The Canned Finale

Ah, summer vacation.  For me, it’s wrapping up and next week I switch back into prepping for the school year.  I’ve spent the past two days in the kitchen making sure that I get as much done as possible before time is up.

David and I just returned from a two week road trip (which explains my blogging absence).  I’m going to try to keep this post short, with mostly pictures of food, but there’s a lot that grew while we were gone.

Before we left we majorly trimmed the winter squashes and melons.  After being sprayed for powdery mildew, many of the leaves died.  I got a bit excited with my pruning shears and took down most of the buttercup and red kuri squash plants. The plants were not looking that healthy to begin with, and did not have any new fruit.  We picked what fruit was there, hoping they would set more fruit while we were gone.

We picked our Kazakh melons!  (We had one earlier in the season, bringing our grand total from the sprawling vine to three melons.) They were sweet with a honeydew-like consistency.

We also harvested three pinnacle spaghetti squash, two buttercup squash and four red kuri squash (we ate one before heading out of town).

As we don’t have a root cellar, we’ve put them in the hall closet to store for a while.  I’m a bit embarrassed about the state of the closet, but I’m sure you all recognize the important tools like a salad spinner, food dehydrator, crock pot and lots of towels! The box under the towels holds the canned goods that don’t fit in our pantry.

Before vacation we decided to try canning whole tomatoes in water (Ball Book recipe).  After we make enough sauce and salsa to last the year, we’ll do this again at the end of the season.

I’ve been getting a system down for canning.  Whole tomatoes requires skinning them first.  I prefer to do this with David’s help, but I think he was outside working in the yard when I did it this time.  Yard work is just as important.

We canned three quart jars of mixed tomatoes.  I love the mixed colors and hope the mixed flavors work just as well!  We used San Marzanos, Indigo Rose, Jaune Flamme and our neighbor’s mystery slicing tomatoes.

Our neighbor helped keep an eye on our cats and garden when we were gone.  We returned a couple of days earlier than we originally planned, and he told us that he had planned on mowing our lawn for us before we got back.  It’s great to have good neighbors!

The first thing we saw when we got back is two Sugar Baby Watermelons hanging from our A-frame squash/melon trellis!  They’re not mature yet, but they look like they’re getting there quickly.  I’ve read up on how to tell if a watermelon is ready to pick, but I’d love some advice if anyone has some.

The morning after we returned, I woke up early and went outside to harvest our veggies.

Our Little Leaf pickling cucumbers were the size of normal slicing cucumbers.  I wonder if I should have been picking them at this size the entire season.  One of the two plants on the ladder held six large cucumbers clustered tightly together.  Notice at the top of the plant, there are still more coming.  These are an impressive hybrid!

Between the two vines in the front and the three in the back, I picked quite a few cucumbers.  We set aside two for salads, and I began slicing and dicing the remaining cucumbers.  After weighing it out, I decided to make a three jars of bread and butter pickles, a half batch of Indian relish and a full batch of pickle relish.

Of course, each recipe had a different prep and lots of chopping.  I did all of the prep one day, and then the canning the second day.  I also sliced up the smaller parts of the zucchini for zucchini pickles.

The bread and butter pickles needed to be salted and iced.  Last batch we made was from the Ball Blue Book, this batch was from Put ’em Up!  We’re quite excited about this new (to us) cookbook and also used the Indian and Pickle relishes from it.

The bread and butter pickles look so pretty while they’re cooking.  This recipe didn’t seem too sweet and seemed to have just the right amount of liquid.

And our three jars!

I’m just getting started now.

The zucchini pickles have a similar process.

They had to salt and ice for two hours.

Then instead of cooking the zucchini in the brine, they were supposed to soak in it for two hours THEN come to a boil.

I decided that these would have to wait until the next day, as I had a lot going on already.  So, they went into the fridge while in their brine.  Hopefully they won’t be too soggy.  To attempt to compensate, we’re going to throw a grape leaf (thanks to our neighbor) in each jar.

The relishes took the most time.  We also have the most jars of them!

The Indian Relish (top) contains cucumber, onion, carrot and cauliflower.  It is seasoned with cider vinegar, curry powder, turmeric, mustard powder (which I ground myself), and fresh ginger.

We canned six 4 ounce jars and four 8 ounce jars of this fragrant pickle that will be a great addition to our dinners.

