Enjoying the Vegetables of Our Labor

 Every evening after dinner, my husband and I go out to the garden. Nearly every single day since the end of June, we have picked something while there. Sometimes it was just a handful of snap peas. Other times, it filled that nice old square gathering basket we've had for years. It's been a lovely, steady stream of fresh produce filling our refrigerator. So, what have we done with our harvest?

The daily haul on July 27, 2024

Pak Choi

Our first bulk harvest in June was the pak choi. We cooked up most of the little greens with some butter beans (from a can), garlic, herbs, and a touch of vinegar to make a fairly hearty dish. A sprinkle of bacon bits really made it.

Beets

People either love or hate beets. I happen to love them. This year, I planted some beet seeds that have been sitting in my seed collection for several years. I wasn't sure if any would actually grow, but they did. The vast majority of the small crop were chioggia beets, which have lovely interior rings like a target. There were also two or three Detroit dark red beets in the mix. I picked them in two rounds. The first batch I cooked whole in our Instant Pot, skinned them, then sliced them up. I toasted a couple rounds of naan, spread a mix of mayonnaise and feta cheese on them, layered on the beet slices and sprinkled it all with fresh thyme. Sooooo good!

A couple weeks later, I picked the rest of the beets, Instant Pot-ed and peeled them again, then used them to make pickled beet eggs. The recipe is simple. I put 1cup of cider vinegar, 1 cup of water, half a cup of sugar, and a teaspoon of salt together in a pan and heated it until everything dissolved. I also sliced up the one and only Detroit beet and added it to the pan. The chioggia are a light pink color when cooked and I worried they wouldn't dye the eggs that beautiful fuchsia. I put six hard boiled eggs and the whole chioggia beets into a glass canning jar and poured the vinegar mixture on top. After a few days in the fridge, we pulled them out and had very tasty pickled beet eggs.

Eggs and beets ready to soak up that pickle-y goodness.

That color just three days later!

Green Beans

Actually, they're Royal Burgundy garden beans, but they cook up green. I really love these purple beans because of how well they grow and because they have a built-in cooking indicator - as soon as they turn from deep purple to a beautiful bright green, they are cooked just the right amount. No squishy, overcooked beans! 

My husband is not a huge fan of green beans, so I just had four plants this year. It was still enough for several lunches for me (and the plants are still making beans). One nice way to use them is in ramen. I put a pack of instant soy sauce flavored ramen noodle in a pan with the seasoning pack and enough water to cover the noodles. I then put whole trimmed purple beans around the edges of the noodles before turning on the stove. As the water starts to heat up, I crack a whole egg on top, then put on the lid and let it all come to a boil. As soon as it does, I stir up the egg to make sure it cooks all the way. Within another minute or two the noodles, egg, and beans are all cooked just right.

Green bean and egg ramen with a side of cucumbers and dill.

Cucumbers

For the last month, nearly every meal has had a side of cucumbers - and I love that! This year, I planted a mix of old Chicago Pickling cucumber and Garden Bush Pickle Hybrid cucumber seeds. I'm not sure which ones actually grew, but they are all lovely. I eat them dipped in hummus, swimming in a light vinegar brine as quick-pickles, and mixed with sour cream.

Cucumber slices with sour cream and dill looks a bit slimy but is very tasty.

I also diced them up in salads. For one salad, I used a bag of riced cauliflower as a base. I added diced cucumber, tomato, pepperoncini pepper, and avocado (not from our garden) and dressed it with a little oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and fresh flat leaf parsley. 

So cool and fresh on a hot summer day.

Honestly, most of the cucumbers were consumed straight from the fridge all on their own.

Mmmm. Crunchy.

Tomatoes

I didn't start my own tomato seed this year. Instead, I got a grape tomato and a Supersteak tomato plant from a small local garden center. Both have produced a prodigious amount of fruit, though they have been slow to ripen. This is a good thing, however, so we're not overwhelmed by tomatoes. Even so, the grape tomatoes have become a breakfast staple for me, slice up with cottage cheese and fresh chives. 

A breakfast of champions.

 The beefsteaks are perfect for slicing on sandwiches, and that is exactly what we've been doing with them. Toasted white bread, spread with a layer of mayonnaise, topped with thick slices of tomato, and sprinkled with chiffonaded basil. There is no better seasonal treat.

Summer on toast.

Herbs

I've tried to add fresh herbs to as much as I can this summer, which has become much easier since moving some of them from the garden to our new patio container garden. But what we can't use fresh needs to be preserved for the long dark winter. I've dried two rounds of herbs so far, with at least on more batch to be done later in the fall. I have also made pesto to put in the freezer. I went online and found a good basic recipe - 2 cups fresh basil leaves, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 small garlic clove, 1/4 teaspoon salt, black pepper to taste, 1/4 cup of oil, and 1/4 cup of grated Parmesan cheese (I don't bother with the pine nuts) - whipped up a batch and then carefully scooped it into a silicone ice cube tray. Each cube is about 1 1/2 tablespoons of pesto. Into the freezer it went. Once they set up, I popped the cubes out of the tray and put them into a sealed container back in the freezer.

One batch down, several more to go. We have A LOT of basil.

Squash

And finally, the squash and zucchini. I love them in so many ways - diced up and sauteed with garlic and herbs, sliced and coated in cornstarch then fried, layered in long slabs instead of noodles in lasagna (we haven't done that one yet because it's been so hot this summer!). A perennial favorite in our house this year has been to spiralize them into zoodles (or squoodles, I guess, depending on variety).  

Zoodles and squoodles together.

These thin-cut curling veggies can then be cooked and topped like spaghetti. I made a nice dish of the mixed yellow squash and zucchini noodles with sliced faux chicken cutlets and several blocks of our homemade pesto.

So creamy and fresh.

I'm going to be so sad when our harvest finally ends and we have to go back to flavorless off-season grocery store produce.