Garden pictures August 2013 -  Average High  temp right now is 100 so we are limited in what we can grow. We finally pulled the tomatoes and cucumbers over the weekend.  This is what we are left with.

a bunch of pepper

black-eyed peas

butternut squash

Okra

Eggplant

Sweet Pepper

Arugula

Roasted Beet, Arugula and Quinoa Salad

We had a few beets leftovr so I decided to roast them up and toss them with some rd quinoa and some fresh Arugula just picked from the garden.  I sed a red quinoa here.  Yummy.

2 cups cooked quinoa (1 cups of dried quinoa cooked per directions)

4-5 beets peeled cut into 1/2 inch diced pieces

1 bunch arugula chopped rough

2 oz of goat cheese

2-3 scallions chopped

Citrus Vinegarette

Coat the beets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.Roast the beets for 20 minutes at 375.  Cool

When Quinao is room temperature add the rest of the ingredients and toss.

Citrus Vinegarette

1 tsp grated orange peel

Juice of 1 orange

2 oz Grapefruit or white balsamic vinegar

1/2 tsp of salt

2 oz of good quality olive oil.

Combine all ingredients in a jar, cover with lid and shake.  

Peppers

IT is now August which makes it pepper season.  We have really been enjoying the Shishito Peppers.  We are amazed at the output.  We get 1-2 good sized batches a week.  These are the perfect appetizer.

Grilled Shishitos

Pick the Shishitos -  sprinkle with olive oil and salt.  Grill on a grill pan in a hot grill for about 3-5 minutes until they are just starting to brown.  Eat with a sauce of mayo and Sriracha.

The sweet pepper plant this year is producing more peppers than we know what to do with.  I decided to stuff them to recreate a dish we had in Upstate NY last summer.

NY style grilled and stuffed peppers.

8 oz links of Italian Sausage

4 oz of cream cheese

Brown Sausage  until cooked -  cool slightly

Mix cream cheese and sausage.  Remove tops of peppers and remove membranes and seeds.  Stuff peppers with mixture.  Bale or grill at 375 about 15-20 minutes until peppers are soft and starting to brown.

More Shrubs and Juicing

So we took advantage of some of the summer fruit and mades some more shrubs.  Watermelon, Cucumber and Peach.

We have been making some tasty cocktails with these shrubs.  The strawberry in the center is best just added to sparkling water.

Watermelon, mint and white balsamic

Cucumber, lavender and aged white wine vinegar

Peach, ginger and white balamic

Here is the process:

Slice and cut into small piece 2 cups of leftover fruit (strawberries, peaches, berries, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes... you get the drift whatever you have an abundance of)  add equal amounts of sugars in a ceramic bowl.  Add any aromatics.  Cover and leave on the counter for 1-2 days.  The mixture will become very syrupy.  Then add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of vinegar (any kind except  distilled white viengar -  balsamics, apple cider, red or white wine will all work) .  At this point I usually put the whole bowl in the refrigerator because I have one, but in the old days I would assume they would have kept in in a cool place.  Let it sit for 3-7 days,  strain out the solids and stored in a jar.  Since it is a vinegar you can store in the pantry but I usually keep mine in the refrigerator.

Peach and Bourbon cooler

1 oz of peach shrub

2 oz of bourbon

juice of 1/2 lime

ice

sparkling water

mix first 4 in a shaker pour over ice and top off with sparking water to taste.

The shrub on the left was made from an orange watermelon.  We find this one goes best with vodka.

Watermelon Cooler

1 oz watermelon Shrub

2 oz vodka

1/2 oz St Germaine

juice of 1 lime

sparkling water

mix first 4 in a shaker pour over ice and top off with sparking water to taste.

I finally broke down and bought a juicer this year.  Mostly because of the tremendous amount of carrots, but I have also been juicing my cucumbers.   I like Gin and Tonics with the cucumber juice so I froze it in ice trays and stored the cubes in a ziploc in the freezer,  I can have G&T's with cucumber juice even when I don't have cucumbers to juice.

The Best G and T Ever

1 Oz cucumber juice 

1/2 oz CucumberShrub

2 oz gin

1/2 oz Kings Ginger Liquor

juice of 1 lime
2 drops lavender bitters

tonic water

mix first 6 in a shaker pour over ice and top off with tonic water to taste.

Shrubs and Drinking Vinegars

We went to the Austin Food and Wine festival in April.  The huge take away we came out with was a class on Shrubs and Drinking Vinegars.  So what is a Shrub or drinking vinegar?  These are basically a way to preserve fruits and vegetable in a liquid form.  They were used back in the days before electricity to preserve the fresh fruit.  These shrubs can be added to sparkling water to create a flavored soda.  They are also excellent mixers for cocktail and are currently the rage in the cocktail scene.  They couldn't be easier to make.   Basically equal parts of chopped and peeled fruit and vegetables, sugar and vinegar.  You can also add aromatics such as herbes and spices, lemon and orange peel to add flavor.