I’m having a hard time accepting the pickle relish because of how it looks.  Earlier this summer I made a sweet relish that looks bright and colorful in the jar. The pickle relish is brown and dingy with flecks of celery seed.

Our pickle relish is also with cider vinegar.  The brown is from ground allspice, peppercorns and celery seed.  Typically we grind our own allspice, but I dug around the cabinets and found some pre-ground that I brought back from Belize a few years ago.

I hope that was a smart decision.

And now the tomatoes.

The Indigo Rose are beautiful, a little meaty and not that strong of a flavor.  They are consistent in size.  All of this makes them perfect for roasting, which will concentrate their flavor.

The amount that we had fit perfectly on two trays.  I sliced them, brushed them with olive oil, and then sprinkled them salt, pepper and fresh thyme. They were roasted in the oven at 275 for about 4 hours.  After they cooled, I put them in a ziploc and tossed them in the freezer to be used.

I also have one tray of cherry tomatoes to roast.  Roasting is perfect for cherry tomatoes that split, and our Isis Candy have been splitting like crazy these days.

The San Marzanos are ready!!  They are perfect: large, meaty and very few holes.

These will make a great salsa (later) and make a great tomato sauce (now).

The San Marzanos were added to a sauce pot with a chopped onion and a handful of garlic cloves.  We kept the sauce simple so that we can add more to it when we use it.  After it cooked for a bit, we used an immersion blender to chop up the chunks.  When it was thick enough, we canned the sauce (with a little bit of lemon juice to assure the right acidity) and processed it for 35 minutes.

We figured out that a full bowl makes 8 pints of beautiful sauce. The small jars for when we make pizza.  We decided that we need to make one more batch of sauce this summer, and we’ll be good for the year.  From looking at the plants, we think that we’ll easily have enough for that and for canning salsa.

While we didn’t make tomato salsa (this time), we did make a salsa verde.

I picked all the large tomatillos that I found out back.  There are many more coming from the two plants in the back yard.  And our two purple tomatillos in the front yard are finally starting to set fruit.

As we planned on canning the salsa verde, I decided to follow the Ball Book recipe.  I also included some green tomatoes that came off the plants while I was tidying them up.

I added onion, garlic, the one jalepeno we had growing, crushed red pepper, vinegar,and lime juice.

After it cooked down a bit, we used the immersion blender to chop it up. When we tasted it, we decided to put in a little sugar also.

We made three pints and two half pints.  The sauce is a little thin for a dipping salsa, but will be perfect for enchiladas!

Our dining room table is full of jars.  My next step is trying to make space in that closet for more jars.  I’m also working on arranging a food swap in my town.  We tried to register for the Los Angeles one, and it “sold out” in 4 minutes!!  We figure that means it’s time to start another one.  With all of our food that we just made, it’s hard to think about parting with any of it, but it’s exciting to think about exchanging it for things we haven’t made.

As I look at the window, I see a cucumber that needs to be picked.  Looks like it’s time to think about the next round of canning.  Oh wait, I mean it’s time to think about heading back to teaching.

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Our first food swap

Sunday we took the food from our harvest to our first food swap in downtown Los Angeles.

We registered for the swap about a month ago, and I’ve been eagerly waiting for it. When I found out about food swapping, through poking around on the internet, it was a new idea to me so I’m guessing it’s probably new to many of you also. The idea is that people bring food that is homemade, homegrown or foraged and trade with other people. The Food Swap Network is a great resource to find a swap in your area.

As I mentioned in my last post, our strategy was to bring a little bit of a lot of things and hopefully come back with items that we are unable or unwilling to make. We hoped that there would be a variety to pick from and that we’d come home with fun things to eat and cook.

David stood high on a ladder and picked a dozen avocados from the tree. We’ve used all of the lower ones, and the next ones that we pick will require an 8ft ladder plus the 8ft fruit picker (and David’s 6ft tall body). We’re getting to the end of our reserves on the tree. The new ones won’t be ready until fall; they are about two inches big right now (on both trees).

I printed out a bunch of cute labels I found online, grabbed some rafia from the closet, and packaged up our jars and cakes. I enjoy being crafty, and David is glad that I do because it made everything look much more attractive.

Being the type of person I am, I also included on the label the ingredients.

We only had enough fresh nasturtium pods to make one jar. These would be a precious commodity in our trading.

We also only had one jar of dilly beans. Most of our bean plants are not doing so well right now. The plan is to replant beans soon and hope for the best.

