Late Harvest Pasta

It is surprising to see zucchini still growing in the garden in October!  I suppose this is just more evidence of the lovely warm Autumn we've had this year.  The following recipe came out of necessity on Sunday evening when the cupboards were bare but luckily I was able to pull a few things from the garden and make this quick and tasty dinner.

 

Picture above is Zucchini with blooms on October 21, 2014.

 

Late Harvest Pasta with Zucchini, Garlic and Red Cabbage from the garden

 

Ingredients:

 

1 package of fresh or dry linguine

1 can of clams (with juice)

3 cloves of  minced garlic

1 small zucchini diced

1/4 small red cabbage finely shredded (with mandolin if you have one)

1 heaping tablespoon dried basil

Juice of half a lemon

1/4 cup of parmesan cheese

Splash of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

 

Get water boiling in pot for linguine.

Meanwhile in a sauté pan on low heat add olive oil and garlic.  Leave this for a couple minutes then add the clams with juice followed by all the other ingredients except the cabbage and parmesan.  When the pasta is cooked scoop from the pot directly into the pan using tongs or whatever scooping method works for you.  Stir ingredients together for a minute or two and turn off heat.  Add lemon juice parmesan and finely shredded cabbage - serve immediately.

 

Twirl and enjoy!

Strawberry Jamming

This is the DDS' second annual strawberry jam making cooperative.  Last year we messed up Shannon's kitchen so this year it was my turn.  In one afternoon we processed about 20 pounds of strawberries into jam.  We chose to make batches of strawberry rhubarb, a lavender infused strawberry and a freezer strawberry jam.  Working together definitely makes the task less daunting.  This time around I washed and hulled the strawberries, while Shannon cut up rhubarb, prepared the jars (water bath to sanitize) and measured all the ingredients.  We follow the recipes that came with the pectin.

Below: Chopping rhubarb picked from Shannon's abundant patch

 

Below: Berries being washed in my sink in prep. for hulling (removing the stem).  My mom has a very old tool made especially for hulling strawberries.  I just push a small teaspoon into the top of the berry and twist out the hull.

 

Our folks picked up the two flats of berries from a local farm in Langley.  There is nothing like the flavour and colour of fresh local strawberries.  You can tell they are not GMO as they definitely don't keep for long and need to be eaten, frozen or jammed very quickly.

Below: Some of our lovely jars of jam.  The darker colour jars are the lavender infused and the lighter is the strawberry rhubarb.
 

 

 

For the Strawberry rhubarb we followed the recipe provided with the pectin.

To make the lavender infused jam, I packed two tea bags (designed for loose leaf tea) with fresh picked lavender, added to the strawberry mixture and let it infuse during the cooking and stirring portion of the process.  I removed the lavender bags before putting the jam into jars.  The flavour added is quite subtle.

 

If you have room in your freezer for freezer strawberry jam I highly recommend it.  For freezer jam you don't need to sterilize or seal your jars or containers and it tastes more like fresh picked strawberries than the cooked jam.  Often it is a little runnier than cooked jam and thus makes an amazing syrup for waffles or ice-cream.
 

Though I don't think we save money by making are own jam, it is satisfying to see the jars lined up on my shelf and know exactly all the ingredients that went into them.  It doesn't hurt to support local farmers too. 

 

 

 

the roots of dinner

After perusing the garden, I decided to make borscht for dinner. I harvested beets, carrots, kohlrabi, cherry tomatoes, onion and dill for the soup.

I've grown a beet blend from West Coast Seeds which included Chioggia, round Detroit Supreme, leafy Early Wonder Tall Top and cylindrical Rodina beets. The stripes of the one beet were really pronounced, too bad the stripes get lost in the soup.

I topped the borscht with sour cream and chives and called it "pink soup" which convinced a 3 year old that it was worth eating!