Another Kind of Harvest

As we taper down the harvest of wheat, we are ramping up the harvest of something else: the garden.  Right now, the tomatoes are just starting to come on in earnest. So far, I think we have been able to keep up to it with daily use of tomatoes in salads, small batches of fresh salsa, and by snacking on those irresistible cherry tomatoes. Research is also being done on canning tomato salsa (recipe suggestions, anyone??)

Green beans were great this year, too.  A few days ago, Carol and I canned some bean pickles.  I cannot wait for them to meld their flavors in the jar so I can dig in! We also did the first of probably several batches of zucchini relish, as the zukes are starting to come on, too.  Along with the zukes, the cukes are in full force. Seems like we have to eat a cucumber a day to stay on top of them. (Maybe we should be making pickles??)  And... even the okra plant is producing.  That one is the real stumper for us northerners, actually. Again, if anyone has any good suggestions for uses for okra, please pass them along to us!

The garden, along with our BOUNTIFUL BASKET, is keeping us fully stocked in fruits and veggies. It is so fun to cook with all this great produce, much of it grown locally- right in our own back yard!

Here are some of our culinary adventures in photo form:

Yummy enchiladas! Filling is ground beef from Bangs cattle!  

Kale chips.  We tried four different seasoning combinations to see which we liked best.
I think the winners were garlic pepper and lemon pepper.   We were all pleasantly surprised at how tasty the kale chips were, and so easy to make. 

DELICIOUS guacamole! 

Tomatoes ripening on the kitchen windowsill, just waiting to be used in a salsa or sauce.

Home grown tomatoes can have their quirks, but they are no less delicious. 

This unidentifiable dark colored blob is actually cherry leather I made this afternoon.
It turned out very good! 

I tried a recipe I found for pickled cherry tomatoes. I'll let you know in a few weeks if they turn out.  They are Asian flavored- soy sauce, garlic, rice vinegar, red pepper flakes, and ginger. We'll see... :)

And in closing, I wanted to leave a few lines from one of my favorite books, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver:

"Drowning in good tomatoes is the exclusive privilege of the gardener and farm-market shopper.  The domain of excess is rarely the lot of country people, so we'll take this one when we get it.  From winter I alway slook back on a season of bountiful garden tomatoes and never regret having eaten a single one."