Pumpkin Cranberry Bread

Now that I've posted how to cook pumpkin, here's a delicious quick bread to make with the pulp. This recipe uses fresh cranberries, which are easy to find this time of year. Beware of dried cranberries, by the way - you won't find any that don't have added sugar, since the berry is so sour. Incidently, cooked butternut squash substitutes perfectly for pumpkin.

• 2 eggs, beaten slightly
• 1-1/2 c honey
• 1/2 c vegetable oil
• 1-1/4 c cooked, drained pumpkin
• 2-1/2 c flour
• 1 c chopped fresh cranberries
• 1 T pumpkin pie spice*
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease two loaf pans. Mix the first 4 ingredients in one bowl, and the remaining dry ingredients and cranberries in a second bowl. Add the wet to dry, mixing just to moisten thoroughly. Bake 1 hour.

* See my Ingredients in the right column for directions to mix your own Pumpkin Pie Spice

Judy's Sweet Potato Spice Bread

This is a moist, finely textured quick bread I created to use some of my huge sweet potato harvest. Cook extra sweet potatoes without any seasoning when you are preparing some for a meal, and set aside enough to make this recipe. I've frozen zip bags with 1-1/4 cups of mashed cooked sweet potatoes for future use. The next time I make this bread, I think I'll also add one chopped apple. Yum!

• 3 c whole wheat white flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp ground ginger root
• 1/2 c golden raisins
• 1/2 c chopped nuts
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/4 c oil
• 1/4 c honey
• 1/2 c molasses or sorghum
• 1-1/4 c cooked sweet potatoes
• 1/2 c apple juice or milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices in a large bowl. Stir raisins into the dry mixture. I use the food processor for the wet ingredients - but you can mix by hand if preferred. Pulse the eggs to beat slightly, add the rest of the wet ingredients and process until the potatoes are well mashed into the liquid. Pour the wet into the dry ingredients, and mix by hand until everything is moistened - the batter will be thick. Pour into one greased standard loaf pan or three greased mini loaf pans. Back large loaf for 60 minutes, small loaves for 45 minutes, until the top is browning. Freezes well if you don't eat it all fresh from the oven. I like this for breakfast.

Pumpkins

The pumpkins I painted for Halloween are still looking good, so they are hanging around for a while. But if yours are ready to retire, don't just throw them away. Pumpkin seeds are delicious and nutritious, and the puree is great for eating and baking into breads and pies.

Carefully cut the pumpkin into halves or smaller, depending on its size. Use a spoon to scrape out the seeds and inner pulp. I boil the seeds in water for 5 minutes, which helps clean the strings and pulp off, then drain well. You can season the seeds, with Italian salad dressing or olive oil, and sprinkle with salt or other spices. Bake in a single layer on a cookie sheet at 250 degrees for 30 minutes, stir and bake 30-60 minutes more, until crunchy.

To bake the pumpkin pulp, line a roasting pan with foil - do not skip this step... the pumpkin is full of natural sugars which carmelize while they roast and can ruin a pan with burned-on residue (I know, I've scraped a few roasting pans!). Place pumpkin pieces cut side down. Add water to the pan to help keep from sticking. I also recommend covering tightly with foil - keeps down the splattering and slows down the evaporation of the water. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 to 2 hours, until fork-tender. Remove. When cool, scrape pulp from shells. Puree the pulp with a potato masher or in a food processor and set in a colander over a bowl to drain out extra moisture, and you'll end up with a nicer puree than what comes from a can. The puree can be used immediately or frozen in a zipper bag, in 1 cup portions for easy use later.

Incidently, you'll see some of my mums in the photo. I'll tell you more about this in another blog, but, for now, if you've bought pots of fall chrysanthemums, they can be planted for next year. When the flowers die off, just cut off the tops and plant in your garden. It is a perennial and I've had them come back year after year, even in the cold of New Hampshire. More info on this later.

Sweet Harvest

 

This photo might not look too exciting to you, but it is to me… it's just one of the two wheelbarrows I filled with my sweet potato harvest earlier this week. I was delighted to have so many, from just 11 plants. If you have garden space and you live in the South, grow sweet potatoes! They take very little care, and don't seem to be susceptible to insects or blight or other garden problems. They taste fabulous, can be used in many different dishes, and they are good for you too!

