The Beet goes on!

On the 4th of September & I woke up thinking about how good last night's dinner was! Obviously I had to redo it for breakfast. Preceded by my morning tea.

Beans in the solar oven

The Tuscan Beans, Polenta, tomatoes & pesto were just as heavenly as they were last night. If you have never made Tuscan Beans, it is the easiest recipe ever:

Tuscan Beans
2 c. Dry beans (Pinto, Yellow Eye, Cannellini, Calico...)
water
20 leaves fresh sage
lots of sliced garlic (to taste, but not less than 3 big cloves!)
Olive oil
salt & freshly ground pepper

Soak the beans overnite. Next day add garlic, about 1 Tblsp. Olive oil and the garlic and bring to boil. Simmer until just tender, then add salt & pepper. Cook another 1/2 hour or so. Serve drizzled with a bit more olive oil.

We cook them here in the solar oven.


The Beet & beet green gratin is another surprisingly delectable recipe. Chard can be substituted for beet greens.
Find the recipe here: Don't that Beet All...

With Cypress Grove, Loleta Cheese Company & Rumiano cheeses, countless amazing beers & wines, grass fed local beef, Humboldt Creamery, Clendenen's Cider, the Tofu Shop, Shakefork Farm and all the other amazing farmers of the local Farmers' Markets it's simple to eat locally produced food. Add to this wild Blackberries, one's own garden produce and eggs, homemade vinegar, yogurt and other condiments, and I find we eat very, very well.

28 down, 2 to go

Monday, work day, paperwork, phone and orders.
I start with Brio toast with a thin slice of Loleta cheddar cheese,a fine butter substitute, to accompany my tea.

We want to make the most of this decidedly cooler (some 30 degrees cooler than yesterday!)  but sunny day. Throw some tarps over things, put others away... batten down the hatches for impending change in the weather.

Break time means a Monday brunch. We make omelets filled with chopped crookneck squash, onion, bell pepper, parsley, burger, & Loleta jack cheese. I season mine with our "Thaibasco" sauce. There is cider to drink and honeydew melon on the side.  The honeydew is perfectly ripe - a sign of more to come. We grow these melons in containers in a greenhouse.
 Before going back to work I put together a dish of solar Spanish Rice (see recipe here) while we still have sun. To make it more local based, I leave out the cumin or Mexican seasoning and add some of my ground chilis (sparingly) and chopped cilantro. This way I'll have a ready made rice dish for some busy evening, rain or shine.
While it cooks I go back to work.
Finally done (work & rice both), we get out to harvest, put away, and cover up anything that needs to stay dry. If the change in temperature wasn't enough to remind us of the season we hear a distant clamor... First Geese! The migration is in progress - two large "V's" high in the sky heading SE. Very cool.

Day done. We dine on local line-caught rock cod, cooked in olive oil with my fish seasoning. With it a pile of steamed crookneck squash and sliced beets w/sour cream. We love beets. I will pull up a bunch of them and steam them ( these were steamed yesterday) and put them in the fridge to use on salads or whenever. This dish, usually made with butter and salt & pepper, was just fine with the beets heated in a tiny bit of olive oil and then steamed with about a Tablespoon of water. Just before serving I stirred in the last of our homemade sour cream. A perfectly local dinner. Except for the olive oil all from Humboldt county - again!
I have my evening tea and put the dried pears into jars to seal. We begin to refill the dehydrator with more tomatoes. It is during weather changes that the dehydrator is most valuable. Might be no more placing the trays outside for a while.

Back on the computer I find a message in my e mail - Arcata did not make the Top 20 Best Farmer's Markets in the US!! As good as that market is, and as computer savvy as Arcatans are, I really thought they might get out the vote.
Sponsored by  American Farmland Trust , "...committed to protecting the nation's best farm and ranch land and improving the economic viability of agriculture." They held an online contest to find the most liked farmer's markets in 3 size categories.
Maybe next year...