In the Garden

Yes indeed, time is flying by and once again it's Friday, one of the last of the summer. Locals say we should expect the growing season to go well into October and that the cool(er) nights should bring on the tomatoes, finally! We've had enough of the tasty orbs to make Pizza Margherita (a simple 'za with fresh tomatoes and basil and a little cheese) and for eating out of hand but not enough to freeze or can; looks like we're in for a busy fall.

On to the international* celebration that is NOH's Garden Life link-up...

Here's this morning's view of the garden from the roof. The last roof view I posted is from July 22, check out the difference.

view from the roof

I know! After all that worrying about the garden even making it through the heat and bugs I'm slightly embarrassed to say it's now... overgrown. Yep. For most of the plants, the heat and lack of ambient moisture have diverted from reproductive activities to stem and leaf growth all the plant's energies. I have NEVER had tomatoes plants this tall with hardly any fruit on them (those are Matt's Wild Cherry tomatoes behind the chard; a little further in on the right are Celebrity tomatoes, subspecies lycopersicon hulkverde**.) The rattlesnake green beans (all the way toward the back, parallel with the back fence) have formed a thick canopy of tangled vines at the top of the trellis that has stretched out and warped the fencing... if those weren't redwood 4x4s I would be worried about the whole structure coming down.

At ground level, it's a jungle in there.

veg convergence: black-eyed peas and shishito peppers (left) meet wild cherries (right)

The first picture gives you an idea of what I have to walk through. The next two pictures are snapped from the west ends of the rows. Embiggen if you would like to see some of the plants mentioned below; otherwise, you get it: it's a 6' high green thicket that leaves pollen and other stains on your clothes.

 between rows 5 & 4

between rows 2 & 1

Picture details: In Row 5 you see black-eyed peas giving way to okra and toward the end, the Goldman's Italian-American paste tomato has colonized the space between the rows. The Goldman has lots of fruit, none of which has ripened, and actually shares Row 4 with Whopper eggplant, basil, and a few green peppers. Row 2 has Serrano peppers, some exuberant Celebrities, Yellow Pear tomatoes, Matt's Cherry tomatoes and ends with that green hulk of a Celebrity; on the right (Row 1) are the chard and squash with another wayward Celebrity in the foreground.

What's that you say? How many different tomatoes did you plant? Glad you asked.

4 Celebrities; 5 Yellow Pear; 3 Matt's Wild Cherry; 4 Goldman's Italian-American; 7 Sioux; 4 Babywine; and 8 Unknown Heirlooms. Most of the seeds came from Terroir Seeds LLC because they had the most interesting varieties and are based in the Southwest (no, I'm not getting paid for this). Ah... you might be asking how on earth I came to have 'unknown heirlooms' in the garden, the answer: my generous MIL shared seeds from a mixed heirloom tomato package from Park Seed. They'll tell you the package contains Aunt Ruby's German Green, Dixie Golden Giant, Black from Tula, Brandywine Red, Big Rainbow, and Cherokee Purple, but they don't label which is which so we both had an unknown selection. One plant I think we can identify based on location (I made a map), and the color and size of the fruit.

could it be a big rainbow that got stuck in the O- range? (in case you forgot: ROYGBIV)

Because some spots in the garden are so overgrown everyday picking turns into a treasure hunt...

yellow pear tomatoes

serrano peppers

beans in tomatoes (see? it's a tiny matt's cherry all the way on the right)

And, of course, no Friday In the Garden is complete without a flower shot.

chive flower

And something to whet your appetite...

grilled elk leftovers sliced thin to go around sauteed shishito peppers

Happy Friday!

Now I'm off to to NOH to see what Tiffany and Carrie are up to in their gardens...

*It's true, Intrepid reader, some people believe this state is another country: "Can you drink the water there?" "Do you use the dollar?" and my current favorite, "Let me transfer you to the international shipping department..." 
** Yes, I made that up.

Mushroom Monday

"Green-winged teal, 3; 1 cinnamon teal, another green wing, 5 gadwall; mallard hen with brood of 5; 6 blue-winged teal ..."

It's 100 degrees in the truck, I'm frantically trying to write down this rapid-fire list for my first-ever bird count and my mind keeps wandering... 'ummmm, ducks...we need some for gumbo next year... check your waders for leaks... you really need to shoot; join the local skeet or trap club and get out there... where are my calls and that CD?... yes, yes, I really will practice before this season... swing, swing, swing..."  Yes, it's mid-summer and -- naturally -- a girl's thoughts turn to duck hunting.

Oh, wait... it's Mushroom Monday, isn't this a little off track? Nope.

Dinner last night.

That's marinated & grilled duck, last year's (??) mushroom, duck stock with an Asian flair, and fresh noodles from the big city: Duck and Mushroom Faux-Pho. (Living here we make do with what we have so we're missing a few key ingredients for a real Vietnamese taste, but it's close.)  Lots of mushrooms could go into pho and you can't tell anything by the picture so what might this be?

This week's mushrooms grow at the base of conifers (especially pines) in the Western U.S. (another variety grows in the Eastern U.S.). They can be large (up to 24") and range in color from whitish-beige to a light-ish orange/brown.

