Aloo Bhindi

Potatoes and okra cooked with fragrant Indian spices.

2 tablespoon canola oil

2 medium potatoes, sliced

1 lb okra, sliced

1 medium onion, sliced

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon coriander

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon cumin

½ teaspoon garam masala

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon cayenne

 

Heat oil in a large skillet. Add potatoes and cook until lightly browned,

5-10 minutes. Add okra and onion and cook gently over medium low heat

10-15 minutes. Add salt and spices. Mix gently, remove from

heat and cover pan. Let sit 5-10 minutes to absorb flavors before serving.

The really is nothing better than fresh salsa.  In fact, I know several gardeners that grow nothing but onions, peppers, tomatoes and cilantro so they can enjoy this treat fresh and then can it for later.  Photo by Bruce Leander

The really is nothing better than fresh salsa. In fact, I know several gardeners that grow nothing but onions, peppers, tomatoes and cilantro so they can enjoy this treat fresh and then can it for later. Photo by Bruce Leander

Salsa

4 fresh tomatoes, chopped (peeled and seeded if desired, but I usually don’t)
2-3 jalapenos, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 cup cilantro
1-2  teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon cumin
2-4 tablespoon lime juice
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Chop the onion, jalapenos, garlic and one tomato in a blender or food
processor. Then add the seasonings and the remaining tomatoes, and blend
till it seems right. This is personal taste. You can leave it chunky but I
usually blend out most of the chunks. Then I taste and usually end up
adding more tomatoes, lime juice and sometimes another jalapeno. I let it sit a
bit and then go back and taste and adjust seasonings if necessary. It gets a little redder and a little spicier as it sits.

 

** You do not have to use a blender/food processor. If you prefer, finely chop the first five ingredients by hand, then stir in the seasonings and adjust to your taste.

This corn recipe is another great way to enjoy your productive and heat loving malabar spinach.  Phot by Bruce Leander.

This corn recipe is another great way to enjoy your productive and heat loving malabar spinach. Phot by Bruce Leander.

Corn and Malabar Spinach Sauté

It’s hard to resist the fresh sweet corn that shows up at the supermarket this time of year. Pair it with your home-grown Malabar spinach for a quick and easy side dish. But don’t stop there – sauté sliced okra, zucchini, peppers and/or onion before adding corn and Malabar spinach.  

1 tablespoon butter or olive oil

4 ears of sweet corn, husked and cleaned

1 clove garlic, minced

2 or 3 handfuls of Malabar spinach, coarsely chopped (it will cook down by almost half)

Salt and pepper to taste
Cut corn kernels from the cob. Sauté corn and garlic in a medium skillet for 4- 5 minutes. Add Malabar spinach and a tablespoon of water, cover and cook until wilted, 3-5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper and serve with Tabasco sauce, pepper vinegar or your favorite chopped herbs. Yield: 4 servings

BTW, this post has been shared on The HomeAcre Hop Be sure to check it out.  It is full of great posts from homesteaders across the web.

Our First Grand Chick

This past Sunday, Sally and I became grandparents – in a manner of speaking.  Our favorite hen, Chicken Little, hatched the first of what we were hoping would be a whole litter of baby chickens.  We started out with five fertilized eggs that we picked up from our friends at Yonder Way Farms in Fayeteville, Texas.   However, one precious little chick is all we got.

Chick-1

Our precious little chick on the day she was hatched.

And that is just fine with us.  We really don’t need a lot of chickens at our house.  Our coop is not set up for more than six to eight birds.  In fact, this is why we waited so long to let one of our hens sit.  We didn’t want a crowded coop.

Sally and I decided to let Chicken Little sit for a couple of reasons.  First, she is the hen at the bottom of the pecking order.  It is hard for us to watch the constant pecking and pushing around that she is forced to endure.  We read on a blog that a batch of chicks had a way of bringing out the mother in all of the hens.  So, we are hoping that this little chick will make the other girls treat Chicken Little a whole lot better.  At the very least we are hoping it will prevent, or at least delay, the bad treatment that Chicken Little is forced to endure.

