I know some of you are gardeners & you know how it goes... everything comes in great quantities all at once & you are wondering ?? what ?? you can do with it.
Right now I have a huge huge huge amount of spinach, actually the first of what I have planted to be ripe yet, besides red rasberries.
Everything else is ripening... I figure in six weeks I will have more eggplants than I know what to do with or how to cook differently. and so on! Like ? how one zucchini plant can bear so many zucchini's?
Anyhow, this is a new recipe that I found in my local newspaper to use up all of my barrels of spinach:
"Greek-Style chickpeas with Greens and Tomatoes"
(I don't think I used as much onions as they have & I didn't have any Hungarian Paprika).
Here is the recipe:
2 medium onions, chopped;
3 clobes of garlic, peeled & minced
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 can of chickpeas (my note, be sure and rinse rinse rinse them off !!! and the low sodium variety will probably be better)
2 - 3 large tomatoes, chopped or one can of tomatoes
1/4 teaspon crushed red pepper flakes
1 teaspoon Hungarian paprika, 1 teaspoon oregano,
1 bunch of spinach, chard, kale, or other greens;
juice of 1 lemon to taste
Prepare the spinach or other greens by washing, chopping and settting aside to drain, rinse and drain the chickpeas (my note: I didn't chop up the spinach -- just cut off the stems)
Saute the onions in the olive oil, in a large heavy-bottomed pot, until soft and translucent
Stir in the minced garlic and then in a minute or two, the chickpeas and tomatoes. Season with the pepper flakes
(My note: I used cut up hot peppers (small pieces)--give care if you are unfamilair with really hot peppers, you DON'T want to get them under your fingernails! they are HOT!)
Let simmer 5 minutes to allow the flavors to blend.
Add the spinach, chard, kale or other greens and cook until it is done to your liking. Add the lemon juice.
This was in my local newspaper http://www.timesunion.com with the source noted: FROM ONTARIO SEASONAL FOODS
Everyone in my family loved it. I'm going to try it one day with young dandelion greens (which I have, unfortunately, growing all over my big lawn!).
I think I have mentioned that I am continually amazed how the Jamaican people in my area LOVE dandelion greens & I always see them carefully picking them. Quite some time ago, before these two Rasta's moved to Atlanta (because they couldn't stand the New York cold and frigid weather) anyways, they used to come and pick all of my dandelion greens on a weekly basis. I think they might be rather bitter for the US/Canadian tastebuds.
My Kale is also probably ready to cook, it looks so pretty I almost hate to cook it. For non-vegetarians, there is a Portugese soup, with chicken soup stock as a base & some kind of sausage. It's called Portugese Kale Soup.
I have also grown quite a bit of eggplant this year, now tiny little eggplants on my plants. I grew some Japanese varieties, a white variety & (I think) just some general purple kind. They won't be ready for quite some time!
My tomatoe plants have green tomatoes only, I actually have one plant with NO tomatoes at all, still just the little yellow flowers. This is weird because they are planted right alongside the other ones that already have big green tomatoes on the plant.
Besides my spinach, the only other thing in my garden that is ready are my red rasberries. This is a joy to me because it takes the plant a number of years to really "come to life" and produce a good amount of rasberries. They spread too... I have a plant in my garden that I definitely didn't plant that is actually producing more than the plant behind it that I planted.
I have a very long dirt driveway that every ten years or so i have leveled and stone put down. I also use the cheapest of the cheap snowplow guys...
They plow all the rocks up into my garden area so I just dig big holes and buy cheap potting soil from Big Lots or Ocean Lots, dig the hole & fill it up with the stuff & put in my garden.
I do have a huge compost pile but each & every time I dig into it I get one of those horrible NY/CT lyme disease producing tics burrowed into me. So I kind of hate to even go into my compost pile....
I LOVE gardening! At one point in my life I drove all over Florida looking for a warm weather place to buy some land, this was during the 1980's when Jamaica became (to me) this crazy place that I loved but decided I definitely would not want to buy land there.
Homestead Florida was the place that (as far as a gardener) I liked the best... The Keys in close proximity... Coconut Grove to the north... it was just so beautiful.
So just after I started looking to purchase a little piece of land there, some Hurricane TOTALLY DECIMATED the place.
For those of you who know Florida, my choice was near to the "Monkey Village" area.
I love where I live, but only maybe for three months out of the year!