David and I packed our food into a cooler and large tupperware and headed to the store in downtown Los Angeles. We live about 15-20 minutes from most places, even downtown, although we’ve yet to explore much of it. We headed down the road they are building the new mixed zoning metro station, and into the Arts District.

City murals fascinate me and the area we were in had many. I would have loved to know the story behind this one, and the others in the area. After the swap we saw four men being filmed in front of this one, but couldn’t tell what was going on.

The LA food swap was at Poketo in the back of the store. The store had some fun items that I would have loved to buy, but I averted my eyes because I was at the swap to trade food and not spend money.

We arrived on time (impressive for not being sure of the LA traffic) and set up our table.

The way the swap works is that you have the first half hour to set up your display and greet each other.  The next hour is spent looking around.

People fill out slips of paper, expressing interest in swapping. We were delighted to find a variety of baked goods, drinks, oils, jellys, salsas and more.
David and I eagerly filled out papers, weighed our decisions, tasted samples and chit chatted with people. I wish we had more time (and the space for swapping was a little bigger) so we could have asked questions about how people made their goods. Perhaps there was enough time; we didn’t even think to ask about most of the items because we were a bit overwhelmed.

We were relieved to see that people filled out our papers.  The dill pickles had an overflow item on the back: bacon.  Yes, we took that trade.
The next half hour was the trading portion. We had a big selection and thankfully people came to us with what they wanted to trade.
The nasturtium pickles were the first to be traded for homemade kahlua! Then avocados for homemade honey (bees in residential areas of Los Angeles has been a long fought battle that is still going on) . The kombucha lady was excited to trade and dill pickles were more popular than we had thought!

This is what we came home with!  We did bring home two small chocolate zucchini breads and one large one, which we gave to our neighbors on the way out of the car.  I’ll go through the “harvest” in smaller pictures.

We traded for plum jam (short ball jar), smoked feta dip (short ball jar), “Heinz” style baked beans (tall ball jar) roasted red pepper ketchup (tall ball jar), kahlua, apricot-amaretto jam, grapefruit brulee jam with coconut honey and ginger.  The cayenne pepper was also brought with us as decoration.

We also got two bags of cheddar crackers, chili oil, two salsas, a dozen oranges and lots of Ball Jar rings and lids. We had just stocked up on jar rings and lids, but we can always use more lids. I have a busy summer planned in the kitchen.

Oh yes, there’s more to list!  We traded for  a jar of aprium- orange conserve with rum, walnuts and cardamom, two jars of honey, two packages of kumquats, granola, Garden Dew flavored kombucha (a bit vinegary, but good for us), two hummuses, chocolate cinnamon olive oil cookies, fresh mint and lavender bundle, fresh juice (beet, celery and apple), banana bread (with nuts) and a half dozen eggs. Some of these were last minute trades to get rid of the zucchini bread, which was great for us because all of it is better than zucchini bread.

I love zucchini bread, but still have shredded zucchini in the fridge and I’d prefer to make more than keep what we made.

And of course, there is the homecured and homesmoked bacon.  She had samples too.

We look forward to enjoying each and every item.  For dinner after the food swap we had hummus, salsa, feta dip and we’re researching recipes for kumquats and oranges. I highly recommend food swapping and bet you can find one, or set one up, near you!

Here’s a write up about the food swap from Poketo, if you want to see more pictures of the swap.

 

Putting up our harvest

There’s a heat wave in Los Angeles, and honestly it’s nothing compared to the heat we just experienced in Florida.  David and I didn’t even run the air conditioning, and had the oven on all day, so you know it wasn’t that bad where we live.  We usually get a breeze blowing through the house, until the wind shifts in late summer and the Santa Ana’s arrive.  August is usually when we run the air conditioning, and many houses in LA don’t even have it!

Dave and I spent the better part of Friday and Saturday preparing food to bring to a food swap!  I’ll write a separate post about that, as we just returned and we’re very excited about how it went!  But first, here’s what we prepped to bring with us.

Roasted tomatoes (recipe linked in last post, but here it is again.)

We slow roasted our small harvest of three types of tomatoes, and I’m looking forward to doing it again later this week (after it cools off).

We’ve never grown the Jaune Flamme tomatoes before and they’re already a favorite!  They are fairly uniform in size, a rich color and just the right combination of seed and meat.  Our plant has giant clusters of them weighing it down.  Actually, I’m going to run outside and pick a few right now, as I’m getting hungry for some!

