Garden Update #18

The theme of the week with the gardens is that the butternut squash is winning. It's winning the battle to take over our garden, other people's gardens, and well, I think its plan is to take over the world. Every time we go down there we have more "escapees", new growth trying to make its way somewhere, even at the expense of the other plants. One of our tomato plants, as you'll see below, has really felt the wrath. The squash plant decided to grab a hold of it, and has proceeded to try to both strangle it and pull it over. This combined with all the rain we've had over the past couple of weeks doesn't provide a whole lot of hope for the plants survival. It's pretty yellow and gnarly looking - so we'll just have to see.

Otherwise, things are just moving along, lots of pepper growth, some even starting to ripen, and our zucchini and yellow squash all have a few little fruits on them

Check out the container garden:

















































Banana peppers.
































Our "regular" bell pepper plant. We've gotten a couple of small peppers off of this and they are really good. As I noted in yesterdays post, the peppers from our container garden don't get as big as the ones from the store, but there is no comparison with flavor.















The cayenne pepper plant is going crazy. It's looking like, after these all ripen, we might get another large round. This has been a very productive plant. I think next year we'll have two or three of these plants and we'll be set for cayenne and crushed red pepper!



















The Hungarian Wax plant is literally infested with blooms. If these all turn into peppers, we are going to have a serious Hungarian Wax supply!



















The gorgeous and lush jalapeno plant. Look at all those peppers!



















Petite bell peppers. A few are even ripening.















A ripening Super Chile. I think this plant has about had it. It is so waterlogged and it seems as if it always rains at the most inopportune times.

















The other container banana pepper plant.

Onto the community garden:
































This is a plant we haven't photographed for awhile. Anyone who has been following the Garden Updates for awhile - remember the two tomato starts we got at the beginning of the season from the market? Well we thought they were both dead, it seemed as if they had gotten something. We took out the Brandywine, but forgot about the Better Boy, and it's making a comeback!















This is the only banana pepper plant in our community garden that is easily visible in the tangled mess that is our butternut squash plants. There are three others besides this one, we have to dig through the jungle in order to check for peppers.















Yellow straightneck squash plant.















This is our first picked butternut squash - well right before we picked it of course.















Another butternut, it looks like it is quickly ripening, we should be able to pick it next weekend we think.















This is the poor tomato plant that has been terrorized by the butternut squash plants.

Our Roma tomato plant is really producing like mad. We took a series of pictures so as to illustrate its abundance.























I can't wait for them to ripen, but I'm a little nervous they are going to ripen all at once and I don't have a water bath canner yet, we might be eating a LOT of tomatoes!

















Our two zucchini plants. The larger one is mostly just for looks; we haven't actually gotten anything off the larger one.

We've also noticed quite a few clusters of these things. They appear to be the eggs of some sort of bug. It's weird; some of the "egg sacks" have cut all the way through the leaves as if they were sewed on. Anyone know what these are? Should we be removing the leaves with these egg sacks on them? Are they pests or beneficial? Any help would be much needed.

















As promised in the commentary to yesterday's post, here is Brett's recipe for refrigerator pickles.

The produce legend is:
no asterisk = from the grocery store
* = farmer's market
** = CSA
*** = Container or Community Garden

B's Famous Summer Pickles
sliced onions **
thickly sliced cucumbers (smaller ones work best)**
1 part water
1 part white distilled vinegar
salt
dash of ground black pepper
a drizzle of olive oil

Combine all ingredients in a bowl. Let marinate at least 24 hours before eating.

The marinade for this recipe can be used for multiple rounds of pickles.

'Til next time.

Lindsay's Tamale Pockets and Super Easy Tasty Taco Salad

Over the weekend, I was super lucky to be able to try out a tester recipe for Lindsay's (aka the Happy Herbivore) upcoming cookbook. These are her Tamale Pockets, and man were these tasty. The pictures above do not do this meal justice. I'm not sure what was up with our camera, both Brett and I took TONS of pictures of these and none of them really came out. Oh, and it didn't help that I overstuffed the pockets. :-)

The complimentary textures of the two crusts go perfectly with the seasoning of the filling. Oh my goodness, that filling was amazing. It could have it's own category of recipes dedicated to it! I can't say much more about it, you'll have to wait. But this picky Mexican food lover can happily say "I approve!", as did Brett, so try to be patient as you wait for her much anticipated cookbook to come out!