100# Chesapeake Bay Retriever for a perspective on size

Described as looking like and Elizabethan ruff, a bouquet of egg noodles or a certain Brassiciaceae family member, they are quite distinctive on the forest floor and have no poisonous lookalikes. The fruiting bodies have stalks that reach down to the dead or dying tree roots so when you harvest these mushrooms, cut them even with the ground and make sure to leave some for posterity's sake and for the other critters who eat them. You will be rewarded: these delectable mushrooms tend to grow in the same spot year after year. Yeah, that was easy...

Cauliflower Mushroom (Sparassis radicata)

Their slightly spicy taste and ability to keep their texture (like a perfectly al dente noodle) for hours in braises and stews are a few of the reasons these are considered by Arora and so many others to be "edible and exceptional." I concur! They have a slightly bright citrus note when fresh and a lovely, deep earthiness after they've been frozen. They can be difficult to clean but they are well worth it. 

For our first taste of cauliflower mushrooms we tried a salad from Fischer and Bessette's Edible Wild Mushrooms of North America: A Field-to-Kitchen Guide.  The lemon enhanced the brightness of the mushroom and the slightly bitter toasted walnuts added balance and texture to the dish. Delish! What we couldn't eat immediately we vacuum sealed and froze. They turned out beautifully, as we thought they might based on the ground work done by foodie/forager blogger Langdon at Fat of the Land. 

Faux-pho with grilled duck and cauliflower mushrooms is something to add to our recipe files. Now the trick is to stock up on both those ingredients; our duck hunting and mushroom foraging have moved southward from our familiar haunts, presenting some fun challenges. Finding cauliflower mushrooms in the local mountains might be the hardest task because I think I know where we can find some ducks*...shhhhhh.

*It's okay -- I'm no scofflaw -- one can hunt legally in designated areas of the refuge. However, locals say the ducks know that better than anyone: they relocate to the protected ponds from daylight to 1pm, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays during the season. Smart ducks, we'll have to look elsewhere.

Pheasant Confit on Wild Mushroom Risotto

We had a bountiful pheasant hunt in 2009 (you can read about it here*) but didn’t manage to get through all of the little white packages in the freezer before we went again in 2010.

These frozen treasures made the trip to Smallish Small City with us and we vowed anew to make sure we made a dent in the freezer baskets of pheasant before the 2011 season. Unfortunately – for this task anyway – our favorite preparation for pheasant turns out to be a great way to stretch an ingredient. Inspired by a dish we had at a local wild game & wine dinner, we braise and shred the pheasant, mix it with corn and roasted poblano chiles, add a little cream, wine and stock, and serve it on pasta.

Well, it tastes fine...

We used up a few more birds in an experimental canning of the pasta sauce, thinking it would be an easy-to-fix meal after a cold day of duck hunting (it turned out tasty, but not pretty in the jar). If you’ve checked out the 2010 link (above) you know the buttermilk fried pheasant turned out well, too.

A few days ago I was searching for something slightly different to go on the grill with our newly harvested eggplant and thought perhaps that buttermilk soak might work again for pheasant on the grill. So the freezer pheasant count dropped by three; they were cleaned & breasted, the bones and scraps went into the stock pot, and the legs… hum… what does one do with perfectly lovely game bird legs that are too nice for the stock pot? That’s right… confit them!

Confit is a technique for preserving meat (usually goose or duck legs): the meat is salted (with spices) for 24-48 hours in the refrigerator;

then rinsed and gently cooked in fat. The cooked meat is stored in its fat in the refrigerator until needed;

That's actually confited quail , but you get the idea.

then reheated (often until crispy) and served on salads, in cassoulet, etc. In our case, we served the pheasant confit on a wild mushroom risotto made last year's boletus barrowsii and fresh sage. We were quite pleased with the pheasant, the slightly gamey taste was nicely balanced with the herbs and the texture was firm, not dry or stringy.

Yum!

Risotto in the pot.

Okay, maybe it was a bit of an overkill. Even using the pheasant stock in the risotto, it took a lot of pheasant to stand up to the mushrooms in any given bite. It was all delicious but the combination didn't do justice to the pheasant. Well... there are five more confited legs in the 'fridge so the experiments will continue.

* and Disclaimer: That's the blog of the erudite and dashing MDMNM, husband, missed in the blogosphere (and in the kitchen) as work devours his life for a while.

japanese eggplant harvest

Eggplant?! Really?! Meh.

 

Our first real harvest (albeit modest) is Ichiban eggplant from a patio pot. Sliced and dressed up with a little olive oil, fresh garlic and salt & pepper, they'll join green onions on the grill to accompany buttermilk-soaked pheasant for dinner tonight. A good bottle of wine and baguette should round out things nicely.

 Not a great time to grill, though. It's 104 with SW winds of ~29 mph; the poor chard is wilting in the onslaught. We have yet to harvest anything from the main garden although the first zucchini and yellow squash are only a few days away. Time to go through our ratatouille recipes to see which one we'll try first... or maybe we have some green chile from last year and can get fresh corn for calabacitas... oh, the possibilities.