The Indigo Rose are so purple!  These all seemed a bit mealy or underripe.  Roasting them should make their flavor more intense, which they’ll probably benefit from.  We’re hoping these are tasty enough to be salad tomatos, and maybe part of the trick is learning what color they’re supposed to be when it’s harvest time.

The San Marzanos are weird to slice.  The ratio of meat to seed was weird and I had a hard time making it even while slicing.  This heirloom isn’t designed for slicing- it’s a beauty of a sauce tomato.  The fruit also had lots of caterpillar holes, and I remember cutting out a lot of spots last year.  In the past, we have made sauce, dehydrated, and roasted them.  We just finished the roasted tomatos from our freezer; we have a few of the dehydrated ones left.

We had a full tray of jaune flamme, and half a tray each of indigo rose and San Marzano. Before the trays went in the oven, I brushed them with lots of olive oil and sprinkled them with salt, thyme sprigs and whole garlic cloves. They looked so beautiful when they went in. I thought I took a picture, but I can’t find it.

The tomatoes were roasted at 250 for 5 hours.  We then let them cool a little, packed the different varieties of heirloom tomatoes, in thick layers, adding garlic, thyme, and fresh basil in between the layers.

I then added a teaspoon of lemon juice and filled the jar with olive oil.  We processed it in our canner for the time in the recipe (I never seem to remember numbers).

I was actually kind of sad to bring these to the food swap, because I really wanted to keep them.  But then I was excited that other people get to eat these, and we get to make more for ourselves!  The idea of the food swap is to bring stuff we made or grew, and then trade it for things that other people made.  Since we have such a variety of produce to use, our strategy was to bring a small amount of a wide variety of items.

While David was at the store picking up ingredients for the baking of our giant zucchini and leftover bag of carrots, I prepped all of the pickling things.  I measured out how many spears or disks would fit in each jar, and decided on the amount and type of jar.  We decided on one jar dilly beans, four jars dill pickle spears, 4 jars bread and butter disks.

This was a great first use of our new canner and canning tools.

Last summer, after the frustrating experience of canning tomato sauce without any tools, we decided that we needed to buy a canning kit.  David and I picked one up a few weeks ago, as well as two boxes of jars.  The first day of canning was something that we were excited to do and knew we would have time for during summer vacation.  David and I took turns using each type of jar grip, and the magnetic lid grabber.

Each pickle was made a different way.  The bread and butter pickles were boiled together in the brine for 10 minutes.  We followed the Ball Blue Book recipe.

The bread and butter pickles are on the left.  I was never a huge bread and butter fan until I had fresh bread and butter zucchini pickles in Vermont.  Lisa, the owner of the farm that I worked on, made the best zucchini pickles and I 15 years later I still salivate at the thought of them.

On the right are the dill pickle spears.  We used the Ball Blue Book, and added the seasoning for Kosher style pickles.  I must say, I didn’t realize that Kosher style involved simply adding garlic, mustard seed and a bay leaf.  I was surprised because I’ve always thought all dill pickles include these things.  Also, the Ball Book didn’t mention a blessing or cleanliness or any of the other Kosher rules.

We also made one mini jar of dilly beans.  I used powdered cayenne, forgetting that we have a cayenne pepper plant (and that there were probably more ripe after I did my initial harvest).  The dilly beans were out of the Blue Book also and contained a mix of about six different varieties of beans.

After we finished processing all of the jars, we put away the canner and called it a day.

Day two, Saturday, was for baking.

David got out the food processor and shredded carrots for about 10 minutes.  Then he switched to zucchini.  He shredded the entire 4 lb one.  Each of the piles filled a large bowl.

We made double recipe carrot cake and triple recipe double chocolate zucchini bread.

I’m fast forwarding the description of baking.  David and I worked together to measure, mix, clean, scoop, bake and test the cakes.  At the end of the day, we had 4 large carrot cakes, 2 small carrot cakes, 4 large chocolate zucchini and 6 small chocolate zucchini breads.  These would be our main “money” at the food swap.

A long vacation and a rich harvest.

I didn’t plan on missing blogging as much as I did. It’s been almost two weeks since my last post because we went out of town on vacation.  We asked our neighbors to water the backyard every two or three days and crossed our fingers for the best results.

By now our plants are well established and the lasagna garden has broken down quite a bit.  We knew the weather would be hot and sunny, and that it never rains in Los Angeles in the summer.  We also know that our neighbors don’t garden and get home late at night from work (sometimes after dark) and we hoped they water.

