Beet Risotto

I love and appreciate the freezer, but I don't think we'd make it without the 'fresh' root crops from cold storage.  This is the first year we're trying to grow all our own vegetables and this past week I had a few difficult nights trying to get excited about frozen kale or butternut squash, again!  Over the weekend we made a few exciting plans for the week's meals and splurged on lots of dairy products.  Our grocery bills these days tend to center around tofu and seitan products and of course, dairy.  We bought cheddar, monterey jack, sour cream, cottage cheese, ricotta and butter.  The plans include a nice veggie lasagna and some good old Boston baked beans in our crock.  If I have a minute I'll post the crock and recipe later this week.  But, as for Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions, we did a nice broccoli raab risotto with a side of slow roasted beets.  We found that the best way to do beets is large julienne on the mandolin, a teaspoon of olive oil in a pan, cover and place on the woodstove while everything else cooks.  They seem to take only 20-25 minutes this way and cook in their own juices.  I find beets to be salty and sweet on their own, so I don't add anything else to them.  

This fall I packed the beets and carrots in wet sand but after a few weeks when the weather warmed considerably, I sorted them back out and removed the sprouts.  I wasn't sure if this was the best way to go, but I wanted to put the bigger ones on bottom and make pickled beets from the little ones.   Instead of sand I repacked with wet sawdust from our firewood pile.  I didn't have quite enough so used fresh pine shavings to finish.  After quite a bit of sharing and eating through mid-October we ended up with a tub each of beets and carrots, and only a crate of kohlrabi and cabbage.  The total canned amount of pickled beets was 25 pints. The fresh carrots are moving much more quickly than the fresh beets but we haven't yet touched our canned carrots!

 

The large golden beet was close to 2 pounds and I added a medium Detroit Red for a splash of color.  The risotto was delicious but took a LONG time since I had only brown rice.  Next time I'll check the cupboard first for short grain rice before prepping the other ingredients and getting my heart set on this meal.  

Harvest Monday Freezer Fiesta

Sadly, we've still got snow on the ground and the cold frame hasn't unthawed.  I'm waiting for a nice thaw to go for the parsnips - but at least enough snow has melted that I can see their tops poking out.  The kale is still buried as well.  I'm definitely looking forward to our hoop house!  Tonight it was back to the freezer for me...

I whipped up a stir-fry to cleanse a bit after the holidays.  It is enormous, and will give me lunches for most of the week.  The green beans and broccoli and New Zealand spinach were delicious, sauteed with some garlic, ginger juice and an onion.  We added fermented soybeans (whole) and a bit of soy sauce as well.  I don't love ginger bits in my food, so made a juice about a month back that still tastes great.  I think I've found a way to add ginger flavor without having to pick strong ginger bits from my teeth.  I just boil the ginger for 30 minutes or so on the wood stove and then strain it.  A tablespoon in chai tea or stir-fries adds nice depth without overpowering the dish.

The Waltham butternuts are delicious this year - sweet and crunchy, good enough to eat raw.  Which is wonderful, because we have so many.  They are resistant to the borers and escaped the cucumber beetle so they are the main squash we have in storage.  We have almost no buttercups and only 4-5 acorns, but the spagettis did fairly well too.  I think 4 of them are larger than 3 pounds and the others closer to 2 pounds.  I roasted the seeds from this one to snack on.  More fibrous than pumpkin, but tasty and a satisfying snack while I cook.  I realized yesterday that the garage is just too cold at around 45 degrees and I've been worried about reducing their shelf life.  After the last few weeks of procrastination I finally brought all the squashes from the garage up to the cold bedroom closet where they'll be closer to their proper range of 50-60 degrees F.  We have two full boxes remaining.  They are snuggled in between towels but they did look better down in the garage where we stored them in an old bureau... which was much easier to access and choose from.

A few of the 'edible rape' stalks were pretty stringy, but the broccoli more than compensated.  I bought a few seed packets in Chinatown and wasn't particularly pleased with them.  I waited for rape and 'chinese kale' to bulk up but I think the hot weather coupled with the drought (repair to our community garden's water line) inhibited lush growth.

The piece de resistance - yummy peach cobbler.  What is easier than opening up a bag of frozen peaches, crumbling some flour, butter, brown sugar and oats, and baking for 30 minutes? Don't forget to check out Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.