Garden Eats

We are having another swell fruit year--currants, raspberries, strawberries especially.   The raspberries and strawberries are still going, too! 

We have both golden and red raspberries and it is especially fun to share them with people who've never seen anything but a red raspberry.  My niece, Keleigh, was one of our most recent side-by-side taste testers.  She preferred the golden raspberries as they were a little less tart than their red counterparts.  That seems a pretty common assessment.  I think they taste basically the same, but....I am really, really, really not picky when it comes to berries.  Or fruit, basically.

When the whole core slides out when pulling the top from a strawberry that is a very, very good sign.  A melt in your mouth sweet burst explosion good sign.

During the berry glut I made some dank fudge with strawberries, based on this recipe with my sister and god-sister.  It was a pretty dang incredible treat.

Chocolately fruity sweet deliciousness.

The Robins actually gave us a run for our money on the currants this year.  I was racing to beat the birds to those brilliantly scarlet berries.  Matt was ready to just give up and let the birds have 'em.  ...which surprised me, given his firm stance about saving the lettuce from the rabbits.  I was fast and determined though and so we shall have currant jelly again this year.  They makes for some gorgeous jam.

The apples are reddening up, though are a bit bruised from last week's hailstorm.  The grape vines--planted last year--are sprawling their way down the fence.

Haralson Apples

We made some of that utterly fabtabulous lemon pasta for dinner this week.  Made all the more spectacular with parsley and basil snipped in the garden just moments before they were added to the dish and morel mushrooms, gifted us from a friend earlier this year.

Steamed cauliflower, sauteed morels, toasted almond slices, basil, parsley, lemon pasta.....mmmmmmmmmmmm.....

This week we picked the first cayenne pepper of the season. A good thing, too, because I actually had to buy hot sauce this spring.  My homemade stock ran dry far too early!  It has been more years than I remember since this happened.

Jalapenos are ready, too!

We also dug the first sweet, tender carrot this week.  Fresh garden carrots truly are a vegetable that are dramatically unmatched to the store bought, long-dug alternate.  They are a whole different flavor experience.  We'd been eating baby carrots leftover from an event...and they're like crunchy water by comparison.  There is so much taste going on in a fresh carrot.  It astonishes me every year.

Matt and my nephews (visiting from Washington) picking raspberries and checking out the garden.

The garlic is curing in the fresh air.  There are some mighty satisfactory heads this year.  Much of this will be replanted to produce next year's crop, but (boy, oh, boy!) does my mouth water already about that fresh garlic!

We enjoyed our annual garlic scape harvest, too.

Spaghetti and meatballs with garlic scapes.

Matt's greenhouse project is steadily taking shape this summer.  I can't wait to see it all finished.  I think it will look charming as all get out.  More pragmatically, we think a greenhouse will be a lovely addition to our gardening repertoire.  We've got some tomatoes, watermelon, and tomatillos in there at the moment.

Matt and his helpful crew on the initial building day.

The spinach is long gone, but the chard is coming up to take its place in our smoothies.  We did enjoy a couple super yummy spinach-tofu quiches though, before the spinach bolted in the summer heat.

Spinach tofu "quiche" with seasoned chickpeas.

The most tiny and succulent Asian eggplants are on the menu next.  In addition to tasting great they are also some of the cutest produce I've ever seen.  These babies are only a couple inches long and so creamy and buttery it is unreal.  They're so different than their big, fat, honking Italian eggplant cousins.

Of course, all this activity is supervised by Ginger.  Queen of the Garden.

She's gorgeous.  And fierce.