sweet and hot

The pepper onslaught is in full swing in the garden.  Overnight we went from pounds and pounds of tomatoes to a few dozen peppers each day.  And just like with the tomatoes, I've been really excited about canning and preserving anything we don't eat fresh.  It has most definitiely been a time of experimentation around here and we've had peppers in pretty much every dish, but I have to say that I'm loving the hunt for recipes to try as well as incorporating the offerings of the garden into our family classics.

As soon as we realized how large they would grow to be, we decided to roast our large, sweet peppers and preserve them in olive oil.  This was my first time canning with oil, and I'm happy to report that it is just as simple as canning with brine.

See those big (as my feet) red peppers?  Those are Giant Marconi.  This was our first season growing them and they turned out to be sweet and meaty and perfect for fire-roasting.

The Marconi and a handful of poblano chiles roasted right on the range top.  A cooling rack (we used the rack from inside a large roaster) is the perfect thing to hold the peppers over the flame until the skin is black and blistered.

Here's how they look after the black skin has been removed and peppers have been cut into ribbons and nestled into a jar with a clove of garlic and lots of good olive oil.  So far we've eaten these on sandwiches and they have become my favorite pizza topping with chevre and watercress.  Yum is an understatement.

I have pickled our super-spicy jalapeno and serrano peppers in a really simple brine (you can find the repice at Simply Scratch) many, many times before.  This time around I also made some jars of sweet peppers for the people don't love the hot stuff so much.

The jalapeno and serrano are really hot but still have tons of flavor.  The banana and Anaheim are mild and mellow and take really well to the brine.

The sweet peppers are great on sandwiches and pizza of course, but my favorite is diced up into potato hash.  We eat the hot peppers on tacos and all foods Mexican,  pizza (pepperoni and jalapeno is a classic at our house), and especially in scrambled eggs.  Drew dices them fine and puts them in coleslaw, too.

I was excited to give pepper jam another go this year.  I made two batches last year -- one that was pure pepper and one with tiny flecks of diced mango (inspired by the apple-mango pepper jelly from Bramble Basics).  This year I used the same ingredients, but pureed the mango instead of dicing it.  I love what the puree does to the texture of the jam.

Lavender and orange bells, sweet banana, Anaheim, golden cayenne, jalapeno and serrano peppers pre-pulverization.

Five ingredients:  the pepper mix, pectin, apple cider vinegar, sugar and pureed fresh mango.

The mango pepper jam, finished and ready to eat.  Drew eats this stuff on everything, from peanut butter sandwiches to fried chicken.  My fave way to eat it is on crostini or whole wheat crackers with goat cheese.  With cream cheese on saltines works (and is just as delicious) if you want to go white trash with it.

And there you have it.  My three favorite ways with garden peppers -- just in time for the second big harvest.  Hope it will be as sweet and hot as these last days of summer.

its a classic for a reason

I mentioned in one of my Instagram/Facebook posts about my desire to eat my weight in tomatoes this year, and I think the garden is going to accommodate my wish.  Summer is only halfway through in Los Angeles (it really doesn't end til after Halloween weather-wise), and I've already got more tomatoes every other day than Drew and I could ever eat.  I have had to get creative so that I am sure that we don't waste a single fruit. 

My go-to right now is classic bruschetta.  It seems like the birthright of any Italian gardener/cook, and Drew and I have been perfecting our version.   I based it on a recipe in one of my fave books about cooking with seasonal foods from the backyard, Vegetables From an Itailan Garden.  I've made it as the first course for two parties so far and we eat it at least once a week.  Rest assured, if you are a dinner guest at my home this summer, you will be served bruschetta.  It is a classic for a reason.

I'm not really a recipe posting sort of girl, but this is more assembling (it is just tomato salad on toast, after all) than cooking, so here goes:

You'll need 10 tomatoes, chopped,  2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil (the best you can get your hands on), salt and black pepper to taste, and a handful of basil leaves, chopped fine (or not, just as good without).  Combine everything in a bowl and refrigerate (I like to make my salad at least 30 minutes before so that the flavors marry nicely) until ready to serve.

A little extra condiment that we have been making for this dish is a simple balsamic syrup for drizzling over the bruschetta just before we serve.  Totally unnecessary, but it makes everything extra delicious.  The whole process is just putting 1/4 cup of balsamic vinegar into a small saucepan and cooking on low until it has reduced by half and is just a bit syrupy -- about 15 minutes or so.