Here is the process:

Slice and cut into small piece 2 cups of leftover fruit (strawberries, peaches, berries, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes... you get the drift whatever you have an abundance of)  add equal amounts of sugars in a ceramic bowl.  Add any aromatics.  Cover and leave on the counter for 1-2 days.  The mixture will become very syrupy.  Then add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of vinegar (any kind except  distilled white viengar -  balsamics, apple cider, red or white wine will all work) .  At this point I usually put the whole bowl in the refrigerator because I have one, but in the old days I would assume they would have kept in in a cool place.  Let it sit for 3-7 days,  strain out the solids and stored in a jar.  Since it is a vinegar you can store in the pantry but I usually keep mine in the refrigerator.

Combinations I have tried so far:

Strawberry, black pepper and white balsamic
Beet, Orange peel, and apple cide vinegar
Carrot, Orange Peel, grated ginger and champagne vinegar.

Beet and Ginger Cosmo

1 part/oz Beet and Orange Shrub
2 parts/oz Vodka
1/2 part/oz ginger liquor such as Kings Ginger
sparking water to taste

Combine and pour over ice garnish with orange slice and candied ginger

So many Beets and Carrots

We have had a bumper crop of Beets and CArrots this year.  John planted a new carrot called the Atomic Reds.  These are a beautiful scarlet color and they are about 12-14 inches long.  We will definitely plant these again.  My favorate beet is the Cylikndras.  These are, as the name promises, more of a cylinder than an ball shaep.  This makes them much easier to peel and also slice to grill.

I tried a new take on the a roasted beet salad.  Since it is June and we now have the AC on in the house we try hard not to use the oven.  So I sliced up the beets and carrots along with some julienned red onion and placed them in a aluminum baking pan.  Added some olive oil and seasoning and then heated up our gas grill.
I placed the whole pan on the rack in the grill noting that the temp was about 350-400.  I baked them in the grill for 20 minutes stirring after 10.  It worked like a champ.

Roasted/grilled Beet and Carrot Salad

Grill or Roast (see above note)  2 large peeled and sliced beets and 2  peeled carrots sliced on the diagonal

and 1 small red onion julienned.

Dressing - 2 tbsp blood orange flavored olive oil ) if you do not have blood orange oilve oil use regular with a tsp of grated orange rind)

                2 tbsp white balsamic vinegar

                salt and pepper to tates

2 tbspn goat cheese

2 tbspn chopped mint

2 tbspn chopped roasted walnuts (optional)

Once roasted and cooled combine with dressing and top with goat cheese and mint and nuts.

We roasted a duck which we purchased from Sebastien at the downtown farmer's market a couple of weeks ago.  The duck came out beautiful but we had tons of leftovers since it was just John and I.  We ended up deboning the meat and made duck broth from the bones as giblets.  The bird came with the head attached which isn't something you see every day.  We ended up adding that to the broth as well.

So now what to do with all the leftover duck.  I looked in the refigerator and saw I also had a bunch of leftover mashed potatoes so Shepard's Pie it is.

I went out and picked some carrots, parsnips and a little swiss chard to add to the pie.  I also had some mushrooms so I will add that to the mix as well.  Shepard's pie is great as you can use whatever meat and vegetbles you happen to have on hand.  I save the duck fat so that is what I used to saute the veggies.

Shepard's Pie

2 parsnips peeled and cubed.

2 carrots peeled and cubed

3 tbsp duck fat ( or bacon fat or olive oil or coconut oil)

1 onions chopped

2 bay leaves

1 teasppon fresh thyme

2 cups chopped duck ( or beef or port or chicken)

1/2 red wine,

1 cup stock -  I used half chicken and half beef -  I had already frozen the duck stock o r I would have used that

1/4 cup tomato sauce or 2 tbsp tomato paste.

2 tbsp oil

2 cups sliced mushrooms

2 ups chopped swiss chard

2 cups mashed potatoes

Heat the fat in a medium dutch oven on the stove and saute the parsnips, carrots onion, thyme and bay leaves until tenders about 4 minutes.  Season with salt and pepper. Add the meat, wine and stock simmer for about 45 minutes until sauce us thick and reduced.  

Saute mushrooms and Swiss chard in the oil fir about 10 minutes. (I used duck fat here again as I happened to have some.  If I hadn't I would have used coconut or oil oil.).   Layer on top of the meat and veggie mixture.

Add the mashed potatoes to the top of this and add some grated parmesan on top of the potatoes.  Bake at 350 for about 30-40 minutes until top is golden brown and it is heated through.