My Summer 2009 Garden

My previous landlord owns a large piece of land in downtown Moncton. Unfortunately, he doesn't use it for anything but mowing the lawn. I thought it was quite a shame to waste all that space so I asked him if I could tear up corner, out of view, and plant a garden. He agreed. I was surprised.

Now digging a new garden is quite the endeavour. The method I used is called "deep digging". What this consists of is removing the layer of sod (the real hard part), digging 12 inches down, and mixing that 12 inches of dirt with good organic dirt mixed with compost. In a phrase, it sounds easy. But it's quite demanding work when the soil below the sod is mostly clay and someone in the past thought it was a good idea to throw a window frame, a few dozen bricks and other random garbage underneath the top layer of dirt.

In addition to being difficult to start, the garden had a large coniferous tree on the east side, a garage on the west side and a 4 foot high fence on the south side. Really not ideal growing conditions. Plus, since I'd dug down in an already low spot, water pooled in between my rows. All summer I stressed about the water overflowing and drowning my plants. The bugs loved it. My vegetables weren't as enthousiastic.

The picture below was taken a few weeks ago. It's what I would consider the "big harvest" which, believe me, I know is sad. Captured in the photo are Early Wonder Top beets, Danvers carrots, one Costata Romanesca zucchini, one Lemon Cucumber, a small handful of Black Valentine bush beans, Baie Verte Indian pole beans and a few tomatoes. The tomatoes I grew (relatively successfully in the grand scheme of things) were Sungold cherry tomatoes grown from seeds I'd saved from last year, as well as Russian, San Marzano, Mennonite Orange, Toma Verde Tomatillo, and Tribe's Tobique all grown from seedlings I bought from Amarosia Organic Garden in the spring. I got a few tomatoes from each but none from the tomatillo. Unfortunately, I'd marked each variety of tomatoe on a piece of wood with permanent marker. It would seem that permanent marker is not so permanent during a whole summer in the rain and sun. So I don't know which tomato is which.

One of the mystery tomato varieties. Mennonite Orange or Russian?

These are Baie Verte Indian pole beans which I grew in the "three sisters" model of corn on which the beans climb and at the foot of which are planted squash to provide shade. I planted Golden Bantam sweet corn and Lester's buttercup squash. I know I'm not going to get any squash (due to the persistent cucumber beetles which destroyed anything with a yellow flower) but I might get one or two ears of corn. Not the best turnout but all part of the learning curve. At the end of the day, it costs less than tuition fees at university. And the quality of the education is far superior.

This beautiful yellow flower belongs to the Costata Romanesca plant. As previously mentioned, the cucumber beetles seemed to find these flowers beautiful too. In the background you can see the round zuchinni. They are really tasty. Not like the bland cardboard stuff they sell at the supermarket.

These are Love Lies Bleeding amaranth flowers. Aren't they pretty? I think these perfectly illustrate how edible landscaping is much better than conventional landscaping. They are nice to look at and edible.

Behind the amaranth tower the Jerusalem Artichokes I got from Wingate Farm and which we planted a row of at the community garden since they are a perrenial and make an excellent border. I have yet to harvest either the amaranth of the JAs. But I will.

Not included in these photos are the sweet peas (planted by the fence and quickly died from lack of sun and slug attacks), the strawberries (same predicament as the peas), the pickling cucumbers (beetles again), the cantaloupe (only produced a rock hard excuse for a melon), the variety of leaf lettuce (I got 4 servings of these), and the Taisai Chinese cabbage (slugs quickly killing the young sprouts). Also not featured are the dill, the cauliflower, the watermelon and the thyme which never had a chance to experience life.

Next summer I won't be planting a garden since halfway through the summer I'll be moving back to Ontario. But in two summers my garden will be back with a vengeance. No more shaddy, flood proned patches for me.

NOTE: All seeds were sourced from Hope Seeds, a New Brunswick organic seed company. See www.hopeseeds.com

Pasta Lunch Delivery

I love being back in my kitchen. I've cooked 3 meals today. Market bought bacon, free range eggs, and multigrain bread toast with hot red pepper jelly (sweet and spicy...yumm) in the morning. For lunch, I was kindly asked by my girlfriend if I'd meet her at university to have lunch. It meant that I had to go early to school. But at least it gave me an excuse to cook something for lunch. I would probably just have eaten a Pop Tart if I was the only one to feed.

