Harvest, September 4, 2011

A couple weeks ago I wrote about the Easiest Okra Recipe Ever. Or so I thought when I wrote it. Since then I’ve found an Even Easier Okra Recipe. Like the other one, it isn’t so much a recipe as an idea, but here goes. Preheat oven to 425°F. Wash okra, dry thoroughly, and cut into large chunks (say 1½ to 2 inches long). Toss the okra in a bowl with some olive oil. Place okra in roasting pan (or casserole dish, or ovenproof skillet, or whatever.) large enough to hold it in a single layer. Roast for about 20 minutes, stir, and then roast for about another 20 minutes. The okra should be cooked through and starting to brown. Remove from the oven, sprinkle with seasoning of your choice, and serve.

Ripe Chimayo Peppers

Since I was serving the roasted okra along with leftover Baingan Bharta, I seasoned it with a mixture of salt, coriander, cumin and our own freshly dried and ground Chimayo chile peppers. If you google “roasted okra”, you’ll find more suggestions for seasoning, but we really liked this one. I hate to sound like a broken record, but you really should try okra cooked this way even if you think you don’t like okra. It might change your mind.

Dried Chimayo Peppers

This is my first year growing Chimayo peppers, but it won’t be the last. I thought they might sulk in our hot, humid summers but they were very productive and very tasty – a sweet, almost berry-like flavor with a good kick of chile heat after they’re ripe. I tried one while it was still green and didn’t like it at all then, so as far as I’m concerned this is a pepper for drying only.

I missed last week’s Garden to Table Challenge, but mostly because I’ve been too busy harvesting and cooking to write about it. I’m actually looking forward to the coming of fall, so we can get out and do other things…..today we went to the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello, which deserves a blog post all its own.

First attempt at fermented pickles.

Refrigerator Pickles

This is another pickle recipe that doesn’t involve canning – Dan Koshansky’s Refrigerator Pickles via Margaret Roach at A Way to Garden. When the fermentation is well underway, the jars are put in the fridge where they will keep several months. I tasted the brine today – it’s sour (and fabulously garlicky), but I think I’m going to leave the jars on the counter for another day or two.

First Pimientos de Padrón.

Pimientos de Padrón

I probably picked them a little too soon, but they were still delicious. Cooking is easy. Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Add peppers. Turn them over and over until all sides are blistered and starting to brown. Sprinkle with salt. Serve. Pick them up by the stem and eat. You can eat the seeds or gnaw around them. Just be ready in case you’re the lucky person who gets a very picante one. Yesterday’s batch was all mild, except the largest one had a trace of chile heat.

Revisiting some issues from last week, the Lime-Mint Freezer Pickles were great (at least before freezing), but the purple color in the peppers started to fade around the cut edges. You’d really have to use quite a lot of hot peppers to detect much heat through all the sugar (1½ cups), but the lime-mint flavoring was intriguing. Sort of reminded me of the cucumbers served with Satay in Thai restaurants, but with the flavor volume turned up. I made a similar batch (another recipe on the facing page of The Joy of Pickling) last night, but this time the seasonings were dill, garlic and hot peppers. I haven’t yet thawed any of the containers I put in the freezer and that will be the real test of this technique.

The cucumber harvest has slowed and the vines are dying down, so I don’t think there will be many more batches of cucumber pickles, if any.

I’m working on codifying some of my mother-in-law’s recipes. I’ve made her fried okra twice recently, but I’m still fiddling with the proportions of the spices. If you like Indian food and think you don’t like okra, this recipe might change your mind – there is absolutely no slimy texture at all.

Okra is doing well this year (so far hasn’t been eaten by deer), so there should be plenty to experiment with. I’m growing six different varieties this year to see if I can find one that we like and that the deer don’t like.

Top row: Jing Orange, Beck's Big Buck Horn. Bottom row: Emerald, Cherokee Long Pod, Silver Queen, White Velvet

In the last two previous years, I grew ‘Emerald’ which tastes good and remains tender even when the pods are rather long, but just as soon as we would begin to harvest, the deer started to chow down on it. Last year I even wrapped the plants in plastic mesh and the deer still ate the parts they could get at.

That’s all from here for this week’s Garden to Table Challenge, hosted by Wendy at Greenish Thumb. Please visit and taste what others are cooking from their gardens. And if you’re cooking from your garden…join the fun!

'Matt's Wild Cherry' tomatoes

…and peppers and beans and okra and a couple of tiny cucumbers…

This morning's harvest

For those keeping score, the peppers are ‘Quadrato d’Asti Giallo’, ‘Milord’, ‘Romano’, ‘Padron’, and ‘Ají Cyrstal’. The beans are ‘Fin de Bagnol’, ‘Tavera Filet’, and ‘Pencil Pod Wax’. The cucumbers are ‘Poona’ and ‘Snow’s Fancy Pickling’. Only one kind of okra and that is ‘Emerald’.

There are lots more varieties of peppers and tomatoes, just not quite ready yet. Also, keeping my fingers crossed, I think we’re going to get some decent eggplant this year for the first time.

It has been just incredibly hot here. Over 100°F (≈38°C) for the last 3 days and over 90°F every day except one since the 4th of July. Very little rain.