Anywho....

During the summer, our meals are pretty simple, which is why you will likely see much more ranting and posts about gardening. However, if all goes well, the end of the summer will be filled with posts on food preservation. Anyway, the reason for this is that I don't like to run the oven, stove, or anything if I don't have to when it's hot. So, for example, this weekend I made up a huge batch of traditional refried beans so we could have bean burritos, taco salad, and Local Veggie and Bean Wraps. I also made up some seasoned lentils so we could have Lentil and Potato Tacos, and also taco salad. You see, I like to be able to make up big batches of stuff for us to eat on during the week, but I don't like to eat the same thing all week either. That's the beauty of Mexican cooking, I can simply make up two big batches of beans and lentils and we have 4 different meals using many of the same ingredients. Who can beat that?

Now, this meal isn't really anything special, but it was damn tasty, and I thought I would explain the 'method to our madness' that is our summer eating habits. Eating like this also helps reduce waste, since, with a little bit of planning, you won't be scrambling to figure out what to do with the leftover seasoned lentils or brown rice you have on hand. I don't know about anybody else, but I hate waste. Don't even get me started on the folks who planted their Community Garden plots, never to return, all the while they have perfectly good food rotting on the vine when we are facing a global food crisis. It just gets to me, seriously.

Anyways, back to the taco salad.

















Brett made some tofu sour cream to go with this, and man, it was perfect! He's really getting the tofu sour cream thing down.

Super Easy Tasty Taco Salad
traditional refried beans
seasoned lentils
long grain brown rice, cooked
shredded lettuce
diced tomatoes
tortilla chips
tofu sour cream
Green Chile Taco Sauce

All you gotta do is crush up some tortilla chips and layer 'em in the bottom of a bowl, layer on the beans, lentils, rice, lettuce and tomato, and then top it with tofu sour cream, Green Chile Taco Sauce (or picante) and enjoy!

Mmmm, I could eat this for dinner almost every night, taco salad is one of both mine and Brett's favorite foods, so easy, so tasty, and dare I say even healthy when the taco salad is vegan.

'Til next time.

Fajita Burritos with "Traditional" Refried Beans

So I'm a little bit behind in my food posts as things were a bit hectic this past week.

We had a really good, albeit short, trip to St. Louis. My dad's graduation ceremony was held at the Missouri History Museum. It was a lovely ceremony with a good keynote speaker. It was also really nice to see my grandparents from Houston, we don't get to see them enough. After the ceremony, we had a nice lunch and looked around the St. Louis Art Museum for awhile. I will post some St. Louis pictures at the end of this post.

Onto the food. As you all know, Brett and I love Mexican food, it might go beyond love, but that is beside the point. :-) Anyways, we have been trying to get a good refried bean recipe down for a couple of years. Our beans have always turned out well, but they were also always more flavorful than authentic refried beans, and something always seemed a bit off. I did a little research and experimented, and have come up with the most 'authentic' recipe for vegan refried beans we've had yet.

Brett also made a good portion of this meal. I made the beans, he made the marinade, cut up all the veggies, and marinated them for the day. When I got home from work to make the meal, all I had to do was sauté the veggies and heat up the beans. Gotta love meals like that!

'Traditional' Vegan Refried Beans

1 cup of dry pinto beans, soaked overnight and rinsed

1 serrano pepper, stem removed

1 jalapeno pepper, stem removed

1/2 medium onion (or equivalent)

1/2 bulb of garlic, peeled

2-3 tbsp vegetable (or other) oil

1-2 tbsp salt (in water)

In a crock pot, combine all the ingredients and fill the pot with water. Simmer on high for 2-3 hours or until beans are soft. (You could also do this in a pot on the stove.)

Reserve about half a cup of the bean water.

Remove the peppers, garlic, and onion, and discard.

Mash beans with a mixer or potato masher, adding bean water and salt as needed to taste.

Fajita Burrito with Refried Beans

2 red bell peppers, seeded and sliced

1/2 red onion, sliced

1 package white button mushrooms, sliced

Just Another Fajita Marinade

refried beans

tortillas

salsa

Marinate the veggies in Just Another Fajita Marinade for at least a couple of hours.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Add the veggies and cook for about 15 minutes or until soft. You may want to put a lid on the pan (if you have one) to help them cook faster.

