Showing posts with label planter garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planter garden. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Vegetable Frittata & First Harvest

We harvested our first tomatoes of the season. We've already gotten more this year than last (we had a terrible crop last year- totally our fault) and there are a ton left on the vine in various stages of ripeness. These are rambling yellow stripe. They have a mild tartness to them, which I really like. We also have romas and a couple of early girls. I'll probably add an indeterminate variety when the yellow stripes are finished producing. I love a sudden bumper crop, but I want something that will go late into the season.


I think I've been fighting something off the past few days. I've been absolutely exhausted, so not cooking much that required any sort of work. As a result, we had several vegetables that needed to be eaten. My husband had the brilliant idea of a frittata. Perfect!

Frittata is the quintessential use-stuff-up dish. All you need are about 3 eggs per person, whatever fillings you want, and an oven-safe frying pan. You can use anything for fillings, from veggies to meats or even pasta. If the vegetables are raw, it's best to soften them a bit before adding so that they don't take too long in the oven, resulting in overcooked eggs. Start the eggs in the pan (I usually sauté aromatics then add the beaten eggs), add the veggies, par-cook the eggs, then top with cheese (if using) and finish in a 375F oven for about 10-15 minutes (or longer, depending on size of pan and amount of fillings). You could also broil the cheese to finish, if it's not browned enough for your taste.

Tonight's frittata for two was 4 whole eggs, 1/2c of egg whites, low fat cheddar and plenty of veggies. I used green onion, kohlrabi, kakuri (a Japanese salad turnip), broccoli, spinach and tomato. I quickly blanched the turnip, broccoli and kohlrabi. At the same time, I sautéed the spinach in a small amount of olive oil with the green onion and a minced clove of garlic. Along with basic seasoning, I also grabbed some chives, parsley and oregano from the garden. Despite the veggies being chosen more for expiration than complement, I loved this particular mix of textures and flavors. The turnips and kohlrabi added body, while the rest of the vegetables and herbs kept it light, yet satisfying.




Friday, June 22, 2012

CSA Box #3

This week's haul:
  • Lettuce
  • Spinach
  • Kale
  • Broccoli
  • Kohlrabi
  • Hakuri (Japanese salad turnips- white)
  • Cilantro
The produce we've been getting has all been really great! I highly recommend Early Morning Farm, if you're in the area (I have no connection to them, other than being a member, just spreading the love). If a CSA is too much of a commitment, they're also at the Ithaca Farmer's Market.

I'm especially looking forward to some kale chips and kohlrabi (not necessarily in one sitting). Now that we have some great herbs going in our garden, I can bring even more freshness to the table. It looks like we have a few tomatoes getting ready to pop soon, too! Two of them are already beyond the mature green stage and yellowing (even better- they're yellow tomatoes, so hopefully don't have terribly far to go). Maybe the peppers will follow their lead.

I'm somewhat bummed we didn't get more peas this week (words I didn't ever anticipate being part of my vocabulary). Last week's were delicious! We still have a handful left, but I think I'll probably just have them for a snack. We already have a plan to plant some here for a fall harvest, if the weather cooperates.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Garden

We have a tiny little garden. It started as a little back stair herb garden last year and has pretty much tripled. It's mostly herbs, along with a few varieties of tomatoes and peppers, for now. We spent the afternoon repotting and reorganizing. We'd intended on cleaning up along the side of the house, but ran into our landlord (who's also our neighbor) who said she'd already planned on clearing it out for us :-) Hooray, especially since we'd gotten a later start on the day than we'd planned.

So, while we were out for dinner and listening to one of our favorite local bands, she busily (and awesomely) did some clearing and pruning to get us some more sunlight.

When we got home, we noticed she left us a little something. We have a little wild strawberry patch growing! We already have some fruit waiting for us. Neat! I'd already been thinking about planting some smaller fruit, strawberries being a front runner, so glad Mother Nature was looking out for us. I had many cool things happen while living in Manhattan; an accidental strawberry patch certainly wasn't ever one of them.