Beans

I’m always looking for new and creative ways to cook and enjoy the harvest but when I’ve got too little time and too much produce, this is one of my go to easy dinners that never gets old. The comfort of classic chicken and dumplings with out the chicken. By all means add chicken if you’d like. 

Seafair festivities have kept me away from tending the garden for a few days and now it’s time to catch up with the harvest again. Just a few days was all it took to become overloaded with broccoli, and the never ending green beans so into the dutch oven they went with a few carrots, onions and herbs.

Veggies and Dumplings

• 1 large or 3 small onions chopped
• roughly 1 1/2 quarts of chopped mixed vegetables
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 can cream of celery soup
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1/2 cup water
• black pepper
• diced fresh sage, rosemary and thyme
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 batch of Heart Smart Bisquick dumplings (follow the recipe of the box)

Preperation

While preheating the oven to 375, caramelize the onions in the butter in a dutch oven on the stove-top. Add all of the remaining ingredients except for the dumplings. Mix well and simmer for 10 minutes while you prepare the dumpling batter by following the directions on the box (mix 2/3 cup Bisquick with 3 tablespoons milk to form a dough). Drop spoonfuls of dough atop your stewed veggies in the dutch oven. The dumplings appear inadequate but will double in size when they cook.  Place the dutch oven in the preheated oven to cook uncovered for 10 minutes and covered for 10 minutes more. Enjoy!

Optional: For added richness, I commonly season the dumplings with garlic powder and/or onion powder before mixing the dough – an old school habit I picked up from my mom.

The neglect in my garden began a few days ago when I discovered the blackberries were ripe. I dropped everything and began filling buckets as fast as I could. Today I’ve made all of those blackberries into enough jam to last through the winter and then some. While I was at it, I finally got into the garden to pick and pickle all of the green and purple beans that had been staring at me each day as I walked by, trying to ignore them with a tub of berries in my arms. I think, at this point, I’ve canned all that I can.  Mother Nature knew I would be canning today so she gave me some cool cloudy weather to work in.  Nothing is worse than standing over a hot water canner, in a hot steamy kitchen, on a hot summer day.

Royal Purple Bush Bean is a variety my mother has grown for years. They are as delicious as they are stunning and they turn solid green when they’re cooked.

The green variety is Maxibel – French Filet Bush Bean. Don’t tell my mom but I think this one is even better and it produces like the energizer bunny. I can’t keep up with the harvest.

Again, I’m following the preserving  recipes in Stocking up on the bookshelf.

When the sun finally came out, I took a walk to visit a garden I’m looking after for some friends of mine while they’re out of town. Gave it one last good watering before they come home tomorrow and then I headed back home through our residential streets lined with fruit trees and veggie patches. It’s a bit like heaven. I even came across a tree already scattering the ground with these yellow leaves.

It reminded me that fall will be on us soon and I better get started on those fall crops I keep meaning to plant.

With the peak of the summer harvest upon us, each day’s produce brings the challenge of figuring out what to do with it.  Our fridge, freezer and pickle jars are filling up quickly – not to mention our bellies. Our peas and salad greens are still going strong and now we can add to that an abundance of beans, broccoli, carrots, beets, and collard greens.

 In the midst of the veggie onslaught, I’ve managed to find time to begin working on a fall crop of Redbor Kale.

Up next on the to do list are  new crops of carrots and collards but we’ll save those  for another day as I have more beans to pick.