Deliciosa Baked Vegetables

This recipe that I have been using is too good not to share. With the mornings down to 55 degrees or so, I can put up my baked tomatoes for winter and make baked vegetables for breakfast at the same time.  My garden is in full productive harvest but it is too hot to bake in the afternoon. Guess what? Vegetables for breakfast are yummy!

Ingredients

1 large zucchini - about 8 inches finely chopped into strips - about 2 inches long and ¼ inch wide - I don’t use the middle seedy part

1 dozen cherry tomatoes cut in half - remove the wet seedy part

1 tomatillo chopped

1 clove garlic finely diced

A generous amount of fresh basil, marjoram or oregano (I adore marjoram), and parsley finely diced

1 & 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Sea salt to taste

Mix altogether in cast iron frying pan.

Bake at 425 degrees for 40 minutes.  

Stir once.

Eat while warm - serves 1 if I’m eating it! I would use more baking dishes for more people rather than crowding one baking dish with too many vegetables.  I like my vegetables slightly browned.

I make this dish first, put it in the oven, and then start making my baked tomatoes for freezing.

Baked Tomatoes

Ingredients

About 30 cherry tomatoes cut in half - watery seeds removed

2 tomatilloes chopped

1 clove garlic crushed

A generous amount of fresh basil, marjoram, and parsley finely cut

Sea salt to taste

1 & ½ Tablespoons of olive

Mix in 9 x 12 glass baking dish - put herbs on bottom so they don't burn

425 degree oven for 30 minutes (my baked vegetables have usually been cooking for 15 minutes at this point)

Stir after half an hour - put back in oven - turn off heat. Should be ready in about an hour (don’t peek)

You could store these tomatoes in olive oil - like sun dried tomatoes - but it is expensive to use all the olive oil. So I put them in leftover sun-dried tomato jars that I bought from Trader Joe’s (when my own tomatoes run out) and stick them in the freezer.

Warning!

These tomatoes are so delicious that if you taste them you will want to eat them all! So I have my baked vegetable to eat and these to store.

Note: I grow sweet one hundred or sweet 1000 cherry tomatoes which are the best in my opinion

Baked Cheese Stuffed Peppers

I still had room in my oven and some medium size peppers that I had harvested. I can’t remember what kind they are - yellow - a teeny tiny bit of heat - about 4 inches long.

I cut a slice down the side big enough to get out all the seeds.

I put about a tablespoon of cream cheese in each one (I'm going to try cheddar next time)

Put them in an olive oil greased baking dishes - sprinkle on some sea salt

Bake at about 425 for 30 - 40 minutes.

Easy Peasy and good!

Tomatillos are my new vegetable of the summer. Last year I fell in love with eggplants; this year it's tomatillos. Their tangy flavor is wonderful in about any baked vegetable dish. I'm not too enthusiastic about them raw. However, tomatillos also make a yummy green sauce.

Trying out a Hugelkultur Bed

One of the newest ideas being promoted in Permaculture is Hugelkultur beds which in English means Hill Culture. Basically the gardener takes organic materials and piles them up to create a garden bed. The bottom layers have the biggest material like small trees or branches; the middle layer is composed of material likes leaves, upside down turf, grass clippings, and pine needles: and the top layer is compost, dirt, or humus to plant in.

Hill culture is ideally suited for people who have extra organic material (or what I call yard waste) and an area that has poor or no soil that one wants to garden on.  This happens to perfectly define my situation.  My garden is at the end of a large driveway.  On the western side of my garden is compact dirt covered with an inch or two of gravel.  When the snow plow comes in winter to clear off our driveway of over 4” inches of snow, it pushes extra gravel as well as the snow down to the base.  I wanted to expand the garden here because it is a sunny spot, but there was no way for me to dig into that earth.

Last summer I first covered my new bed (about 6 X 8 feet) with cardboard.  There were only a few weeds growing there, and I just didn’t want to mess with pulling them out. Plus as soon as dirt gets watered, the weeds will sprout. I did, however, dig up the clumps of grass since grass goes through almost anything.  I put down a thin layer of dead twigs and small branches; then I added a couple of trash cans full of grass clippings from lawn.  Come fall I added fallen leaves and pine needles.  Finally I put some leftover plants from my garden on top. The pile was about 4 feet tall.  

Now, in April, it has shrunk down to about 2 feet tall. I raked away any really big bulky stalks to start a new pile on the other side of the garden.  I then smoothed out the remaining pile. I found some beautiful well rotted compost under a tree filled with leaf mold, rotted wood chips, and worms and put it in hills on top of the pile.  My plan is to use this new bed for my late May planting of zucchini, winter squash, cucumber, and maybe some corn and green beans. There is lots packed earth and gravel next to the bed where the vines can spread..  The compost mounds will be a perfect place to put my small plants when the weather is warm enough.

