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Category Archives: vegetable love
alchemy
Last week I plucked some leek scapes from the garden. Have you ever eaten green garlic scapes? You can find them at farmers markets in the Pacific Northwest in June. Well, leeks send up flower heads, too, and they’re delicious pickled — more sweet than garlic scapes. Into the crock they went with some other crunchy vegetables…
And today this batch of Giardiniera came out of the crock!
Crunchy, garlicky, refreshing, sour, infused with oregano and thyme… just right for a picnic or a cocktail party or next to your sandwich. Curious Farm Giardiniera with Leek Scapes is available direct from Curious Farm until it’s gone. And, if you’d like to learn how to make your own live-cultured vegetable pickles, think about taking a class at Curious Farm!
pickle watch 2012 with photo
So… I sing to the cucumber plants while I water them. I also share about the customers who are inquiring about their health and growth.
Here is the situation:
I’m starting to see immature cucumbers gow out of the vines. The larger flower heads need to open before the cucumber can become pollinated and begin to grow. Once that happens in the summer heat, the cucumbers grow quickly, and I’ll have to harvest every day.
I don’t know when we’ll have cucumbers. I’ll call other farms again this week.
I had a total cow today, by the way, because a friend in California sent me a recipe for a salad made with tomatoes, peaches, and corn. What a tease! Those ingredients are a month or more away from me right now. I want these flavors *now*, and I want the cucumbers, too. I want to *juice* the too-big-to-pickle cucumbers and just feel their good energy sink into my soul.
So, yes, I sing to the cucumber plants — for selfish reasons.
pickle watch 2012 update
Curious Farm’s cucumber plants are still very small. I’ve called many farms in the area, and they all keep pushing out their estimates on cucumber availability. Two weeks ago, farms were saying “late July.” Now those same farms are saying “middle of August,” “late August,” or “Gosh, the plants aren’t germinating at all!”
So… hang tight. We’ll have some pickles by the Fall. Cucumbers are such tender, fickle beasts. We must be patient.
market joy and classes
It poured most of the morning, and lots of folks stayed home from the Beaverton Farmers Market. Those that came anyway were wearing rain gear in a rainbow of colors. The fun jackets, the flowers, the colorful tents — all made the Market seem even more like a crazy quilt of joy and bounty.
It wasn’t a warm summer rain at all, and I laughed at the kids wearing shorts, flip-flops and wool ski caps… until I looked down at my shorts and sandals and realized that I probably was just jealous of their ski caps (making mental note to put one in my supply box).
But what I really want to share is that four formers students swung by today to tell me about their sauerkraut and kimchi-making adventures. They all are on fire with how this process transforms the season’s bounty into deliciousness. They told of friends’ stealing their sauerkraut, of making new friends through sharing their fermented vegetables, and of discovering a whole new way of enjoying their gardens this year.
From these conversations, *I* came away with some fabulous ideas for new products. In fact, one former student’s recipe was just so simple and so perfect for Curious Farm customers — just as she shared — that I asked her if I could bring it to the Market and name it after her. She said yes! So look for Mary’s Special Sauerkraut by September. You’re going to love it. (And, since I’m a former writer and veteran of the publishing industry, please know that somehow I will compensate Mary for her gorgeous recipe.)
There’s nothing I love more than teaching classes, but I’m in a pickle right now. I’m worried about scheduling a class during the summer in the new Pickle Lab because the class may fall on a very warm day/eve. There is no air-conditioning in the Pickle Lab. Too many bodies, too many brassicas, too many alliums, and too much heat = uncomfortable.
I am considering the idea of waiting until September/October to do more classes. However, I know that some customers have been waiting very patiently for pickling and kimchi classes, and it might be very frustrating to wait until autumn. Thoughts?
If you want to be put on the email list for notifications about upcoming classes, please email me. If you so so so want to learn about kimchi-, pickle-, and sauerkraut-making soon (!) that you don’t care how warm the Pickle Lab might be (or what aromas of transformation you might encounter), please email me about that, too. Okay? This new commercial kitchen space is an unknown environment for me in summer months.
Thank you. And thank you to everyone who came to the booth at the Beaverton Farmers Market today — students, regular customers, old friends, and new friends. You brought such joy on a chilly morning!
our dr. seuss garden
I’ve been so busy making sauerkraut that I’ve neglected our garden. The onions and leeks are putting on a big show right now.
garlic scapes
Garlic is so fun to grow. In this climate, hardneck garlic produces scapes from mid-June until mid-July. These are the curly, snake- or swan-like stems that come up from the middle of the garlic plant. We want to remove them so that the garlic bulb can focus its energy on growing bigger.
Usually, I make rustic pesto with scapes from our garden, sautee them with the last of the season’s asparagus, or put them in kimchi. The taste is clean, green, and pungent — a young pungent, not the mature pungent flavor that you taste in a garlic clove. When cooked, the flavor softens a bit and becomes more vegetable-like.
This year, since we’ve planted more garlic than ever before, I decided to ferment the first scapes by themselves. I hear that this is a wonderful way to have mild garlic flavor in the kitchen all year long. Perhaps this experiment will turn out brilliantly. If it does, I’ll let you know when jars of potent green scapes will be available at the Beaverton Farmers Market.