David and I arrived home from the airport at 11pm last night, and grabbed a flashlight to inspect the plants.  Except for the zucchini that fell over because the fruit was too large, things looked really good!  The plants need tidying up, but overall it was a great time to leave the garden and the supports that exist are still holding up.  The tomato cages will soon need staking (like tomorrow), the cucumbers and melons need more ties and we’re starting more zucchini and beans in the nursery.  We were happy to see that the plants definitely had water while we were gone (one indicator was that the squash leaves have powdery mildew beginning). By flashlight we picked the giant zucchinis and righted the plant.  We resisted a midnight harvest, and I did it most of it before David even got out of bed this morning.

Our harvest after the vacation.  I’ll go through each item, and how we plan to use it.  The only reason I snagged the bunch of mint, was that it was crowding the cucumber plants.  We don’t plan to use it right away.  We have fresh mint year round and have plenty of dried mint on hand already.

The largest Safari zucchini weighed four pounds and the smaller fruit was two pounds.  These are both destined to be double chocolate zucchini bread.  We’re taking the bread with us to the LA food swap on Sunday.  The food swap is our first one and we’re planning on bringing a variety of items made from this harvest with us.

Our mixed green beans.  This is enough for a small jar of dilly beans.  I didn’t take pictures of our dill but we have three plants which will provide all the dill we need for the canning session.

The Indigo Rose (front) and Jaune Flamme (back) are beautiful and ripe for roasting.  These are our first fruits from the plants and there are many more coming soon.  The plan is to roast the tomatoes and pack three jars of them with olive oil.  

The Jaune Flamme are a rich golden orange when ripe.  They have a great flavor (I snuck one more that I found on the vine) and will be fun to roast and can this summer.

The Indigo Rose are ripe when there’s red on the bottom of them.  We’ve been anxious to pick them, and I think we’re having trouble determining if they’re ripe.  Roasting these should help intensify their flavor.

Our Isis Candy cherry tomatoes are ready!  Last year we grew these in a pot, and they were our favorite cherry.  This year we gave them prime real estate in the raised bed, and the plant is our largest so far.  These will be enjoyed in our salads, and next week we should begin to have a small supply daily.

San Marzanos!  Two years ago, David discovered how wonderful these sauce tomatoes are and we’ve been growing two plants ever since.  This is the first of our harvest.  Many had caterpillar holes in them, which doesn’t really matter when it comes to roasting the good parts.

These are our Tounge of Fire shell beans harvested from plants that we pulled.  David and I enjoy the color and having a shell bean around, but these hybrids were taking up valuable space.  We decided to harvest what was there and we’ll use the space for something else.

These will be served with dinner. These shell beans have a fun pattern.  I’d like to get heirloom shell beans when it’s time to order more summer seeds.  Any suggestions of your favorite varieties?

These easter egg radishes grew in the new lasagna garden and have twisted up tips to show for it.  We didn’t have enough to do much with, and David’s happy to have them in his salads.

Our little bell pepper plant was sagging under the weight of four bell peppers.  I picked the two biggest and figured we leave the others on the plant to turn red, or until we need them, whichever is first.  These will be fun to use in salads or cooked.

The hot peppers are doing well.  That’s not entirely true… the cayenne, jalepeno and banana pepper are doing well.  The rest of our hot peppers have been stunted and we’re hoping a shot of fertilizer will help them snap out of their growing funk. The cayenne will get tossed in the pickles, and I’m not sure about the jalepenos yet.  We have about 6 more that are the same size, and I’m thinking about making a jalepeno jelly.

The nasturtiums had more seed pods on them, so I figured it’s time to pickle up another jar.  These were mostly from the two new plants that are now taking over the mystery garden.  These are currently soaking in a brine on the kitchen window, and will be pickled tomorrow.

Another “soon project” will be picking the green coriander seeds.  I’ve been reading about the treat of green coriander and dreaming of ways to use them.  I’d probably be more excited if I actually liked coriander, but David loves it so I’m channeling his enthusiasm.  I read about pickling the green pods, and would love suggestions if anyone has them.

Pickling cucumbers is the way to go!  Most of these are from the little leaf cucumber vines, and one of them is a Straight 8.  They will all become either dill pickle spears or bread and butter chips.  There are a few more on the vines that should be ready when it’s time to prep them.

