Port Potager

Our main raspberry harvest is just about over for the summer (though we should get a second flush of our everbearing variety in another month or so), but two weeks ago we were still completely inundated with them . We have gallons of raspberries sitting in the freezer, but I also found another great way to process a bunch of them: raspberry syrup, which is then added to one of the prettiest drinks around: It’s really easy to make. Just bring a cup of water and a cup of sugar to boil, then add 2 cups of fresh raspberries.  Bring the mixture back to a boil briefly and then take it off the heat. Let it steep for at least 30 minutes before straining into a pint jar: The straining process is pretty slow, but it keeps (most) of the seeds out. Raspberries are so delicate that they break down into a nice, thick goop pretty easily. Once the syrup has cooled, it’s ready to use for mixing some drinks! To make that easier, I highly recommend a flip-top spout lid...

We’ve had a bumper crop of small but serviceable Gala apples this year, but this is not a variety that stores for very long. That means we have to make a whole lot of applesauce and find other ways to eat them up before they become a fruit fly infested mess. Enter the apple cake: Last weekend Kirk made this cake courtesy of his friend Tressa’s recipe, and it is delicious. It’s like a nice, dense pound cake with layers of lightly spiced apples throughout: The photo above is of my breakfast leftover portion, but the original was also served with some vanilla custard poured over the top. It’s the perfect fall treat!  Tressa’s Apple Cake Ingredients: 2 tsp. cinnamon 5 Tbsp. sugar 3 cups flour 1 3/4 cups sugar 3/4 cup vegetable oil 3 large eggs 2 1/2 tsp. vanilla 3 tsp. baking powder 1/2 cup orange juice 4-5 large apples, peeled, cored and sliced Directions: Stir together cinnamon and 5 Tbsp. sugar. Sprinkle mixture over sliced apples and ...

Have I ever mentioned how much Tiegan loves Nutella? Probably not. She’s kind of obsessed. I mean, I think the stuff is alright, but she would eat it all the time if we let her. (Note: We do not. It’s crazy expensive, and there’s a ton of sugar in it.) Anyway, a couple weeks ago she got her hands on a recipe  and gave it a try, since Kirk inexplicably brought home a bag of hazelnuts from the grocery store — and then had to buy a nutcracker to shell them. (None of this passes Trim the Fat Tuesday muster, by the way.) Anyway, she had fun doing it, and it did turn out pretty well. You could modify the recipe to make it somewhat less sweet, I suppose. The end result isn’t as smooth as what you buy in the store, but I kind of like her slight chunky version better. To make it, you’ll need to crack and shell 1 cup’s worth of whole hazelnuts (measured after shelling, not before). Then you blitz them in a food processor and add 1 cup of powdered sugar. Blend again an...

Early summer is when our mint is at its best, and there’s a whole lot of it: Usually we don’t do all that much with it: throw it in a few salads, and ... well, that’s about it. Kirk wants to make mint ice cream, but we haven’t ever gotten around to that. He’s the only one who would eat it. Anyway, I was on the hunt for a refreshing drink with dinner the other night and was pleased to recall that, in addition to a garden full of mint, we had a bottle of homemade limoncello just chilling in the fridge: It was much fuller at the beginning of the week, and now I barely have any left, but that’s because I believe I’ve found its higher calling: a drink I’m calling Sunshine Spritzers. So light and refreshing, sweet but not too syrupy. It’s perfect  for July. This homemade limoncello was a gift from my friend Betsy, who was kind enough to share her not-so-secret recipe for this. It will last forever (ok, I can vouch for two years) in the fridge, and it’s a lot lik...

Guest blogger Tiegan shares her experience of using some of our honey harvest to make honey fudge this winter. The recipe is from The River Cottage Family Cookbook .   As a Christmas gift for my parents, I decided to use our honey to make honey fudge. It didn’t turn out to be much of a surprise, though. You will need: 4 cups granulated sugar  13-ounce can evaporated milk (I used 12 ounces) 1/2 cup water (I used slightly less) pinch salt 1/4 cup honey (I used a bit more) canola oil  7 tablespoons butter (I used a little more to put on the top of the inside of the pan so the fudge wouldn’t bubble over) glass measuring cup large saucepan wooden spoon tablespoon candy thermometer jelly roll pan knife 1. Put sugar, evaporated milk, and water in the saucepan. The pan should be no more than a third full.  Place over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the salt and honey. Clip the candy thermometer to the inside ...

In addition to making Christmas gifts during my blogging hiatus, we also had a birthday to celebrate. Kirk's birthday is just a few days after the New Year, a decidedly un-fun time of the year: Everyone is back to work and school, and the whole world is more interested in dieting and exercising than having even one more day filled with cake.  Still, we always celebrate Kirk's birthday with a special extra-creamy cheesecake, and this year was no exception. He's been having this since he was a kid when his mom made it for him, and it's the best cheesecake you will ever eat. It's super creamy and custardy rather than dry and cake-y like a New York-style cheesecake.  That's because it uses eggs instead of flour. With an assist from Rachel and Sally (pictured) and Louisa Catherine (hiding), I got three very fresh eggs to whip this up: These eggs turned out to have some incredibly orange yolks, so the finished product was more yellow than it...