Layer refried beans and marinated veggies in warmed tortillas and roll 'em up! Serve with salsa.

We both really like this mariade, it works really well with fajita style veggies.

I'll end this post with a few pictures from the History Museum St. Louis. Unfortunately, none of them will be of my dad's graduation. For one, the lighting was difficult for our camera and we didn't get many good pictures. And for two, well, I didn't ask him if he minded living in infamy on my blog, so I didn't think it would be fair to post the pictures without asking him first.

Anyways.....

I really have a thing with public transportation, so I was excited to take a picture of one of the Metro buses in St. Louis.

The Missouri History Museum. You can actually see my family walking up towards it.

Old trolly car.

Good 'ol TJ.

These posters are from 1943. I don't think we should have ever lost these principles.

And finally, they have an exhibit at the Museum where you can stand behind this thing that looks like the basket of a hot air ballon and the TV shows you 'flying' over St. Louis, seeing the arch, all that sort of stuff. It's a pretty silly, kitchy thing, but I thought it would be fun to take a picture of it 'flying' us over St. Louis. See the Arch in the background. It felt so real...... ;-)

I will try to get back on this afternoon and post the weekly garden update, and will try to catch up on everyone's blog soon!

'Til next time.

Marinated Portobello Mushroom and Veggie Fajitas with Chile-Lime Sauce

I've been on a slight marinating kick lately - especially marinating mushrooms and veggies for Mexican-ish food. This time I decided to highlight the portobello mushroom in a marinated fajita as, well, they are one of both Brett and my favorite mushrooms.

This is another spicy dish, for less fire, omit some of the hot peppers from the 'veggie mix' in the fajitas.

Since Brett and I aren't eating avocados for a month, I've decided to try to be creative with salsas to go with our meal so guacamole and avocado won't be necessary. I decided to go with a Chile-Lime sauce this time and it paired with the marinated mushrooms and veggies well. The sauce is also pretty spicy, remove the seeds from the peppers before blending if you want a milder sauce. Brett made some tofu sour cream and it turned out excellent this time, I love the way the tofu sour cream compliments really spicy food.















Chile-Lime Sauce
2 serrano chilies, minced
1 habanero pepper, seeded and minced (optional)
1/4 yellow onion, chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 cup veggie broth
juice of one lime
cumin
pinch sugar
pinch white pepper
pinch salt

Heat a few tablespoons of water in a small skillet. Add the peppers and onions and cook for about 10 minutes, add the garlic and cook another 3-5 minutes. Drain any excess water and transfer to a food processor.

Add the rest of the ingredients and blend until smooth.

Return to the stove in a small sauce pan. Simmer on low for about a half hour until thick.

Mushrooms and veggies marinating.

Just Another Fajita Marinade
1/8 cup vegetable oil (you could get away with less, but this marinade does need some oil)
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
juice of one lime
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 chipotle chilies in adobo, roughly chopped
4 dried New Mexican Chile peppers, roughly broken up
1 tsp. sugar
Mexican oregano
chili powder
cumin
ground coriander
salt
dash white pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large bowl and marinate veggies for at least an hour. Remove dried chilies and chipotle chilies (if desired) before cooking veggies.

Marinated Portobella Mushroom and Veggie Fajitas
Marinate the following veggies:
2-3 cups portobello mushrooms, sliced thin
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeded and sliced
2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and sliced
1 serrano pepper, seeded and sliced
1/4 red onion, sliced

The Other Stuff:
small tortillas
Chili Lime Sauce
tofu sour cream

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add the veggies and cook for 15-20 minutes, adding more marinde if neccesary, or until soft.

Divide filling in two bowls. Serve with warmed small tortillas, Chile-Lime sauce, and tofu sour cream.

I love fajitas, and marinating veggies is an incredibly easy way to take a meal to a different level.

'Til next time.

Sesame Ginger Soba Noodles and Thanksgiving in May?

For dinner a few nights ago, I made a Sesame Ginger sauce, since I haven't been able to eat completely solid foods, we served it over soba noodles, instead of rice and veggies which we usually prefer. I also added some adzuki beans to it. I wouldn't normally pair beans and noodles, as the beans sink to the bottom, but I've been needing protein.