Chick-2

Our baby is four days old and already getting pin feathers on her wings!

While Sally and I think Chicken Little is the sweetest, bestest hen of the bunch, she does have one little problem – she gets broody – A LOT.  In the past few months she has become broody four different times.  Each time this happened we were forced to quarantine her in a metal cage for a few days.  During that time she didn’t eat or drink much.  Plus it was just hard for us to watch.  So, since she is such a good girl –and she REALLY wanted to sit – we decided to let her.

Chicken-Little-1

Chicken Little is such a good mother! Here, she and baby explore their world.

While we had hoped for a few more chicks, we are absolutely thrilled with our one little baby.  She truly is precious and Chicken Little is proving to be a great little mother.  Plus, the other hens really do seem to be impressed (and they are treating her a little better).  They keep coming up and looking at the baby.  When they get too close Chicken Little blows up her feathers and clucks and they politely walk off.  I truly hope that that this new baby raises her mom’s standing in the flock!

BTW, this post has been shared on The HomeAcre Hop and the Homestead Barn Hop #173.  Be sure to check them out.  They are full of great posts from homesteaders across the web.

Harvesting Grapes at Paradox House Vineyards

If you drop by our house on most evenings, you will find Sally and I sitting in the backyard sipping a nice glass of wine and feeding blueberries to our chickens.  Sally and I really enjoy our evening glass of wine.  In fact, my love of drinking wine inspired me to learn to make mustang grape wine.  While we really enjoy making our homemade wine, it just doesn’t taste like the wine we are willing to pay for.  Our mustang grape wine making experience made us wonder if we could learn to make wine that tasted a little less like cough syrup and whole lot more like the “store bought” wine that we really enjoy.

blanc-du-bois-grapes-1

These Blanc du Bois grapes will soon be turned into a fine Texas white wine.

Thanks to a chance meeting, Sally and I recently had the opportunity to learn how to make good wine.  We volunteered to help Doug and Linda Rowlett of Paradox House Vineyard harvest their white grape (Blanc Du Bois) crop.  Paradox House is a small, family owned vineyard in Industry, Texas.  When harvest time comes, they rely on a small army of volunteers to get their crop to market.  In exchange for a morning of hot, sweaty labor the Rowlett’s provide the volunteer’s an absolutely fabulous meal, free wine made at the vineyard (which was excellent), access to several dedicated hobby wine makers and the opportunity to help Doug and Linda make 200 gallons of really good wine.

grape-harvest-1

Paradox House Vineyards relies an an army of volunteers to bring in their crop.

Sally and I had so much fun harvesting these white grapes.  While it was hot, we really enjoyed the work and visiting with all of the seasoned volunteers.  Since I do not know that much about grapes or the wine industry, the horticulturist in me truly enjoyed everything about the day.  I learned a lot, made new friends, ate well, sampled a variety of great wines and learned how to make “store bought” wine.  What more could you ask for?

blanc-du-bois-grapes-2

People aren’t the only ones that like these grapes. The little purple grapes have been damaged by birds.

The Rowlett’s grow two main crops – white Blanc Du Bois and red Lenoir (also known as Black Spanish).  They sell their grapes to some of the top wine makers in our great state.  If you would like to help them harvest grapes (and learn how to make wine) you are in luck.  They Rowlett’s will be harvesting their Lenoir grapes this weekend.  If you are looking for a fun and unusual way to spend your Saturday, use the contact info at the bottom of this post to contact them (you must contact them before you show up).  They will appreciate it and I promise you will have a great time!  Families are welcome so load up the car with kids, cousins and friends.  The more the merrier!  Just be sure and dress appropriately.  Grape production is Texas agriculture. Please wear close toed shoes and dress for the heat!

Doug and Linda Rowlett
paradoxhouse@gmail.com
Paradox House Vineyard, Inc.
8544 Bermuda
Industry, TX 78944
281-435-7227
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