So far we have jarred up about 10 pints of honey, and there are still several combs left in our buckets waiting their turn for crushing and straining . That’s about 16 pounds of honey (well, according to the online calculator  I found, it’s 15 pounds, but we also used quite a bit in passing that never made it to the jar at all). Anyway, with all that honey around, we need to use it for more than just sweetening morning tea and coffee. (More about honey in coffee later — it’s a life changer worthy of its own post). This morning, Kirk pulled out an old favorite recipe: Big Bird’s Banana Bread is the best you will ever eat. This recipe is vintage 1970s, straight from the Sesame Street Magazine  (though ours is a photocopy). This recipe is also as wholesome as you would expect, given the earnest source: tons of real bananas, honey instead of sugar, and it’s totally whole wheat. You’ll have more fun if you click on the photos and follow the original directions, but her...

We took advantage of this beautiful weekend to finish up some garden clean-up chores that we had put off while working on the kitchen. Now all the garden beds are tidied up for the winter, and all the root vegetables are mulched and ready for cold weather. Part of the clean up included harvesting some beets and beet greens that are not under plastic. I also picked the last radishes, which have done admirably in the cold without any protection. Add some last snippets of broccoli and a carrot, and you have a tasty winter salad: We were a little disappointed to discover that most of the arugula and lettuce in the greenhouse tunnels was limp and mushy from the wide temperature fluctuations over the past month, so this salad is mostly beet greens taken when we pulled the beets for storage. (There's a tiny bit of arugula from a volunteer patch, but not much.) That makes for a strongly flavored salad, so Kirk balanced it out with a sweet new dressing: Honey Sesame Dressing ...

Our older chickens molted early, and our younger ones finally figured out the whole egg-laying thing , so we are flush with eggs of many colors and sizes: Despite the short hours of daylight, we've been able to turn the light on for the girls , and now they're averaging about three eggs per day. We suddenly find ourselves with two dozen eggs in the fridge. This comes at a great time: Wednesday is Pie Day , and holiday baking will be in full force immediately thereafter.  In the meantime, quiche is one of the quickest ways to blow through a bunch of eggs, so that's what Kirk made for dinner. This was a Cheddar Bacon Broccoli Quiche, and it was outstanding: Cheddar Bacon Broccoli Quiche For the pastry: 6 Tbs. butter 2 Tbs. shortening 1 1/4 cup flour 1/2 tsp. salt 1/4 cup vodka For the filling: 4 strips of bacon 1 medium onion 1 cup chopped broccoli 4 eggs 1 cup half and half 1 cup milk 1 cup grated cheddar a pinch of thym...

We still  aren't done with the kitchen renovation, but Kirk has been managing to put together some healthy garden meals anyway (even though washing the dishes in the upstairs bathtub is no fun ). Last night we had a new Curried Butternut Soup: Photo credit: Tiegan Trach (who could not resist eating most of it first) Curried Butternut Soup 2 medium red onions, finely diced  4 Tbs. butter Salt and pepper to taste 2 small butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and diced 4 cups chicken stock 8 cups water 1 Tbs. ginger garlic paste 1 Tbs. curry powder 1/2 cup half and half 1. In a large stock pot, melt the butter and sauté the onions on medium heat until soft. Generously season with salt and pepper. 2. Add the butternut squash to the pot with the onions and stir, then add chicken stock and water. Cover the pot and allow to simmer over medium heat for about 30 minutes or until butternut squash is cooked through. 3. Add the ginger garlic paste and cur...

It's been a while since I've reported on a Sunday supper , but here's a really good one: Food styling courtesy of Tiegan Trach. We still don't have a fully functioning kitchen yet, so Kirk is focused on easy dinners. This chicken and  broccoli ziti was an upgrade from the mac and cheese that we'd normally make, to spruce it up for a Sunday dinner. To make this, Kirk boiled a box of pasta and added broccoli from our last harvest  in the last three minutes of cooking. This is probably the equivalent of one large head of broccoli, but ours included lots of individual side shoots, which is what you get as the season goes on. He also sautéed up a pound of chicken breasts, seasoned with dried basil and oregano, plus salt and pepper.  Finally, the sauce is a standard bechamel with about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan and four to six cloves of minced garlic. He mixed it all together, topped it with breadcrumbs and some more grated parmesan, and it's a...

This is the best time of year in the garden, because just about everything is ripening at once. It makes from some excellent eating in August and September. To wit: The burger was great, but the salad? This might be the best salad ever. It's at least the best salad you could make with all seasonal produce in the waning days of summer.  To make it, you need a bed of young (and therefore less peppery) arugula and beet greens. Thinly slice a fennel bulb, a couple radishes, a small red onion, and a small apple (we used our last Summer Rambo , a variety that ripens in August on our heirloom 4-in-1 tree ). Drizzle with olive oil and garnish with fennel fronds.  That's all there is to it — no dressing required, really. It's so flavorful just the way it is, and it's crunchy, juicy, and awesome. We're looking forward to repeating it with other fall apples (I picked a Macoun today!), so this is likely to be on our plates until we run out of fennel.