I timed my harvest on November 1st according to these criteria:

• The vines had been in the ground since mid June, well over 120 days maturity time
• The weather has been dry for several days, so the soil and the potatoes were relatively dry
• Rain was predicted in the next few days, and potatoes dug wet won't store as long
• Night temperatures down to 28 degrees are forecast for late this week; frost will kill the vines and start the potatoes rotting in the ground
• It was sunny and in the upper 60s and I had been at my computer all day!

I had started my own "slips" last spring; these are short vines with roots which grow when you put sproutable sweet potatoes into water or damp soil. I will explain the process in this blog next March. I say "sproutable" since, like garlic, some supermarket sweet potatoes are treated not to sprout. Also, certain varieties sprout better than others. I tried growing slips from 5 sweet potatoes varieties I had grown in the garden the previous year, several of which were grown from commercially raised slips. Of these, two rooted and grew best:  Beauregard (the standard supermarket variety) and Hernandez. Then I got one other good slip but lost track of what cultivar it was (if I don't label carefully, I just can't remember!). So I planted 5 each of the first two and the one "unknown" slip which has produced long sweet potatoes with yellow flesh, unlike the other two which are the more common orange flesh. 

My harvest was much larger than in the last two years, perhaps because I continue to work cow manure into the clay soil. I saw worms as I dug, and that's a good sign of organically vibrant soil. Other than making sure the sweet potato vines were watered regularly during our dry summer, I pretty much ignored them as the vines grew and spread. I plant the sweet potato bed at one end of my garden, in a space about 20' x 5', and let the vines freely grow outside the garden border. Incidently, the green leaves are edible and cook up like spinach, although the flavor is very mild. The bunches of potatoes grown from the roots, pretty much centered right below the main stems. Sometimes the long vines send down roots from along their stems and I found a few Hernandez wanderers in the ground a few feet from the mother plants. I dig as much as possible just with my gloved hands, loosening the soil around the main plant if necessary with a garden fork, far enough out where I don't think I'll hit potatoes. The potatoes I dug this year are large, smooth, and nicely shaped… in the past I've dug up many which were so small and twisted they would make good candidates to model for new Dr. Seuss characters!

You don't wash them until you are ready to use them, and the skin is tender and can bruise if not handled carefully. The internet says dry the potatoes at 80-85 degrees for 10 days, but that's not going to happen here unless we get an unexpected heat wave! I have mine drying on my open covered porch, spread in a single layer on newspaper which is on plastic (humidity is good while they dry). At night I cover them with a canvas painting cloth to protect from cold temps. In about 2 weeks, I will put them into plastic milk crates and store them in my basement, which stays around 50-60 degrees year round.

If you grow your own sweet potatoes from purchased slips, be sure to save some of the little finger-sized ones you will dig up. They are too small to eat, but they are the ones you will start slips from next spring. It's an easy process, and makes you a self-sufficient sweet potato farmer.
You can expect to see me post a recipe or two with sweet potatoes, as I explore new ways to use my harvest.

Grilled Eggplant Casserole

I created this recipe for three reasons:
1) too hot to cook indoors
2) loads of eggplant to harvest from my garden
3) I like the unmasked taste of eggplant
I planted two heirloom varieties of eggplant, Early Long and Black Beauty, starting from seeds last spring. Once in the garden, the plants kept getting eaten by some insect, despite my treatment with organic repellents. But as the season progressed, the bugs must have moved on, since now the three plants are large and producing abundantly, even though the leaves have holes. I made this recipe with freshly harvested Early Longs, but you can substitute other eggplant varieties. This is also a gluten-free version of Eggplant Parmesan, for those with dietary restrictions.

• 3 lbs. eggplant (I used 15 of my long, skinny Early Long variety), peeled
• 6 T olive oil
• 2 T Italian herb seasoning
• 2 c marinara sauce
• 1 c grated mozzarella and/or Italian cheese blend (more if desired)

Using two 9"x12" foil pans, measure two tablespoons of olive oil into each and swirl to coat the bottom. Eggplant will oxidize and turn brown quickly after being cut, so don't cut up ahead of time. I peel the eggplant since sometimes the peel doesn't cook as tender as the pulp, but it's not bitter if freshly picked, so peeling is optional. Cut each long eggplant on the diagonal, into slices about 3/8" thick. Divide into the two oiled pans, and stir to coat. Drizzle one more tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of Italian herb seasoning over each pan, stir to mix well. Seal each pan with foil. I grilled on my two-burner gas grill, with each side lit and set a little above low. Grills vary, so you'll have to determine the best temperature setting for yours. Cook for 20 minutes. If the eggplant is softened and olive green in color, just starting to brown on the bottoms, it is done. If not, stir and continue to cook. When cooked, I transfer all of the eggplant into one of the pans to make a layer about 3/4" thick. Spread the marinara sauce on top, sprinkle on the cheese, cover with foil. I turn off one side of the gas grill and put the pan over it, keeping the other side on low. This indirect cooking method creates more of an oven. Cook covered for 15 minutes, then uncover and cook for 10-15 minutes more. We love this as a main dish, and it can be served with pasta as well.

