Aliens in the Garden

There are aliens out in the garden! But, don't worry, these aliens come in peace.

Kohlrabi look beautiful in the garden with their lush foliage and crazy bulbous stem. They are super easy to grow, produce quickly, and the pests hardly bother with them at all.

If you don't grow kohlrabi in your own garden, you can sometimes find them at local farmers markets. If you're lucky, you'll be able to locate fresh ones with the leaves still attached.

To prepare the kohlrabi, remove the leaves and save them to use as you would most any winter green.

Kohlrabi are incredibly versatile in the kitchen. They have a lightly sweet, mild flavor that is wonderful roasted, stir fried, shredded as slaw, or turned into my new favorite dish, kohlrabi cakes.

To prepare the kohlrabi, start by slicing off the top and the bottom. 

Cutting the kohlrabi down the middle exposes the moist, white edible flesh inside.

I like to use a paring knife to remove the fibrous outer peeling.

When peeled, the large pieces can be easily shredded or diced.

For the kohlrabi cakes, I'll be shredding the white flesh into a large bowl.

My kohlrabi is very large, so I'll be adjusting this recipe as I go to account for it's size. I started with 4 small hen eggs from some of my newer layers, but I ended up adding 2 more later to get the consistency I was looking for. 

Beat the eggs well in a separate bowl or at the edge of the bowl with the kohlrabi in it, if you want to reduce the dirty dishes.

I ended up using 1 1/2 cups of Italian style bread crumbs. Add your bread crumbs a little at time. You can always add more, but it's hard to take them out.

Mix well with a fork or use your hands for a little fun. When your done, the kohlrabi, eggs and breadcrumbs should be combined to the consistency of a very moist meatloaf. 

The key to making these kohlrabi patties is to keep them small. With the oil good and hot over a medium heat, make a ball with the dough in your hands, press flat, and gently slide into the oil. Watch out you don't burn your fingers!

Keeping the patties small will make it easier to turn them later and allow them to cook through. I like to use a flipper to turn them, but I place a fork on the top side to keep them from making a messy splash down in the oil.

In hot oil, the patties will cook in about 3 minutes on each side.

These kohlrabi cakes are wonderful with fresh lemon. Bon Appetite!

My Girls Love Market Day

Sunday is market day! That's when I harvest the freshest and best looking produce in my garden and take my wares to the Hope Farmer's Market. Produce has to arrive at the market by 10:30 a.m., so as soon as the coffee is drunk, it's time to grab my high tech harvest wagon and head to the garden for an inspection.

The last remaining kohlrabi from my first planting are ready for harvest. A succession planting was done to ensure I'll have kohlrabi straight through the spring.

Warm temperatures are causing my purple cauliflower to expand rapidly. Most people prefer a tight head of cauliflower, so the looser ones will find their way to my table.

This year I did not blanch my cauliflower by tying the leaves around the head to keep the head white and pristine. Most of the heads still look great, but some had some minor staining. 

The kale is doing great this year. This dinosaur kale (Brassica oleracea) does best at the market, because it does not easily wilt and looks great all day.

The rutabaga are not as big as I'd like, so they can wait another week to two before they go to market.

I have lots of multiplying onions, but no time to deal with them this morning. I like to replant 1 out of 4 onions when I harvest to ensure production continues on. Replanting takes a little time, so they can wait till next week.

The produce that's ready to go to the market gets loaded into the wagon, while all the excess leaves get loaded into the wheelbarrow for my girls (i.e. my chickens).

"Market Day! We love market day!" says my hungry hens.

That's quite a pile of produce girls! Enjoy!

Cabbage that needs a little spritzing goes off to my high tech washing and drying station.

Finally, my hubby, who is king of crating, boxes up the goods for transport and loads them into the car.

My produce is harvested and delivered to the market in a matter of just a few hours. That's fresh! If you're in Austin, Texas and looking for the freshest, tastiest produce, stop by and see us on Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Yard to Market booth.

Sometimes Cabbage Saves the Day!

I've been working toward earning my Vegetable Specialist Certification by conducting a bio intensity study of broccoli and cabbage. Silly me! When the chips were down and it really mattered, I decided to try a new-to-me variety called Southern Acclimation instead of a tried and true variety like Packman or Marathon. Oh why, oh why did I do this? I should really know better, but the seed packet enticed me by promising excellent growth in a southern winter. I live in the south! What could go wrong?