The sauce turned out really well, Brett raved about it, probably because it was sweet. :-)

Sesame Ginger Soba Noodles (with optional adzuki beans)

Sesame Ginger Sauce:

1 large clove garlic, minced

2 tbsp ginger, minced

4 Chiles Japones, minced

1/3 cup soy sauce

3 tablespoons mirin

3 tablespoons sugar

3 tbsp agave

2 tablespoons sesame oil

1 tablespoon tahini

2 tbsp seasoned brown rice vinegar

2-4 tbsp hot water

cayenne (optional)

1/2 package of soba noodles (buckwheat noodles)

1 cup adzuki beans, cooked (optional)

sesame seeds (optional)

Heat a few tablespoons of water in a small sauce pan. Add the garlic, ginger and Chiles Japones and cook for about 10 minutes. Add all the other ingredients (except the cayenne), and simmer on low while the noodles are cooking.

Cook noodles according to package directions.

When noodles are finished, drain and rinse. Top with aduzki beans, sauce, sesame seeds and cayenne.

(If you want a thicker sauce, you can dissolve 1 tsp of arrowroot in a couple of tbsp of water, mix it in the sauce, bring it to a boil and remove it from the heat as soon as it is at the desired thickness.)

So, I have been running out of ideas for soft-ish things to eat, and to be completely honest, I am sick of soba noodles with sauce, mashed beans, and especially applesauce. Which is a shame, because I used to love applesauce, I've just been living off of it for a week.

Brett came up with the idea of cooking up a bunch of 'Thanksgiving-ish' sides, since they are all soft and savory, something I haven't had much of this week. So he went to the store and even cooked half of the dinner.

Brett steamed some carrots, cooked up a few cranberry beans, and made his world famous (ok, well I think they should be considered world famous) Garlicky Mashed Potatoes, when he makes them, they always turn out better than when I do it. Part of his bag of tricks includes using Silk Soy Creamer instead of regular soy, rice or hemp milk and using red potatoes instead of russet. It gives the potatoes a richer flavor.

Anyways, I made Veganomicon's Mushroom Gravy (so good!), steamed some spinach and prepared some vegan stuffing (from an organic mix bought from the store made with veggie broth). It was really good and hit the spot.

I think my stomach has shrunk, well, and my eyes were far bigger than my belly, I couldn't eat nearly all of this. I was stoked that there were leftovers so I can enjoy this again at lunch today.

I'm making Lentil and Potato soft tacos tonight! I think I can do the tortillas, just maybe not fried yet, the healing process is moving along quite quickly and I am starting to feel brave enough to 'test the waters'.

'Til next time!

Orange-Chipotle Anasazi Bean Quesadillas

This recipe is dedicated to Alice (in Veganland).

She declared her undying love for all things citrus when I posted about the Spicy Chipotle-Citrus Marinated Veggie Fajitas, and her comment reminded me of this other citrusy-spicy recipe I created awhile back.

Oh, and this is my 100th post! Wowsa!

I can only imagine what these tasted like in crispy tortillas, as I was only able to eat the filling (at least I could eat that!), and boy, it was good. Brett made some tofu sour cream to go with this and it complimented perfectly.

It may not look very pretty but don't be fooled, this is a sweet, tangy and spicy delicious meal. The spice level bordered on too much for Brett, so I may add the habanero just to my dish next time.

Orange-Chipotle Anasazi Bean Quesadillas

Serves 2.

1 cup Anasazi beans, cooked

1/2 yellow onion, minced

4 cloves of garlic, minced

1 poblano pepper, seeded and minced

1 orange bell pepper, seeded and minced

2 serrano peppers, seeded and minced

1 habanero, seeded and minced (optional)

2-4 chipotle chilies en adobo, minced

1 tbsp adobo sauce

juice of one orange

1 tbsp brown rice vinegar

1 tbsp maple syrup

1/4 cup veggie broth

2 tbsp dried cilantro

cumin

Mexican oregano

white pepper

salt

tortillas

guacamole

tofu sour cream

picante sauce

Heat a few tablespoons of water. Add the peppers and onion and cook for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for an additional 3-5 minutes.

Place all the filling ingredients in a medium sized sauce pan. Simmer, covered on low for 30-35 minutes or until sauce has thickened.

Layer mixture into warmed tortillas and top with guacamole, tofu sour cream and picante sauce.

'Til next time!