Squash Scampi

Here is a great meal for garlic lovers, which I adapted from a recipe for shrimp scampi given to me by my friend Dee.

• 3 c zucchini and/or yellow squash, cut into matchsticks
• 1 small eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/4" thick bite-sized pieces
• 1/4 c olive oil
• 1 T dijon mustard
• 4 tsp minced garlic
• 1-1/2 T lemon juice
• 2 tsp fresh basil or parsley, chopped
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Arrange the veggies in a shallow layer in a 9" x 13" casserole. Mix all other ingredients in a measuring cup or small bowl, pour over the veggies. Bake 15 minutes, then stir and bake 15 minutes more or until desired doneness. Great served over pasta.

You Can Grow Garlic

I've grown my own garlic for a couple of years and it is easy and possible in most parts of continental USA. It is not susceptible to insects or diseases, so I'm happy to have it in my organic garden. I've learned a few tips which I'd like to share so you will be encouraged to plant some too:

When to plant - You'll have to research this for your own part of the country, and perhaps you'll determine the timing better than my research yielded. I've seen instructions to plant in my area (zone 7) ranging from early fall to the winter solstice, Dec. 21. My experience has been that I harvest full heads in June when I plant in September, and I've read that garlic needs 9 months to mature. If you plant by the lunar calendar, root crops are planted during the two weeks after the full moon.

What to plant - Each planted garlic clove will grow into a full head, and you need to start with a head of garlic. Don't just buy a head at the supermarket and expect good results… produce department garlic is often treated not to sprout! Great if it will sit on your kitchen counter while you use it, but not good if you bury it in the ground and expect it to grow. You can buy garlic to plant from seed catalogs (like Seeds of Change, Hood RIver Garlic), you can buy from sources which you know don't treat it - like a local farmer - or you can save some of your own harvest to replant the next season. I bought mine from the nearby Mennonite Community farm stand. The yield sign I photographed on the road to the farm is pictured above - you don't see many of those graphics around these days!

Choose a Variety - To simplify, there are three types of garlic you can plant: hard neck (a very stiff straight stem in the center of the cloves), soft neck (no center stem), and elephant. The elephant is more closely related to leeks than to garlics, and some say it has only a mild garlic flavor, but I find it plenty strong. I love how easy it is to peel and get lots of garlic all at once! Hard neck varieties - like the Spanish Roja, a "Rocambole" type I bought from the Mennonites - are known for superior taste and easy peeling, but they don't store for long periods. Soft neck garlic heads tend to grow larger than hard necks, have superior shelf life, and are particularly good for warmer climates, but might be lacking in flavor. I've planted all three types in my garden.

Where to plant - I plant my garlic right in the vegetable garden, in an area that won't be rototilled in early spring, since I won't harvest until early summer. I have successfully dug up young sprouting garlic at the end of winter, tilled the area, then replanted, but I'm sure they do better without such disturbance. Plant in prepared fertile garden soil, good sunlight, good drainage, and a pH of 6 to 7.

How to plant - Don't break the head of garlic apart until you are ready to plant, or the cloves might dry out too much. In all cases, the larger the clove, the bigger head it will grow… plant the largest cloves from your "seed" head, eat the small ones, and discard any which look unhealthy. When ready, plant each clove 5 to 6 inches apart, with root end down and tip end up. I have had the best results planting each clove 3-4" deep, and up to 5-6" for the elephant garlic cloves. You can mulch with decomposed leaves or straw on the bed during the winter, especially in colder climates, but rake off the mulch in the spring to avoid mold, slugs or snails, and to give the plants some sunshine. If frost turns the green tops yellow, it will not harm the growth of the garlic bulb.

Plant your garlic this fall, and I'll update you on growing and harvest garlic early next spring. And you'll see lots of the recipes I post will call for fresh garlic. For me, I can't grow too much garlic!