Back in the spring, I posted about the garden I planted (one of the many advantages to living with the "room mates" being that they have a yard that is capable of growing edible plants). The major goals of the garden were, as most gardens are around here, herbs and tomatoes. I planted a few different kinds of tomatoes, basil, garlic chives, parsley, rosemary, cilantro, and then also a few other things that I thought might be cool: squash, brussels sprouts, cayenne peppers, ancho chilies, and cauliflower. As is the case with nature, things didn't really work out the way I had planned. The tomato plants yielded a grand total of, I believe, two tomatoes. I think they were stricken with some sort of disease, infection, or infestation of some kind because their branches, after growing up and out with vigor, quickly shriveled and died leaving only a few green branches. The squash plant produced some small, but tasty looking gourds - apparently very tasty looking, especially to squirrels. The brussels sprouts grew strong and took over much more area than I had expected and produced a good number of small but flavorful sprouts. We roasted these up, after I cleaned off the entire colony of tiny bugs that had made their home in my sprouts plants, with some pecans and they turned out mighty delicious. Maybe it was the bugs adding that certain j'ne sais quoi... If anyone has a suggestion on what to do with the leaves of this plant, please let me know, because I felt a little bad tossing away that much of the plant and they actually look like they might cook up well somehow. The herbs did well, aside from the cilantro, which I have decided is a pipe dream of mine and just plain won't grow well here. Mom made a TON of pesto from the basil, which we have frozen for the winter.
Oh man! I forgot about the lettuce, we grew ourselves some real nice heads of lettuce that gave us thick leaves with purple edges on heads that were almost too big to hold in one hand. In the future, I'd like to see how those plants do if I just cut off a few leaves at a time instead of the whole thing at once. Will they continue to grow? I could have gone for more of those salads.
The real successes of the garden were, surprisingly, the cauliflower and the peppers. I harvested the cauliflower on a cool, wet night in the late fall and brought it in the house to further inspect it. I had never seen a cauliflower plant before and the thing is really quite impressive. It stands just under a foot tall or so with big, veiny leaves surrounding the white, waxy "meaty" part like petals. The moisture runs down the leaves toward the "meaty" part and its waxy coating causes it to bead up and stand on top of the white mass, giving it a shimmering quality that made it tough to chop off. When I brought the thing in, mom noticed a pink tint to the usually milky white flesh. It reminded me of the pink algae that grows in alpine snow banks in the summer time. I chopped the thing up, tossed it in a bowl with olive oil, mint, crushed red pepper, spread it all out on a cookie sheet, baked it up and added pine nuts and parmesan cheese (mom got the recipe from The Girl and The Goat). It was De-licious! We were all wishing there were more.
The peppers were a whole other story altogether. They grew late and produced a ton of fruit. I really didn't have a plan for these, figured I'd be putting them in omelets or something I guess, but then life intervened and I wasn't at home cooking omelets on the weekend (thank you ultimate). The peppers kept on coming. I think they made their way into a few dishes here and there, but for the most part, they cluttered the countertop and our fruit and veggie storage areas. I was able to cook up a couple of the anchos into something resembling chili rellenos (well a very loose interpretation of chili rellenos - am I butchering this spelling?) which, along with some leftover steak, became my lunch one day at work.
The reason I'm writing this, well what prompted me to write this tonight rather, was that I just put the last of the fruits of this year's garden in the food processor and added it to some pizza. I had hung the last of the cayennes on some thread between the cupboards in the kitchen window above our sink to dry, and dry they did. I took them down this evening and they were as brittle as old leaves. I easily cracked off the stems and broke them in two or three pieces with the same ease before dropping them in the food processor and chopping them up. I could smell them as soon as I removed the stems, a surprisingly sweet, but potently strong, spicy aroma that made me think twice about taking in too deep a sniff, lest my eyes should start to water, filled the space around my cutting board. Some of them were still dark green when they were strung up, but all were a bright red by now. I had Mom, Matt, and Dad smell the container of chopped up pepper bits and they all said, "Mmmm, fresh, crushed red pepper," which I thought was a little funny, as the peppers had been sitting above the sink for probably over a month.
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