When we have made enough sweet gherkins  for the year, it's time to switch to sour little cornichons:  These are far less involved than the gherkins because they're a refrigerator pickle. This recipe lasts pretty well forever (unless you lose power for several days and have to dump the contents of fridge, I guess). French cornichons are small and sour and totally delicious with cheese and other charcuterie-type delights.  The only tricky part about making them is remembering to pick the cucumbers when they're still tiny — the size of your pinkie finger is ideal. In the quart jar I have above, some are more the size I would use for gherkins. For whatever reason, all the really tiny ones are facing the wall in this photo.  Anyway, I think I've perfected my cornichon recipe, so give it a try if you're up to your ears in cucumbers: It's a great way to slow down your yields for a week or two since you won't have to harvest giant cukes later. ...

Summer tends to make us pretty lazy in the cooking department. When we're enjoying really great ingredients from the garden, we don't have to do much to them to make them taste good, so there's just a lot of lightly steamed vegetables, refrigerators pickles, and some easy stir fry and curry dishes. You don't have to think about recipes so much as just pick some things and eat them. Today, though, I have a real recipe, with actual measurements and everything. Though our first round of raspberries has just ended, our second round of strawberries has just begun, in a stroke of truly excellent timing. We have several varieties of strawberries, but Seascape is definitely my favorite: These are an everbearing variety, so instead of giving us just one big flush of berries in June, they give a small batch early and then have a second bloom that provides a steady supply of berries from August through early September. The second round is even better, because the...

Today marks a major transition. It was our last day of maple sugaring, and tomorrow we will dismantle the fire pit  that we've used for the past month for evaporating sap and use the cinder block as the base for our rain barrels. Now that nighttime temperatures aren't dipping below freezing (much) any more, the sap isn't running. It's also safe to get the rain barrels set up, since any rain we collect won't have a chance to freeze solid and burst the barrels. This is perfect timing, as we were able to set out a lot of seeds and transplants now that the weather is has finally taken a turn for the better. In honor of the close of our second maple sugaring season, I'm sharing a great recipe that Kirk made last weekend for Easter breakfast. It's a riff off of his dad's Philadelphia cinnamon bun recipe, but made with our homemade maple syrup. Maple Walnut Sticky Buns 1/4 warm water 1 package yeast 1 tsp. sugar 3 to 3/12 cups flour 2...

Though there's still between six and 12 inches of snow on the ground in most spots and we're nowhere near ready to plant any spring crops outdoors, we still have plenty of last year's harvest stores to enjoy for dinner. To wit: Along with filet or perch we had garlic green beans and sweet corn fritters. Despite not having a great green bean harvest last summer, we still had enough frozen beans to last through this long winter. We also still have a good deal of garlic, though some of it is beginning to sprout, which gives it kind of a greenish flavor.  The corn fritters were made possible by some frozen corn from our bumper crop of sweet corn this summer. These are basically pancakes with corn in them, but fried in a half inch of oil. Kirk made them from a recipe in The Good Housekeeping All-American Cookbook , but there's a very similar recipe here . Just use regular salt and skip the sugar if you use fresh or frozen sweet corn from a farm — that's ple...

This Sunday we enjoyed some football food while we watched the AFC Championship game: sliders! Our mini-burgers were topped with bacon and cheddar, plus caramelized red onions, bread and butter pickles , and homemade ketchup from the garden. Well, pickles and ketchup don't come directly from the garden, but their ingredients do. We also had purple and yellow French fries and a light slaw. Our storage cabbage is still doing well in the basement, and Kirk made a new winter slaw with shredded cabbage and carrot, plus a couple of thawed cilantro cubes , salt and pepper. The dressing is a light vinaigrette of olive oil and vinagre de banano (banana vinegar) from Costa Rica . It's a really delicious vinegar that tastes like a fruity, caramel-y malt vinegar. I've never seen it in around here before, and if I can't find any, I may have to try to make some when we run out. Anyway, it's just the thing for this crispy winter salad. And to drink? Chocolate mi...

It is cold. As I sit typing away, the wind is shrieking straight out of the north. It is a mere 6 degrees in the garden right now, and it's likely that the last turnips and greens will be dead tomorrow, even if the plastic tunnels don't come undone in the wind . Many schools in the area are closed tomorrow due to -30 degree wind chills, and though mine isn't one of them, hope springs eternal. So, yeah: it's cold. Definitely a soup night. And a soup lunch tomorrow, whether I get to eat it at home or have to carry it to school (I pre-packed to appease the gods of the jinx): This is a great  soup for a cold night. Kirk riffed on a Jamie Oliver recipe (brought to our attention by a good friend), and it is delicious: a sweet and spicy soup that warms you twice over. Here's Kirk's take on it, which makes use of our winter veggies and adds some sundried tomatoes for a summery kick. He also decided against pureeing the whole thing, which was a great ...