Eighth of an Acre Bounty

Plant Something – No planting this week.

Harvest Something – Butter crunch lettuce (of course!), fennel, Leeks, spring onions, rosemary, basil, had our first meager harvest of pole beans – (pictured above), but they were damn tasty and more to come. Yin Yang beans are ready for fresh eating too.

Preserve Something – Put up 8 half pint jars of KitchenMage’s Blueberry Habanero Chutney using frozen berries from last year. It is blueberry season round here again and I need to make room in the freezer for fresher berries and a highly anticipated end-of -summer salmon delivery.

Prep Something – Not a whole lot on the preparation front, bought more canning lids

Cook Something – Baked two loaves of Skyway Sourdough – one for immediate consumption and one went in the freezer to keep the other loaf company. Cooked up a dinner of Arugula Sundried Tomato and Ricotta ravioli with Tomato sauce from last years garden for dinner with an old friend (super easy). Grilled Oysters from the farmers market with salad from the garden and a poached egg. Steak salad (well, I cooked the steak – that counts). Fried squash blossoms with ricotta, basil and leeks. Gumbo-ish soup with okra, rice, sausage, shrimp, carrots and onions. I used the lefover whey from ricotta making as part of the stock for the soup along with some shrimp and chicken stock. Currently working on some eggplant in the smoker – I am thinking smoked eggplant ravioli…and perhaps some baba ganouj.

Manage your reserves – Put a good dent in the blueberry reserve from the freezer, also consumed the last container of radish green soup leftover from this spring (yum, I think this is one of my new favorites – who knew radish greens could be so tasty). As a side note, the cider has cooled its fermentation and the blue room is tolerable once more. A couple more weeks and I will transfer to smaller containers for refrigeration and storage.

Work on Local Food Systems – Hit the Renton market this week and purchased more eggplant, okra, gypsy peppers, peaches, 2 dozen oysters, and cucumber.