Fried Green Tomato Sandwiches

This is Seattle.  Guess what that means?  Lots of green tomatoes to eat in the beginning of fall.  I've never had fried green tomatoes before, but thanks to Zack, Als' BF from Florida, we got to eat them today.  Though I did not make these, I figured I would write about them because they were delicious and something that every Seattle gardener should do with their bounty of green tomatoes.  (And next time I can make 'em.)

First, slice them up about 1/4-1/2 inch thick or less.  To make the breading, mix corn meal, flour and bread crumbs with some parmesan cheese, seasonings, and salt & pepper to taste.  Dredge the tomato slices in flour, then an egg wash, then coat with the corn meal mixture.  Pan fry them on medium heat until brown.

In the meantime, slice some mushrooms up and saute in a little olive oil and some minced garlic.  Assemble the sandwiches by placing the fried tomatoes on some hoagie rolls and top with mozzarella cheese.  Broil for a minute to melt the cheese and top with mushrooms.  Add some honey mustard and cock sauce (Sriracha hot sauce) and enjoy!  Mmmmm...

Makin' Hard Apple Cider!

Here it is folks!  I took our footage we got from this weekend's cider making extravaganza and made an easy-to-watch video.  The weather was perfect, everybody had a great time, it was just a perfect fall day.  Enjoy!

 

The words are a little too small to read when viewed small, but blogger made the quality too crappy to view full screen.  I've uploaded it onto YouTube so you can watch it here.

To see part 2, click here.

Sunday Harvest

This might be the last Sunday harvest post in a while.  Now that the official growing season is kaput, we're not getting stuff regularly.  So I'll post these when I do get stuff.

This week's word: APPLES.  And yes, we made cider.  I'm making a video about it so this picture will just have to be a little taste of what's to come.  Stay tuned!

75 pounds, maybe?  Either way, a lot.

Happy Blog Day!

Today marks the one year anniversary of my embarking on the journey of blogging!  Not only have I kept up with it, but it's become an important part of my life.  I'm always thinking about new projects I can do and share with you all and this has lead me to be more motivated and productive with my time, especially at a time like I'm going through now which allows me nothing but time to use.

So thanks, everybody for being my loyal readers.  Whether you've been there from the start or jumped on later, I appreciate each and every one of you.  It's been a complete pleasure to share my stories and experiences in hobby homesteading and I just hope that there has been something on here that has made you smile or has helped you with your own projects in some way.  I hope to keep going and trying out new things and sharing them with you.

Much Love,

Hana

P.S.  Haven't posted a picture of Nikolai in a while...

He was hanging out like this for a while.

Bubba Gump Apples

Apple crisp, apple pie, apple sauce, apple cider... I feel like a Bubba Gump with all the apples we have up in here!

So I told you folks about the apple crisp I made last week from our backyard apples that fell during the windstorm.  Well, they're falling off the tree with little more that a light breeze these days, so we're taking that to mean that these apples are ready for picking!  Shawn got up on the roof of the party shack and we picked some good ones from there.  We'll still need to borrow my dad's tall ladder to get up to the ones higher up, but we got a good 40 pounds or so with just this attempt.

The really good ones we saved in a separate bucket for good eatin'.

Most of them had evidence of bugs getting inside so I cut them open right there as Shawn tossed them down to me and I did a quick quality inspection and chucked the really bad ones into the compost.  The ok ones I cored and the buggy parts cut out and saved in a bowl.  Once I got a good ten pounds of these, I washed them and Shawn and I peeled them.  A majority of them were cubed and went into my big stainless steel pot to be turned into apple sauce.  Into a separate bowl went some other ones that were sliced for apple pie.

I'll give you my recipes for both of these, but for both, I didn't follow any recipe myself, let alone measure much so these quantities are best guesses.  Sorry.

Good Ol' Home Made Apple Pie
(Ever had an apple pie from a store that sucked?  You know the kinds with the gelatinous goo that surrounds the undercooked still slightly crispy apples?  Well making your own apple pie at home will help you realize how inferior those pies really are!)

The last slice...

Ingredients
8-10 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced thinly
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbs agave syrup (I've been putting this shit in everything!  It's my new fav sweetener.)
2 tbs flour
1 tbs lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix above ingredients together.  Prepare two pie crusts.  Fill pie pan with apple mixture and top with second pie crust.  Crimp edges together and make sure to slice a couple air holes in the top.  Top with a nice sprinkling of cinnamon sugar and put into preheated 350 degree oven.  Bake for 45 minutes or until some bubbles of deliciousness start showing from your air holes.  Serve warm with ice cream for a dessert or chilled with a cup of coffee for breakfast.  Delish!

Grandma's Apple Sauce
(Much like apple pies, I don't really like store bought apple sauce because it reminds me of wet sawdust.  This applesauce is chunky, with a touch of cinnamon, just like my grandma always has with dinner at her house.  I know most of you haven't had dinner at my grandma's house but trust me, it's always awesome.)

