Meals From The Garden: Fried Green Tomatoes with Whipped Goat Cheese Basil Spread

Did you catch that huge pile of tomatoes we harvested from our garden? We had oodles of green tomatoes and so I figured it was high time I learned to make fried green tomatoes. Turns out its a great way to use all those tomatoes

Full disclosure: I've never seen the movie of the same name. And yes, I know I should probably remedy this.

I tried a couple of varieties of breading the tomatoes, including a battered version, but this three step dipping methoed seemd to result in the crispiest outsides and softest insides.

The Edible Garden Project: Late October 2012 Update

You're looking at the last bit of harvest from our middle raised bed. With the change in weather and increase in precipitation - we decided it was time to prep our garden for the winter months.

So we pulled out all our tomato plants, Japanese eggplant, New Zealand spinach, and remaining basil (Thai, Cinnamon, & Genovese) and harvested all that we could - including oodles of green tomatoes. In the process we even discovered that we actually grew a few jalapeno peppers!

GardenAdina Marguerite PeaseOctober 29, 2012Edible Garden Project Comments

The Edible Garden Project: September/October 2012 Update

When we got back from our trip to Europe our garden was booming with all sorts of tasty treats! Since I had another week of domestic travel right after returning we hoped it would hold on until we got some time to actually cook with all these goodies. The items in this particular 8+ quart bowl were mostly used to make lasagna with a tomato basil sauce with slices of Japanese eggplant.

GardenAdina Marguerite PeaseOctober 17, 2012Edible Garden ProjectComment

The Edible Garden Project: Fall/Winter Planting 2012

GardenAdina Marguerite PeaseAugust 15, 2012Edible Garden ProjectComment

The Edible Garden Project: August 2012 Update

I can't believe it's August already! The summer has just zoomed by and our plants have gone crazy. In fact the first bed has done it's part in contributing, so we've harvested all the remaining goodies. That includes the 2+ pounds of carrots you see above, golden beets, lactino kale, lettuce, garlic, and leeks. In order to preserve some of our goodies for later in the year, we blanched and froze the carrots and lactino kale.

GardenAdina Marguerite PeaseAugust 8, 2012Edible Garden Project Comments

The Edible Garden Project: July 2012 Update

I know, it's been so long since I've posted an update on the garden! I keep taking pictures and then by the time I have a chance to upload and write a post - the garden has completely changed! This time things are different. This is an actual and timely edible garden update!

Overall, things are growing really well and I'm learning a lot! For example, fennel takes up way too much space to be worthwhile in our garden. We ended up pulling out our two plants early to make more breathing room for the carrots, beets, leeks, and garlic. I also recently learned that when you snip scallions instead of pulling them out by the root, they grow back!

GardenAdina Marguerite PeaseJuly 18, 2012Edible Garden Project Comments

Meals from the Garden: Greens On Pizza

Happy 4th of July to all my American readers out there!

Today, I'm sharing perhaps my favorite way to enjoy my greens directly from the garden - on a homemade gluten free pizza!

Speaking of pizza, I've got to say that I'm so over 99% of the gluten free pizza offered at restaurants. I have only ever encountered a good non-cracker-like gluten free pizza crust while eating out once and that was just in the past month. That's not to say that I don't totally appreciate the fact that restaurants are providing options for gluten free customers - seriously, high five to those restaurants! The bottom line is though, that the gluten free pizza crust I make at home blows those cracker-like crusts out of the water and it's just not worth eating sub par crust if you don't have to.

If you've been around here awhile, you'll know I'm not big on re-inventing the wheel. I have no need to have my own "Gluten Free Travelette Flour Blend" or a pie crust recipe if a great one already exists. Right now, that's where I am with pizza crust too. Shauna and Danny from Gluten Free Girl & the Chef have an awesome recipe that I use as my go to crust. For the flour blend, I use half their all purpose blend and half their whole grain blend. I also use psyllium whole husks instead of the flaxseed or chia.

Like my other Meals from the Garden posts thus far - this is more of a meal guide or idea than a recipe. In the links, I'm also sharing the pizza sauce and goat mozzerella brands that I use (and no, I'm not being paid to do so - these are just what I actually stock our fridge with almost every week).

Meals from the Garden: Beets & Pasta

Our garden keeps on growing!

Each new thing we get to eat from it makes for quite an exciting night! Our golden beets have really started to take off - so it was time to taste a few. What I love about beets is that you get two treats in one plant - the actual beet and the beet leaves. I think this was actually the first time I've ever eaten beet leaves and I love them! They might be my new favorite leafy green.

Just like last week, this post is more of a meal idea than a recipe. A nice bed of gluten free pasta (our favorite is Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta) is a great way to showcase fresh ingredients straight from the garden.

Meals from the Garden: Greens & Herb Pho

Finally! I'm sharing a meal from our edible garden.

I've been meaning to share this quick weeknight meal for quite awhile now since it's been making an appearance on our kitchen table almost twice a week! And as our gorgeous winter greens have begun to fall prey to caterpillars and bolt - I figured it was high time to share.

This post falls somewhere in between a recipe and guide for a meal. The ingredients are loose depending on what looks good in the garden that night. But the basics stay the same; noodles, broth, greens, and herbs. So here's how we made our Greens & Herb Pho in early June.

The Edible Garden Project: Grown From Seed

So way back when, we planted about half of our edible plants from seed with the hope that they would grow - but we also weren't keeping our hopes up for total greatness. Fortunately, our edibles grown from seed are doing quite well - even with the crummy June weather we've been having here in Seattle.

Before I move on to photos of some of our other from seed plants, I don't want to forget to mention that the seedling you see above is Echinacea.

GardenAdina Marguerite PeaseJune 12, 2012Edible Garden Project Comments

welcome to the blog