In the spirit of summer, I’m going to post some produce pictures. Mmmmm, tomatoes.
–Simon
Ronde De Nice
I had trouble with my starter seeds this year. The Spring was so hot and dry that most of what I transplanted immediately died. I also couldn’t get my squashes to germinate.
However, there was a single exception, and the vine quickly revealed itself to be of the summer squash variety. After some time, it began producing fruit. The trouble was, I didn’t know the cultivar, so I didn’t know when to pick them.
But the internet can be quite revealing, even with the super secret and obscure plant varieties, and I identified it as a Ronde De Nice–a French cultivar (go figure).
It’s supposed to taste like zucchini, probably my least favorite squash, so Liz made zucchini bread, and it tasted as such. So I guess it’s a mildly interesting variety, but I doubt I’ll try growing it again.
–Simon
Rhubarb (Part 2)
As part of our ongoing suggestion to the neighbor’s kids to stay off my lawn, the raised bed project continues. And this time, the ancient rhubarb has made it to the next plot.
The plant was eager, having provided us multiple desserts last year despite growing in just a few inches of potted soil, so I expect it’ll be even more productive now.
It also seems like one more official step to making the land part of the Moorhead clan lineage, as it now hosts a portion of the official Moorhead Rhubarb.
And, stay off my lawn!
–Simon
Salad Bowl
So the kid’s garden last year didn’t exactly work out as well as I had hoped. This was mostly due to the fact that she wouldn’t water it, and I had become increasingly lazy about it; so it dried up, save the thyme, but thyme lives through anything. Then the survey determined it to be on Tim’s side. So instead of replanting the same plot, I repurposed a large plastic pot, and indulged her with whatever seeds she wanted from Lowe’s.
As it turns out, she had planted mostly lettuce.
And it did incredibly well.
…we’re still eating salads.
–Simon
Sweet, Savory, and Bitter
There’s a balance to cuisine. I say that simply, not in the way Zen philosophers obsess eternally to achieve celebrity validation when Halle Berry, the guest judge on Iron Chef, says: “I like this.”…do. No, it’s far simpler. Foods have 3 properties: sweet, savory (salty/acidic), and bitter. And it’s this last category that I had failed to consider.
I’ve been on a quest to make tomato sauce, but they always come up short, probably because I’m neither Italian nor have access to the list of unpronounceable Monsanto-patented ingredients (nor wish to).
My initial troubles involved flavor-enhancement. An acid-base is common in sauces for the kick, but tomatoes, already being acidic, couldn’t handle the addition well, as the resultant sauce had an extreme sour bite. I tried wine, vinegar, lemons, and most recently-powdered citric acid. Then, to balance the sour, I added sugar for sweetness, but this only created a sweet/sour tomato sauce.
Fortunately, the Internet came to my rescue, and I discovered that cocoa powder would balance things out. I was skeptical, since my sauce already had sugar, so it seemed that I would be adding a chocolate taste. But I was wrong.
Bitterness–the oft-overlooked basic human taste, essential in this case. And my sauce was good enough that Liz took more in for lunch the next day. Now that’s a true culinary win!
–Chef Simon