We picked our first winter squash!  The delicata is one of my favorite.  This one looked a little small, and I am hoping it’s ready.  The skin is hard so I guessed it was time to harvest. A lot of what I read said to harvest winter squash before the first frost… which just didn’t help.  As with most of this harvest, I decided to pick it and then pay attention and learn as we cut into our veggies.

Our first buttercup squash.  What a beauty! This one is from the plant that we thought was an acorn squash and was one of our first squashes to begin growing.  It may be a little soon, but not much.  There’s four more that are close behind this one.

This little pattypan squash is our first one. The poor plant has been hiding under Red Kuri and zucchini leaves for the past couple of weeks.  I figured it was time to pick the lone fruit, and see if the plant can start growing more.

David and I are keeping busy, and I hope to update the blog soon on what the plants look like and how the preserving goes.  Isn’t summertime grand?

Harvests and pickles

 

This weekend I began perfecting my pickling recipes, as the harvesting has begun!

When I was watering the cucumber vines in the backyard, I discovered this little leaf pickling cucumber half buried under the leaves!  There’s another in front yard that will be picked this week, and I believe these are both destined for our salads, not pickles.  The vines are full of baby cukes, and we’re eagerly awaiting them!

As I have mentioned, the zucchini harvest has begun.  This past week we’ve harvested one, but there’s another to pick in a couple of days.  The first few zucchini on our vines seem to be falling off, perhaps from lack of fertilization?

I did pickle the zucchini, as well as the yellow squash, and made a tasty bread and butter pickle from the Ball Blue Book.  They’re a day old, in the fridge, and delicious already.  We didn’t bother getting out the canning equipment, as we know we’ll devour them rapidly.

 

Here’s the yellow squash right before I picked it.  Notice the small one next to it has a flower shriveled up and is rotting at the end.  Anyone have suggestions as to what’s going on?

This weekend we also made our first jar of dilly beans (also in the fridge and getting devoured).

Plant nerd that I am, we have 7 different types of green beans, and I think I managed to sort them out.  Or at least they look like it so let’s just pretend. These are the tricolor bush bean (green), Tavera (filet), and Provider (feel kinda fuzzy).  I’m working on my palate, but they all pretty much taste the same to me.  We had the seeds, so I’m looking more at yield and plant health to decide which to plant in the future.

Of course, we have other colors of beans too! 

The Burgundy pole beans (ok, the one plant) is yielding a few beans here and there.  I think they are the straight ones on the left.  Then we have the tricolor bush bean (purple) and Velour (filet).  There are also yellow beans from the tricolor mix, but I guess they didn’t make a picture because we only have one variety of yellow bean.

This harvest was the perfect amount to make our first jar of dilly beans.

I picked a few sprigs of fresh dill, grabbed two pearl onions that I planted at school, peeled a clove of garlic (ok, we’ll grow that next year) and made a brine to pack them in.

I love the look of fresh dilly beans!  Here’s the recipe we used this time.

Today I harvested another large handful of mixed beans, and am thinking these will be eaten fresh.

We also pickled watermelon radishes last week, and I chopped up garlic and put a little too much garlic in it for my taste.  I don’t like radishes much to begin with, and the recipe I used was a gentle experiment with lacto-fermination which seemed to make the radish flavor stronger.

Also, this week I picked a bunch of shell beans.  I remember shelling beans as a kid, but haven’t ever prepared them myself.  

These are Tongue of Fire, and they are supposed to be colored inside.  I wonder if I picked them too soon, or didn’t let them dry enough.  We’re cooking them tonight.

This weekend was a guacamole and salsa making weekend.  We harvested the avocados last week (and have a seemly endless supply if we’re able to reach higher into the trees with a ladder) and we had some that were ripe this weekend! The tomatoes were not ours, as we’re still waiting, but our neighbor brought us a bag from his garden.  Luckily we’re growing peppers, so salsa was easy to toss together.

I picked four banana peppers. They went in the salsa. (I’m a lightweight when it comes to spicy food.)

And I picked four jalepenos, two of which went into the guacamole.  David always deseeds and deveins them so I can handle the heat.

In the back lasagna gardens, I also found this little surprise.

It’s an easter egg radish, and a fun one to find.

The food we’re getting is already keeping us busy, and it’s just a little bit here and there.  We know that soon enough we’ll be harvesting so much that we’ll be giving it away, and we’re ready!