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.

Continuing Menu of Local Delights...

Oh I am lazy this year!
I confess our breakfasts are virtually all 100% local based (having chickens doesn't hurt), and often, that is the meal I count for my 1-Local-Meal-a-Day.

So, from where we left off:
9/10 - Breakfast: The delectable poached fresh eggs on Brio bread with grated Loleta Cheese

9/11 - Dinner: The wonderful Beet & Beet green Gratin! A solar cooked delight, see the recipe on our earlier blog post: Garden Delights: Don't that Beet All! With this we had a garden green salad with Napa Olive Oil and our homemade herbed red wine vinegar. We love solar cooking, and use the Sun Oven as often as possible, all year round.

9/12 - Breakfast: Leftover Beet Gratin with eggs on the side

9/13 - Breakfast: Our favorite Huevos, Simmons Style. Eggs poached in home canned Zesty Salsa, on Bien Padre tortilla with grated Loleta pepper jack!

9/14 - They had Cod Cheeks in town! We LOVE these local fishery tidbits. Sorta like faux scallops and inexpensive to boot. Dinner: Cod cheeks sauteed with my fish herb seasoning, fresh corn on the cob, and marinated cucumbers from the garden.

9/15 - Lunch: Green salad with home canned local caught Albacore

9/16 - Breakfast: Simmons 'Eggerito' Scrambled eggs in a Bien Padre tortilla with a bit of grated Loleta cheese and homemade hot sauce on top.

9/17 - A lovely picnic lunch on Arcata Plaza in the middle of the North Country Fair! We had Brio bread, Cypress grove chevres and Humboldt Fog, locally made bear/venison/pork salami, BBQ Humboldt Bay oysters from one of the food booths, fruit from the Farmer's Market and some Coates vinyard wine. What's not to like!

9/18 - Home again for a romantic dinner of grilled local beef, fresh corn on the cob and steamed carrots

9/19 -  Dinner: grilled local salmon, zucchini curry (many non-local spices in this - added up to maybe 1 tablespoon - but it had to be!) and Raita made with our cucumbers, cilantro and home made yogurt YUM!!!

Picked more cucmbers today, as well as peppers and squash and tomatoes... & will be canning applesauce and mixed vegetables for soup. This time of year is full-on abundance in the garden.
The Autumnal Equinox is this coming Friday, we need to enjoy what is left of this summer season.

Tweaked Tuesday

The rain did not arrive last night as predicted - but the cold did. 40 degrees this morning. Sun & mixed clouds and a prediction for frost the next couple of nights. Ah well - the seasons do change.

Our young hens have started laying, the occasional small "beginner" egg has been showing up. But today there was a very special one - a blue egg from one of the 2 Auracana hens. Having these young hens starting now will assure us eggs in the winter months when the older hens take a break.

From the get go, this day was full of interruptions. Late to get tea - was lucky to get in a brunch of egg and fried pepper and Loleta cheddar sandwich with cider. Snacked on cherry tomatoes and little sweet peppers.

Frost predicted tonight, and I don't need the weatherman... quite cool all day and in the 40's before 9pm. After work we picked all the soon-to-be-ripening tomatoes, summer squash, good looking zinnias and the rest of the corn. Then we put a hoop and plastic cold frame arrangement over the summer and winter squash and crossed our fingers over the tomatoes.

Lastly, we closed the ends of the greenhouses that house our peppers, basil, eggplant and melons as well a few extra tomatoes. This could be the end of fresh summer vegetable abundance. We will see. And even if... there is chard and winter cole coming on and lots of already harvested food in the house both fresh & preserved.

We were wrapping this up right up until I had to leave for Tai Chi class. The end result was a very late dinner of leftover Localvore Chili con Carne that I had put in the freezer to keep. On the side we had the solar Spanish Rice cooked yesterday and the last of the sweet corn. Cider was the beverage of choice. Slices of honeydew melon for dessert.

I end the day trying to print shipping labels (Grrrr - the USPS website is being uncooperative) and admiring the many vases of zinnias! I may have overdone it, but Zinnias do not handle frost well - and it is only 38 degrees out now.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Challenge. I have been thinking about what has been different, what I have learned. I look forward to writing a summary of the experience. But now, *YAWN*, I must go sleep on it.