The Modern Victory Garden

Each Monday, Daphne’s Dandelions hosts “Harvest Monday” where everyone submits links to their blog posts summarizing their harvest for the week.   Robin from The Gardener of Eden is similarly hosting “Thursday’s Kitchen Cupboard” each week to highlight how we use our harvests by either preserving or cooking with them.   It’s fun to see what people are producing from gardens from so many different regions, and how they are using it.   Check them out and join in too!      

I am officially into the fall/winter garden phase now.   I am using the late season fresh garden harvests to supplement the items we have in storage (onions, garlic, potatoes), frozen (green beans, corn, broccoli, pumpkin puree, kale, swiss chard, spinach, red cabbage, diced red peppers, sliced celery, and whole tomatoes), and canned items (diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, apple sauce, and dill pickle relish).   I also have some pumpkins I harvested last week that are now ripening off the vine indoors.   I will be adding these to my harvest tally when they are fully ripe and cured and they will be part of my “storage” supplies once ready.   So here is a recap of this weeks dinner menus and the garden harvests that were worked into them.   

Monday’s dinner menu: Spaghetti w/mushroom and meat sauce, and spinach salad with your choice of dressings.   The spaghetti sauce was made using a couple of whole frozen tomatoes from the freezer and a pint jar of seasoned tomato sauce (last year’s canning that I am still using up).   The mushrooms were purchased but very fresh.   The spinach salad was left over from last Sunday’s fresh harvest.   I have quite a few bags of whole frozen tomatoes in the freezer.   It is an efficient way to preserve tomatoes when they ripen in smaller groups that are not big enough to process by canning.   They are easily used for cooking by partially thawing them so that the skins slip easily off and then cutting out the stem end etc and then chopping up and using in recipes the same way you would a fresh tomato.    The texture is not the same as a fresh tomato so it cannot be used for fresh slices etc., but works beautifully where the tomato is to be cooked.   I like to start the thawing process by running some water over the solidly frozen tomatoes and then letting them sit at room temperature until the skins are easy to slip off.                                     

Tuesday I had a commitment to attend to after work, so I gave myself the night off from cooking (mostly) and picked up a take and bake pizza from our local Central Market.                                                             

Wednesday’s dinner menu: Boneless/skinless chicken breast chunks stir fried with diced leeks and swiss chard stems, and coarsely chopped swiss chard leaves in a spicy Shanghai orange sauce (bottled sauce) and served with hot cooked rice.   The leeks and swiss chard were harvested that evening right before I prepared the meal.                                         

Thursday was my birthday and we celebrated by going out for dinner.   I enjoyed lots of good food, wine, and a nice evening of conversation with my husband without the distraction of having to prepare the meal too.         

Friday’s dinner menu:   Leek and potato soup.   This soup was made from leeks harvested just a few moments before using them, potatoes from our storage boxes, and a few snips of fresh chives from the clumps growing in containers on our front porch.                                     

Leek and Potato Soup

• 3 TBS of butter
• 3 large leeks or equivalent amount of smaller leeks (white and pale green parts only – halved lengthwise and then thinly sliced – about 4 ½ cups)
• 2 large potatoes or equivalent amount of smaller potatoes (about 1 ½ pounds) peeled and diced
• 4 ½ cups organic free range chicken stock
• 3 to 4 slices of bacon cooked crisp
• 2/3 cup of organic heavy cream
• 2 TBS (approximately) of fresh snipped chives

Melt butter in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat.   Add leeks and stir to coat with butter.   Cover saucepan; cook until leeks are tender, stirring often (about 10 minutes).   Add potatoes.   Cover and cook until potatoes begin to soften but do not brown, stirring often (about 10 minutes).   Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil.   Reduce heat, cover and simmer until vegetables are tender (about 30 minutes).   Remove from heat.   Using a stick blender, puree the soup until smooth (alternatively you can do this in batches using a food processor).   Crumble into pieces the cooked crisp bacon and add to the soup along with the cream.   Stir until blended and then add salt and pepper to taste.   Ladle into bowls and serve with fresh snipped chives on top.   Makes approximately 4 servings.                  

On Saturday we chose to make it a “clean out the fridge” day and just ate leftovers.   Usually we don’t do this on a weekend, saving the convenience of a left over night for busy workdays, but this week the leftovers were accumulating in too great of a volume and needed to be used up sooner than later.                            

Sunday’s dinner menu: Chili with beef and beans.   This was made in our large crock pot.   I started 1 lb of dry light red kidney beans soaking the night before so they were ready to be rinsed and used by mid-morning on Sunday.   I browned some beef stew meat (grass fed beef) in a little oil in a saucepan and then set it aside.   In the crock pot I layered in 1 onion cut into large chunks (from storage), 1 cup of diced red sweet peppers (frozen), 1 lb of light red kidney beans pre-soaked, rinsed, and drained, ¾ lb. of browned stew meat, 3 large tomatoes cut into large chunks (frozen whole tomatoes – partially thawed with the skin slipped off and the stem end removed), 1 pint jar of tomato sauce, and seasoning to taste (dried ground cumin powder, red cayenne pepper, chili pepper powder, and salt/pepper).   Cooked in the crockpot for hours until the beans are tender and the beef is fork tender.    

Frequently, I get questions as to how we use the bounty of eggs our flock of hens provide us each week.   I thought it might be good to just recap here the answer to that question.   First, I try to keep a dozen boiled eggs on hand in the fridge which we use for making egg salad sandwiches or slicing up on salads etc. for lunches or for just snacking on.   Second, we alternate between having oatmeal or cereal for breakfast with days that feature eggs for the morning meal.   Sunday is always a late start brunch for us and eggs are always used for that in some fashion.   Third, we use them for baking and cooking as needed, and occasionally we have omelets for dinner when I need a very fast option for dinner.   Finally, after all that is said and done though, our hens often produce way more than we need for our own consumption and I share that extra with others by periodically giving a dozen eggs away to some of my employees who have requested to receive them when available.                             

While we have had lots of extra eggs to share with others, in the future this may not be the case as I must sadly report that we lost two of our hens on Saturday to an attack by raccoons.   While I was away putting in some volunteer time at the Kingston Farm and Garden Co-op Giving Garden Saturday morning, some raccoons dug under the property fencing and attacked our flock that was out for the day grazing and foraging in the larger fenced in area.   We found “parts” of one of the hens and the other is just completely missing in action.   We assume she was killed and then dragged off.   We blocked the hole that was dug but totally expect them to be back in the near future, since they got a taste of fresh chicken from our flock.   We saw a large family of raccoons passing through our front yard about two weeks ago and strongly suspicion it is the same group that came back through again.   Our task now is to protect the remaining four hens from the same fate (if possible).   They are having their hours of free ranging reduced (later start and earlier return to the secure hen yard and coop).   In addition, my husband is doing a perimeter walk of the fence before letting them out each mid-morning, to ensure no new holes have been dug for access and he has our shot gun on hand for a fast dispatching of any that should dare show themselves again.   While it is sad to lose the two hens, it is something we have been expecting to have happen eventually.   We actually only need four hens but purchased six chicks initially because the odds were high we would lose a few along the way.   We have been very lucky to date with the health and continued survival of all of our chickens.   However, I guess our luck ran out on us Saturday.              

Harvest totals for the week of October 24th through October 30th (rounded to the nearest ¼ pound).

• Berries 0.00 lbs (not enough to round to ¼ pound)
• Leeks 1.50 lbs
• Swiss Chard 1.00 lbs

Total For Week 2.50 lbs

Total Year To Date 341.75 lbs                    

Eggs collected this week – 18                              

Laura

kitsapfreedomgardener