Things started out normally. My seedlings had a good rate of germination and were strong.

When I planted the seedlings in the garden, I was proud of my accomplishment and excited by the possibilities for the future harvest.

I noticed early that only a small number of plants had the grayish, green foliage that is common to broccoli, but the majority of the plants had a lighter green foliage with very striking white veining. Since I've never grown Southern Acclimation, I assumed this coloration was unique to the variety.

I didn't panic right away. We had a very early hard freeze back in November 2014, so I figured this strange foliage was somehow related to the cold or to the variety. But then, the broccoli started to appear and it was small and unappetizing.

After the initial harvest of a strange broccoli head, the side shoots seemed even stranger.

If that wasn't enough to make me wonder what the heck was going on, I noticed some broccoli that was developing like cabbage. At first I thought I had intermixed the plants, but then the plant opened up showing broccoli-like shoots inside. Singular indeed.

Fortunately, there is a bright side to this story. The cabbage has done very well. I'm growing a variety that I have prior experience with called Early Jersey Wakefield. The plants have been producing heads ranging from 2 to 4 pounds. The only catch is that the heads have all been pointy. I think this is related to the early freeze, but since the heads are tight and tasty, I'm not going to complain. (Update: Conical heads are normal for the variety Early Jersey Wakefield.)

The first bed containing 12 cabbages has been completely harvested, leaving the beds with 24 plants and 48 plants (shown below). What I've noticed is that though the plants are crowded, they seem to take advantage of space in the rows and the extra space that results from the removal of plants at harvest time. Since I don't want to harvest all my cabbages at the same time, I think this acceptable.

Will all this craziness affect my project and ruin my chances to be certified? Probably not. I definitely learned some valuable lessons and I'll be able to document my findings using the cabbage. What can I say? That's life in the garden. Sometimes cabbage saves the day!

Cloudy Day Tomato Soup

It's hard to believe just two days ago I was wearing shorts. Today it's 42 degrees and I'm freezing my buns off. I'll say this: Texas winters are never boring. 

We'll be back in the 70's by Thursday, so I'm not complaining. Sometimes I think it gets cold in Texas just so we can all have an excuse to pull out our favorite sweater, make some soup, and reminisce about summer (i.e. complain about winter).

Yes, summer. Remember those great tomatoes? I do. 

Back in June, when I was inundated with tomatoes and too busy to do anything with them, I washed a batch and stuffed them into a one gallon freezer bag. Simple as that. Other than washing them, I didn't process them in any way. This is what they looked like today when I pulled them out of the freezer and let them defrost a bit. 

I let them rest in a colander, while I started working on making some homemade tomato soup. I don't want the tomatoes to fully thaw, because I think they are easier to work with when they are still mostly frozen. 

Today I'm following this recipe: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/melanies-garden-tomato-soup 

I use the word "following" loosely, because I rarely follow recipes. Like many cooks, I improvise based on the ingredients I have on hand or what I'm in the mood for. Here's my ingredients list for today's soup:

Ingredients

2 generous splashes of olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
1 tsp dried oregano
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp dried basil
3 garlic cloves, minced
9 frozen tomatoes, various sizes
6 oz tomato paste
6 oz water
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 cup heavy cream

I combined the olive oil, onions, garlic and herbs and cooked until the onions and garlic were softened. Funny how so many good recipes start with olive oil, onions and garlic! I feel warmer already.

While the onions and garlic were cooking, I started peeling and chopping the tomatoes. Frozen tomatoes shed their skins with only the slightest prompting. Just let them defrost a bit and the skins slip right off like magic.

When frozen, the consistency of the tomato is more like a ripe apple. I just cut out the core, pushed back the skins, and chopped the tomato into pieces. It's so easy and it doesn't make a big, juicy mess, because all the juice is frozen.

I tossed the chopped tomatoes into the pot with the onions and garlic and added all of the remaining ingredients except for the heavy whipping cream. Then, I cooked the mixture over medium heat until hot.

I couldn't find my emulsion blender, which would be perfect for this job, so I improvised and processed the soup using my Nutribullet. When the soup was pureed to the consistency I wanted, I added the heavy whipping cream as a final step.

Garnished with just a sprinkling of dried basil, this soup was like sunshine on a cloudy day.

And, the best part... Yummy leftovers for tomorrow!