To make your toasts, slice your bread and brush it with olive oil.  We used a bread from Sadie Rose Baking Co. and it was delicious, but you can use any bread you like.  Grill your bread until its nicely marked on both sides.  When cool enough to handle, rub each toast with a clove of raw garlic.  Add a couple of spoonfuls of tomato salad to each toast, arrange on a serving platter or board, drizzle with the balsamic syrup.  Devour.

Our components -- tomato salad, grilled toasts with garlic, balsamic syrup.  Our test toast.  I didn't even have a chance to take a photo of the finished platter of bruschetta because they were so quickly devoured.

My plan B of late is canning my garden tomatoes.  I'd made jam and pickles, but had never canned tomatoes (although I watched my grandmother do it almost every summer of my childhood).   I used the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving as a guideline for the processing of my tomatoes, but it really is as simple as putting a healthy pinch each of salt and sugar  and the juice of a lemon into a (warm -- make sure the jar is warm or it'll break -- I know from experience) quart mason jar and filling the jar with whole, peeled tomatoes.  After the jars are processed, the perfect summer tomato-ness is sealed in.

My first canned tomatoes.  I love opening the pantry and seeing jars that look like these.

Got an awesome tomato recipe?  I'd love to hear all about it.  I'm guessing I'll have plenty of tomatoes to give it a try, too.

how does your garden grow?

I have discovered, as Drew and I have been working on the studio garden for this past year, that the cycle of of the of the garden has a nice rhythm to it. A period of not much at all is always followed by intense periods of growth and productivity that yield more produce than two people could ever eat.  We find ourselves pickling and preserving and giving a LOT of veggies to friends and neighbors.

Since March of 2013, we've grown many, many pounds of lemon cucumber, eggplant,  beets, crookneck squash, bok choy, carrots, radishes, mirlition, zucchini, bell, cherry, jalapeno, banana and cayenne peppers, parsley, basil, dandelion greens, kale, Swiss chard, strawberries, lettuces, red and Walla Walla onions and endless varieties of tomatoes.  I've made a habit of photographing my hauls each time I harvest anything and posting the photos to Instagram.   I get lots of feedback from people near and far who are amazed that we are able to produce all of this food in the urban crush of Los Angeles  (and also in the midst of a drought -- we use very little water).  But here we are, growing everything you see in the photos here in just two 5'x5' planter boxes.

Does any of this stuff look good to you?  Then please, pull out that (so not drought tolerant) lawn -- even a little chunk of it -- and grow your own food.  City dwellers without garden space can do it, too.  Just a little planter box or a couple of big pots will do just fine.

reconstruction

After three months of tearing apart the garden at the Alviso house, we’ve finally begun to build it back up again.   Springtime renewal is the name of the game around here.  It is pretty darned exciting.

First item on the reconstruction list was the deck.

We designed a deck that floats off the house and is accessible through the laundry and studio doors.

The redwood is termite resistant and it has a beautiful grain when sealed.

Here's the after photo.  Drew added a step into the laundry door for Ruby.

One of the things we were most committed to was re-purposing the concrete (there is SO MUCH of it) from the old garden into the new one.  So after the deck had a couple of coats of sealant, Drew started placing the recycled concrete pads to create the path around the garden.  We'll fill the gaps in with more soil and grow some mosses and small grasses there so that its green.

Who knew that chunks of old concrete could be so beautiful!

And did I mention that we have kick-ass friends who were willing to spend the day in the dirt, removing a giant patch of the grass in the backyard and helping to construct the redwood boxes for the vegetable garden?  I hope to be able to reward them handsomely when the garden starts to produce.

I've got 3 types of tomatoes, 2 eggplants, strawberries, hot and sweet peppers, squash, green beans, zucchini and cucumbers, carrots and radishes in these 2 5'X5' boxes. 

 

Old wooden flower boxes re-imagined as the salad garden.  I love coming outside to pick leaves just before we eat them.   Faves are the red romaine and the "freckles" spotted lettuce.

 So.

There is still a stack of concrete pads, brick, rocks and rubble to contend with, and a corner of the backyard is made uninhabitable by bamboo, but I am determined to worry about those things later.  I am ready for cocktails and dinner and parties and picnics on the patio all summer long.