Tomato plants are still carrying, some even flowering, but obviously slowly losing energy. Season is mostly over.
Harvested the coriander seeds, not 100% dry yet, but nice enough, great aroma. Will also be used to replant next year.
Plucked blackberries with the trolls, not enough for marmelade. Found elderberries and walnuts that will be ready soon.
We plucked our one and only watermelon way too early. It was too sad to throw it away, so: pickle it. I picked a recipe for winter pumpkin and used it in the watermelon.
Situation today: harvested tomatoes, most of the potatoes and beets, planted onions and yellow beans from seeds, parsley and basil as small plants. Carrots, coriander, salad and endives are growing nicely.
Collected mustard seeds from the dry plants, coriander seeds next.
Canned nine glasses of tomatoes and two glasses of beets, pickled green tomatoes and beets.
we love chickpeas. they contain a lot of protein and have been cultivated for food for more than 7500 years. they are versatile and easy to store. one of the items you can easily bulk buy at a packaging-free grocery store or a market stall. we always keep several kilos at home. it seemed just logical to plant some in our little urban garden. we literally took a handful of peas from our storage, threw them in water for an hour and pressed them into the ground. after about a week they sprouted. grew, blossomed and produced cute little offsprings within no time. each husk contains between one and three green peas that can be eaten directly on the field. we collected the whole bunch, put them in an iron pan in the oven until slightly burnt, salted them and devoured them from the bowl, much like edamame. upside: fun and pretty plants that don’t need any attention (except for the occasional water). downside: low space/ crop ratio. will we replant them next year? hell yeah.
Hot? Cool: Earl Grey Cinnamon Ice Tea. Something we brought back from a visit to Sri Lanka (proud home to both amazing tea and the sweetest of cinnamons).
Take a big glass or can (1,5l). Add two canes of cinnamon and 3 spoons of Earl Grey tea, top up with boiling water and let steep for five minutes. Remove the tea. Add sugar or agave syrup to taste and let cool down. Top up with a dash of fresh lemon and lots of ice cubes. Cheers.
Just read a tweet of someone who announced; if you are a beginner at gardening, you should know that one zucchini plant will supply enough crop for a mid-sized city. So true. We were lucky to harvest zucchini after zucchini after zucchini. We gave away some, we pickled some, we filled some with meet, we made soup with potatoes out of them and we love this salad for hot days. Can be eaten warm or cold, mashed or completely blended.
Its’ name: Zucchini with a liver taste; boil eggs. Fry onion and zucchini. Add a little chili, salt to taste, mix. Done.
He says:
this is not rocket science, you don’t need to be accurate with the measurements, just try it
He
if you are a beginner with cooking, don’t worry this will turn out to be one of the easiest recipes you’ve ever made.
Ingredients
Preparation
1- chop the onion into stripes.
2 – on the stove, heat up a pan with the olive oil for a minute then add the onions and fry until they turn golden. while frying the onion you can jump to the next step.
3- dice the zucchini and add it to the pan.
personally I prefer to work with a gas stove, during this process we need a significate amount of heat. continue stirring till you get a soft mix of veggies (10-15 minutes) the power it down.
4- add salt and pepper, and cook for another 2-3 minutes.
5- pure everything into a bowl, add the eggs and smash or blend till you get a paste.
what’s better than a hot day in summer? a vibrant memory of a hot day in summer on a cold winter evening! one of my favourite stories is the story of Frederick the mouse. while his fellow mice collect grains, corn, and nuts for the winter, Frederick collects colours, warmth and words. and saves the day when the winter boredom creeps in on them. preserving tomatoes is a lot like that. it’s nutrition for both soul and body. we harvest a bag full of tomatoes every time we visit the garden. it’s beautiful! and while we use them fresh, we also have some to spare. an easy and useful way to preserve food is boiling it in glasses. fresh tomatoes turn into canned sauce, ready to be used for a variety of dishes (including Shakshuka).
how to: put tomatoes in a bath of hot water for a couple of minutes. take out, let them cool a little and skin them. take out the stem. you can either cut them into bigger pieces or blend them smooth – you might even want to pass them through a sieve to remove the seeds (we don’t). we don’t usually add any salt, herbs or garlic, but you could. press into a glass, close the lit tight and boil upside down in a water bath for at least 45 minutes. it’s important to work with clean glasses and tools (boil everything beforehand for at least 5 minutes). take out the glasses carefully and let cool down on a clean towel. after 20 minutes you should hear a satisfying “plopp” – that’s when a vacuum builds inside the glasses and they are ready for storage in a cool and dry place.
it’s tomato time, baby. every time we go to our garden, we take home a bag full of tomatoes. don’t get me wrong, that’s amazing! we also have three zucchini plants which keep producing crop and I’m honestly scared to check on them, what is a household of four to do with trillions of zucchini?! We will be posting some ideas here later, but the feelings for the tomatoes are quite different.
Shakshuka – or meneme as it’s sister is called in Turkey – is one of our favourite weekend-late-breakfast-dishes. it needs tomatoes, garlic, green pepper (preferably hot), olive oil and eggs. chop the garlic and the pepper, cut the tomatoes into cubes. heat some olive oil in a deep pan, add first the garlic and pepper and a little later the tomatoes. let cook until the tomato peels are soft. keep adding olive oil in the process (think it’s enough already? add a little more). when everything is cooked to a sauce, add salt to taste and make some space for the eggs. the eggs can stay whole or be mixed into the sauce while cooking. the dish is ready when the eggs are. serve with olives and white bread.
this is also an amazing dish for bigger groups – think camping trip with friends or surprise visit from the in-laws. traditionally it’s served for breakfast. it can be tweaked with spinach/ mangold and cream cheese instead of or in addition to tomatoes.