My egg lady gave me some of her rotted chicken manure.   I turned a quarter of it into manure tea. I poured this over my compost hills and the rest of the hill culture.  I am watering the hugelkultur when I water my seeds in the neighboring beds.  I think It will be an excellent medium for my plants in another month.

By the following year, the hugelkultur should be as well rotted and rich as rest of the garden beds, and I will be able to plant seeds or anything else I want in it.  I will let you know how it goes.

Hugel in front, then the garlic bed with broccoli rabe, and next lettuce bed that over-wintered.

The ground was indented about 6 inches, so it is hard to see the true height of the hugelkulture.

I would love it if you would leave me comments!

August 2015 Garden and Harvest Pictures

The architectural details that really make this garden so picturesque are all due to Carol's hard work.

In the Garden: Life & Gardening in The Inland Northwest: Ratatouille: Or the Reason to Grow Eggplant

In the Garden: Life & Gardening in The Inland Northwest: Ratatouille: Or the Reason to Grow Eggplant: Ratatouille , ( rat-ə- too -ee ) a classic French Provencal vegetable casserole, is a beautifully simple, yet delicious dish to prepare an...

Ratatouille: Or the Reason to Grow Eggplant

Ratatouille, (rat-ə-too-ee) a classic French Provencal vegetable casserole, is a beautifully simple, yet delicious dish to prepare and serve.

I saw a recipe for ratatouille yesterday and thought: I have all of these ingredients growing in my garden right now, and I have never tried to make this dish before.  So I harvested my zucchini, Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, parsley, and my eggplant, and with the onions, peppers, garlic, olive oil, mushrooms, and herbs de provence in my house, I made this incredible meal.  I mean ratatouille is delicious and easy to make!

This is only my second or third try at growing eggplant. For one, I never knew what to do with the eggplant once it grew, and for two, it requires a long hot summer which we don’t always get in the inland Northwest.  I saw a Black Beauty plant somewhere this Spring and decided to give it a try.  Now that I’ve discovered ratatouille, I wish I had planted more than one.

A few years ago, I had a painter working on my home from Bulgaria. Sergei was extremely handsome with black wavy hair, although barely 5’ 2” I’m guessing, and an adorable flirt.  One day at lunch, I gave him some food, and he had me try this dish of mixed vegetables (including eggplant)  that he spread on bread.  He told me his mother canned hundreds of jars of this each year.  It was delicious; the name it was called was something Bulgarian, and I thought in the back of my mind, I have got to find out what this dish is and get a recipe.  Now I know: it must have been the Bulgarian version of ratatouille.  (I just looked it up and it’s called Ghiveci.)

Don’t be afraid to give eggplants a try and ratatouille.  It is one of the best vegetable dishes I have ever eaten.

This is the recipe I used. i substituted my fresh tomatoes for the canned ones and added a few mushrooms.

4-6 Servings

Ingredients

• 1 oz. [2 tablespoons] butter
• 2 fl. oz [1/4 cup] olive oil
• 2 large onions, thinly sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 3 medium sized aubergines [eggplants], thinly sliced and degorged
• 1 large green pepper, white pith removed, seeded and chopped
• 1 large red pepper, white pith removed, seeded and chopped
• 5 medium sized courgettes [zucchini], trimmed and sliced
• 14 oz. canned peeled tomatoes
• Herbes de Provence to taste [or 1 teaspoon each dried basil and dried rosemary]
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Preparation

Melt the butter with the oil over a moderate heat in a large flameproof casserole.

When foam subsides, add onions and garlic and fry for 5-7 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are soft and translucent but not brown.

Add aubergine [eggplant], green and red peppers and courgettes [zucchini] to casserole and fry for 5 minutes, shaking the casserole frequently.

Add tomatoes with the can juice, Herbes de Provence or the basil and rosemary plus salt and pepper. Sprinkle over the parsley.

Increase the heat to high and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low, cover casserole and simmer for 30-40 minutes, OR until vegetables are tender but still quite firm.

N.B. Vegetables must not be 'mushy', so be careful not to overcook.

Remove from heat and serve at once, straight from the casserole.

http://www.french-country-decor-guide.com/ratatouille.html

I sauteed my vegetables slowly in my cast iron frying pan, starting with the onion and eggplant and adding one more vegetable at a time with the tomatoes and garlic last for about 20-30 minutes at a medium low heat.  I ate it immediately. I made ¼ of the above recipe and used much less zucchini and much more garlic and herbs de provence.