This dish was basically just a fridge emptying entreprise. Half a zuchinni, six or so tomatoes from a crate we'd purchased and have been eating away at for the last week, on onion, a good dollop of pesto, lots of pequin chili flakes, the rest of a bag of penne and the really tasty left over crumbling salami. I simply cooked the penne while I cut up the veggies. I then used the same pot to cook the veggies. I should have used some of the pasta water but it was down the drain before I could think about it. Anyways, I added the salami last, put the dish in 2 portable containers, took a picture and met my girlfriend for lunch. She was happy that I'd made something as opposed to just bringing her something like cold Pop Tarts. What the hell is up with Pop Tarts anyways?

Tomato and Basil Sandwich

Seeing as we were rolling into tomato and basil at the time where I made this sandwich (about a month ago), the making of this was not that inspired. But it's cooking within the season. Which is good. Tomatoes in February taste like crap. Tomatoes right now, and especially organic tomatoes, taste like tomatoes should taste. Not like water and fertilizers.

Anyways, there's nothing magical about his sandwich, just tomatoes, basil, mayonaise, unbleached multigrain bread, and onion sprouts which are the king of sprouts in my opinion. Way better than that rabbit food alfalfa. The real beauty of this sandwich is in the dehydration by osmosis of the tomatoes. I've said it before but let me say it again: tomatoes which have been drained of a bit of their water content are better. Just slice, spread in a colander, salt and let sit. They concentrate their flavour by losing some of their water. Genius, non?

Here's a photo of the amount of water you can extract from just one or two tomatoes. Enough to make a tomato and basil sandwhich basically. This is about 3 tablespoons!

Jamie's wife's favorite Saturday afternoon pasta

Yet another recipe from Cook with Jamie, this pasta dish is simple, quick and pretty good. It's not of the same oh-my-god-this-is-the-greatest-thing-ever caliber (see Sticky Finger Lobster) but it was pretty good. Jamie himself admits that he can't see what his wife sees in this dish but she loves it and so, being the good husband that he undoubtedly is, he added it to his cookbook.

As always, I'm not going to give you his exact recipe but I will tell you what the ingredients are. Basically you've got red onion, red chilli, cinnamon, fresh basil, canned tomatoes (or try fresh, they're in season right now up here in the North Hemisphere), canned tuna in olive oil (I bought some lovely line caught, selective fishing tuna which, fingers crossed, might have less mercury in them), penne, lemon zest, olive oil and the pasta cheese of cheeses parmigiano reggiano. Combine as your cook logic dictates and you should be fine. And maybe not providing amounts is actually a good thing. You're not following some Brit's scientific equation. You're actually going at it for yourself...more or less. Anyways, it's worth trying. Really simple and good.

Cook Tomato Salad with Jamie

At the top of my list of things I love are food and books. Therefore the natural combination of the two is a real treat. I like books that aren't only cookbooks but tell you a story for the recipes or are the recipes that a person gathered on a trip of some sort. Two books of this sort I'd been eyeing recently were given to me by my mother-in-law for Christmas. I got both Kylie Kwong's My China and Jamie Oliver's new book Cook with Jamie.

The basic principle of Jamie Oliver's book is that this celebrity chef's cooking program through his restaurant Fifteen is here presented to the general public as a sort of cooking textbook. I haven't seen recipes so far that are just slapped onto a page without any context or story or explanation. For example, the first recipe I prepared from this book was for a tomato salad. The introduction to the recipe is actually longer than the recipe itself and there are gorgeous photos to go along with all of them. And then you get to the recipe for the tomato salad and you're not just given steps to follow but little explanations that clarify why it is you're being asked to perform such and such an action. In the recipe in question, once you've cut you're fresh mixture of different tomatoes into odd sized pieces, you put them in a colander over a bowl and sprinkle them generously with sea salt. But the instructions don't just say do 1, then 2, then 3 and so on. They say that the reason why you're doing this is to draw out some liquid from the tomatoes to concentrate the flavour. It also explains that he's not expecting you to eat all of that salt...the salt will, for the most part, run off with the excess liquid of the tomatoes.

