Planted and Enchanted

A casual blog about sustainability, gardening and life in Central Texas

Category Archives: Food


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Fourteen Years in Austin

This weekend marked our 14th anniversary of moving to Austin and it was a good one.

We started off at the always pleasurable Jester King brewery and Stanley’s Farmhouse Pizza. Always fun to try their top-notch farmhouse ales. Plus, Stanley’s had Prairie Ales’ Standard on tap, which is ridiculously tasty.

Aurelian Lure

Our lacto-fermentation projects seem to be multiplying. This weekend we used two-pounds of Serrano peppers from the garden to start a batch of mash and three-pounds of carrots and four ounces ginger to make slaw. We’re fascinated by the natural fermentation that takes place with the addition of just a bit of sea salt and plan on expanding our lacto-ferment-based line soon.

serrano fermentcarrot

Sunday ended by brewing our first-ever black IPA, which was a blast. It was the first time using Carafa 2 malt, which was super dark and roasty. Good times. We also employed a new hopping method that had us waiting until 15 minutes left in the boil to add the first round. A second round of Centennial and Simcoe was also added at flameout, and we’ll dry hop with them both at secondary.

no regrets

Hope y’all are having fun doing things and making stuff. Send us pics of your own homesteading projects. We’d love to see what you’re doing.


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Habanero Jelly

If you’ve never tried habanero jelly, you’re in for a treat. The unique flavor and burn of the pepper gets balanced by plenty of sugar, resulting in an incredibly addictive sweet heat. Fantastic on goat cheese, sour dough, ice cream, tortilla chips and just about everything else we’ve tried. Adapted from the great folks at My Pantry Chef at Food52.

giffer (3)

You’ll need:
8-9 orange habaneros, preferably from your backyard or farmers market

2 sweet peppers–orange bell and red Italian sweet peppers work well

4 1/2 cups of organic white sugar

3 T pectin

1 t butter

Clean and sterilized canning jars, lids and rings

Boiling water bath

See the full method at Food52 

 


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Vertical Potato Box Upgrade

Adding a second level and more soil mix to the potato box. 5/3/2010

Our experiment with a vertical potato box seems to be going well. The idea is to cover the bottom 1/3 of the plant every time it gets 12″ out of the soil. The branches then work their magic and turn into potatoes. Below is a shot of the potatoes less than a month ago. Right now the tops of the plants are about 3′ tall.

Adding a second level and more soil/pine straw mix to our potato box.

Have any of you grown potatoes like this in the past? I’d love to hear your success stories. You can reach us via Twitter @PlantandEnchant


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Onions and Garlic, ahoy!

We harvested our onions and garlic yesterday. It was very exciting and fun considering they are our two favorite ingredients in the kitchen. What smells better than sautéing garlic and onions in a little butter? Nothing.

Yellow Granex and White Contessa onions. Most of them planted 1/16/10

Our onions turned out nicely, but I think a fluffier soil mix may have yielded bigger results. Just a thought for next year. This year we planted Yellow Granex and White Contessa. Overall it seems that the yellow granex did better.

Garlic, planted last October.

Our garlic stash is making our garage smell very, very good. We planted three different varieties this year and were happiest with the purple variety.


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Lacinato Kale for the New Year

Lacinato Kale

One of my favorite winter recipes is Giant Crusty and Creamy White Beans with Greens from the wonderful cookbook Super Natural Cooking by Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks. I used Giant Peruvian Lima Beans this time, which are really tasty, and substituted Lacinato Kale for the chard, as we had plenty ready to pick in the garden. Delicious!

Giant Crusty and Creamy White Beans with Greens


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Big Ol’ Zucchini

We planted zucchini this year, but it succumbed to squash borers or cutworm or something before we could enjoy it.  Fortunately, we have wonderful neighbors who shared some of their garden bounty with us. Thanks, neighbors…we like you!

Zucchini

Zucchini

Weighing in at just over two pounds, this zucchini yielded six cups shredded – three times the amount needed to make two loaves of this wonderful zucchini bread from Smitten Kitchen.  (The recipe says chocolate chips are optional, but I highly recommend using them.)

Zucchini Bread with Extra Dark Chocolate Chips

Zucchini Bread with Extra Dark Chocolate Chips

Now I’m looking for creative ways to use the rest of this zucchini. Any of you have a favorite recipe?


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Tomato Time!

We’ve had an abundance of tomatoes in the past week, so what better to do than make a delicious batch of fresh tomato sauce?

Tomatoes from the Garden

Tomatoes from the Garden

3 T olive 0il
2 large cloves of garlic, minced
Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)
1 1/2 lbs of tomatoes, cored and roughly chopped (I used a mix of Roma and Marglobe)
Big handful of fresh sweet basil, chopped (oregano would be good, too)
1/4 tsp salt
Freshly ground pepper

Add oil, garlic, and red pepper flakes to a large saucepan. Turn heat to medium and cook until fragrant.

Chopped Tomatoes

Chopped Tomatoes

Add chopped tomatoes to saucepan and cook approximately five minutes, until they are good and juicy.  Turn heat to low and simmer 15-20 more minutes.

Sweet, sweet basil

Sweet, sweet basil

Add the chopped basil, salt, and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Mmmmm….

I used the sauce to make this recipe for Cheesy Lasagna Rolls, which was especially delicious with goat’s milk ricotta from Wateroak Farms.

Making the lasagna rolls

Making the lasagna rolls

Cheesy Lasagna Rolls with Homemade Tomato Sauce

Cheesy Lasagna Rolls with Homemade Tomato Sauce

Just before the lasagna rolls went in the oven

Just before the lasagna rolls went in the oven

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