Ingredients
5 pounds of apples peeled, cored, and cubed
1/2 cup white sugar (or to taste)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup agave syrup (here it is again!)
1 tbs lemon juice
5 cups water

Canning Stuff
Mason jars with lids and rings (All washed and sanitized)
Large stockpot that will hold the mason jars
Tongs to grab hot jars and stuff
Funnel (optional, I made one out of the top of a bottle of lemon juice.)

Wash the jars, lids, and rings in a dishwasher or in hot soapy water.  Fill the larger stock pot with water and place it on the stove to heat up till hot, but not boiling.  Add the mason jars before the water gets too hot and have them wait there while the apple sauce is made.  As far as how many mason jars to have ready, just guess and prepare one or two more jars than you might need just in case you guessed wrong.

Put all the ingredients into your other large soup pot.  The water amount is really a guess, you just need enough to bring the water level up to just below the level as the amount of apples you have.  Put it on medium heat, stirring occasionally.  Once the apples heat up and start cooking down, stir them more.  This will break them down little by little so you have a sauce and not justa bunch of soggy apple bits.  Once the apple mixture has boiled for a little bit and is the consistency you like, it's time to start canning.

Get your tongs ready.  Pull out a jar and fill it quickly with sauce (using the funnel like in the pic or not.)  It's generally a less messy procedure with one.  Fill the jar to a 1/2 inch from the top and quickly screw on the lid and the ring.  Put it back into your large pot with the hot water.

Fill the rest of the jars until you have no more sauce and place them all into the large pot to process.  The water level in this pot should be an inch over the top of the jars, but mine's not like that because I like to break rules.  Do as I say, not as I do, folks.

Process (or boil) those jars for 15 minutes, then gently lift them out to cool and wait for the familiar "plink!" as your jars seal in the goodness.  If done correctly, these jars should last in a cool dry place for 2 years or so.

And yes, I did mention apple cider at the beginning of this post.  That is for next time...

Garden 2011 Recap

Fall is officially here and the garden is pretty much toast.  We're still getting some stuff in, (kale, hopefully another batch of green peas, carrots, onions, and sunchokes) but the now that the sun has begun its 8-month hibernation period, nothing is going to keep growing.  I think the jalapeno plant is trying to have more babies because all of a sudden there are 6 or 7 flowers on the plant.  I'm going to bring the plant inside and try to hand pollinate the flowers to see if we get any more fruit.

Anyway, I thought I would recap the season to help me figure out what next season will entail.

The Success list:
*Peas.  Did I mention they were seeds I got at Goodwill?
*Carrots.  I was skeptical at first but they did well in the end.
*Kale.
*Tomatoes.  Never though I'd say that.
*Lettuce.
*Rhubarb.  Not that I had to do anything :)
*Zucchini.  As usual.
*Potatoes.
*Onions.
*Shiso. Started late but got a good harvest anyway.

The Decent list.
*Green beans.  Usually these do so well, kinda disappointed.
*Cucumbers. 
*Cabbage.  Barely.
*Kabocha.  Also barely.
*Sugar pumpkin.  Last year's seeds so I'm not surprised.
*The sunflowers.  They were a huge success, but I let the squirrels have them all.

The FAIL list.
*Cauliflower.  We didn't get ANY :(  Never again.
*Broccoli.  We got some, but not nearly close to what we got last year.  I blame the aphids.
*Cantaloupe.  Possibly a weather problem.
*Raspberries.  They're only two years old so I'm not surprised.

So there you have it.

Harvestin' 'Taters (Sunday Harvest)

This week, we harvested our potatoes.  There were a couple other areas in the garden where I planted some or where they came up as volunteers and we harvested those a while back.  This was the official harvest of the big batch that we planted in a separate bed near the sunchokes. 

Last year, I harvested the potatoes too early and they were still a little small.  I really couldn't help it, digging for potatoes is by far the funnest harvest because it's like digging for treasures.  This year, I planted them extra early and waited for the plants to be absolutely, positively D-E-D dead before digging anything up.  And it was a HUGE success. 

Not only did we get nearly 10 pounds, but some of these red potatoes were the size of enormous russets.  It was really fun.  I saved the smaller ones and I have to figure out the best way to store them so I can replant them for next year's crop.

As for the rest of the stuff this week, the tomatoes are still trickling in and I found out I waited too long to harvest the one cabbage we had left.  It was starting to get eaten by the various decomposers in the garden and I had to cut a bunch of it off to keep the good parts.  The chickens didn't complain.

I picked the kabocha squash since the plant that was attached to it was dead as well, and also some shiso leaves.  I tried salting them but it didn't work and I had to throw them out.  Luckily we have more, so sushi or shiso pesto may be in order.