I've done basic tomato salads like this before. Tomatoes + olive oil + balsamic vinegar. All that's different here is the preparation of the tomatoes and the expected additions like garlic, fresh marjoram and basil and the not so usual addition of a hot red pepper. The recipe's additions were good. But it's the preparation and the learning that went along with the preparation that makes this book worthwile. Now I know that if I draw some water out of a vegetable that I'll be able to concentrate it's flavour. Simple in retrospect but it's one of those millions of little things that need to be learnt in the kitchen.

Cook with Jamie is a recipe book that reads like a cooking show. You get all the information that can be delivered in live action but in a format that allows you to move at your own pace. Isn't learning fun?!

Yet Another Dégustation

I guess it's going to be a tradition of sorts for now that we pick up some delicious new cheese at the market on Saturday's and pig out on a dégustation.

For this particular plate of assorted goodies, I prepared a salsa verde (or whatever you call a salsa made with green tomatoes). I put green tomatoes, onions, garlic, cilantro, orange zest and juice, pureed it Mexican salsa style - as opposed to American style chunky salsa - and served it to go along with my multi-grain baguette. A great accompanying little treat to this were the very thin slices of dried duck. Though they were very fatty - as only duck can be - and barely tasted anything unless you sucked on them, those little slices of duck were a good initiation to other items that particular vendor has at the market. These include foi gras, terrines, French-style sausages, and other weird French delights.

As for the fruits and veggies, I cut up some apples, pears, cucumber, served them with grapes and these really beautiful looking sour prunes I found at the market. Along with some merlot (this time I tried to read the descriptions of the wines on their labels to make sure the pairing wasn't totally off) and a cheese whose name I can't remember but was stronger than gruyère but milder than the Le Comté which I had last week, this dégustation was a nice light meal.

BBQ Season is Coming to an End

Pretty much all the trees have turned yellow, orange, and red. The wind is getting colder. It rains a cold kind of rain that makes you want to stay inside and make soup. But I'm still braving the weather. I'm still firing the grill.

I made an oregano and walnut pesto and stuffed it into some nice big white mushroom. Topped with a tiny mound of shredded parmesan, the turned out juicy and delicious. So did the plump tomatoes on which I placed thin slices of fresh garlic underneath yet other mounds of parmesan cheese. The result was barbecued vegetabley-goodness (I make up words like that).

The vegetables accompanied a piece of steak with perfect hatch marks. One problem I have with cooking steak is that my grill is steaming when I slap the meat on. That's not the problem. The problem is that the exterior chars fast but the middle doesn't cook as fast as what the outside would make you believe. So what I'm left with are beautiful, barelly cooked pieces of beef. Given that my girlfriend just started by capable of overcoming her psychological and bio-class induced fear of anything below medium, I've had to reheat steaks every time I'm ready to sit down for supper.

I think that I'm going to celebrate what's left of the bbq season with roasting squash or grilling root vegetables that are in season. A good grilled vegetable soup, some maple syrup glazzed pork maybe, or stuffed onions. Who knows? But I have to do something before winter hits...and seeing as most of the people who visit my sight aren't Canadian, all I can say is that almost everything stops when Old Man Winter rears with ugly head.

Simplest Tomato

As always, simple is best. Having produce that's in season also helps because it's only in the dead of winter that it's time for stews that cover up the fact that you might not be cooking with the freshest of ingredients. While perusing through the farmer's market this weekend, I couldn't help but notice that almost every vender was selling what I'd been anticipating all summer...tomatoes!

And the ones I bought aren't just your average beefsteak tomatoes. I got myself a nice little basket of bright red roma tomatoes. Even though they're fantastic on their own with just a touch of salt, I had to bring in a bit of variety. But not just variety for varieties sake like in all those fancy restaurants (ex: I saw one of Wolfgang Puck's recipes for celery soup that had 24 karat gold in it...WHAT'S THE POINT!?). This preparation is simple, let's the beauty of the produce show and is taken from Michael Smith's show Chef at Home.

Simply chop fresh tomatoes into cubes, splatter with good quality olive oil and balsamic vinegar and that's it. Simple and delicious. To give it a bit more of a spin you can throw in some feta and fresh basil. I've tried it a few times with kalamata olives (thus basically short of cucumber which would make it a greek salad) but to really let the tomatoes shine it's best to go with the basics. And that's better than any $500 meal any day.

24 karat gold....I don't get it....I just don't get it....