Carrots

A cold soggy Sunday at the end of summer was the perfect day for a garden feast. What started with early morning potato digging under a steady drizzle led to pulling up carrots, chopping up green beans, dusting off the crock pot and opening a bottle of wine. What we ended up with was a fabulous beef stew, some crusty bread, and a crisp side salad. 

These tomatoes were calling to me too.

The salad also featured the famous “slug proof” Summertime Crisp Head lettuce and Red Torpedo Onions.

The measurements of the ingredients don’t really matter but here’s a rough recipe for today’s stew:

• 4 potatoes
• 4 carrots
• 1 onion
• a handful of green beans chopped
• 1/2 head of garlic
• 1 pack of sliced mushrooms
• 1 pound of stew meat
• 1/2 cup of assorted dried beans
• 1 quart beef broth
• 1 cup red wine
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• salt and pepper

 Brown the meat then combine all ingredients in the crock pot and cook on low all day. Enjoy with a glass of wine.

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.

Showcasing home grown carrots in a cookie packed full of good stuff.

Carrot Power Cookies

•  3 cups rolled oats
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 banana
• 1 1/2 cups shredded carrots
• 1/2 cup milk
• 3/4 cup softened butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablesoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 cup sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup hemp seeds
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Combine wet ingredients in one bowl. Combine dry ingredients in another. Combine the two mixtures and drop spoonfuls onto oiled cookie sheets.  Bake at 350 for 13 minutes. Makes 4 dozen.

Today’s bounty has all gone into a hearty salad. Hot food just doesn’t appeal on a hot day but a filling, cold veggie salad is just right. Steamed and chilled broccoli, shredded carrots, diced scallions all from the garden tossed with quinoa, olive oil and Spike seasoning - so simple and so good.

Another favorite way to fnish this salad is by swapping the oil and seasoning for a little vinaigrette and crumbled fetta but I’ve come up short handed today and in the spirit of “living off the land” (by urban standards at least), I make due with what’s on hand.

Speaking of whats on hand – carrots and broccoli might be old news now but the scallions I mentioned are the first of the season.

Typically these can be sown in March and be ready much sooner than this but mine got a later start. I almost always have some scallions, AKA bunching onions, AKA green onions hidden in some corner of my garden.

They’re always reliable and so easy to grow as they don’t seem to mind if its freezing cold or smoldering hot outside, the bugs couldn’t be less interested, a little shade isn’t a problem, they don’t mind crowding and by taking up no room at all, they can be squeezed into any little corner of free space in your garden patch. As you can see from the photo above, even the dry, rocky soil in this new expansion of the garden, that we haven’t amended yet, is good enough for the low maintenance, lovable scallion.

I’ve just harvested the first young Mokum carrots of the year and they did not disappoint. Young carrots are so tender and crisp that, honestly, no recipe can make them taste better than they way they are fresh out of the ground but if tossing a pile of plain, fresh carrots on your plate next to an elegantly prepared filet mignon doesn’t meet your gourmet standards, here’s a simple recipe for braising them that can still showcase their fresh-from-the-garden qualities.

Ingredients

• 1 bundle of young carrots scrubbed and trimmed
• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 1/2 cup of water
• Salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

I also added a pinch of fresh Thyme leaves but that’s optional. 

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients. Simmer, covered for 5 minutes. Uncover, and continue to simmer until water evaporates and carrots become tender – 5 minutes more. The sugar enhances the sweetness of the carrots but will burn easily so keep an eye on them and remove from heat at first sign of browning.

Note: Baby carrots prepared this way will cook thoroughly if left whole but larger mature carrots may need to be halved or quartered.