First Harvest 2011 - Broccoli

The cool season crops in my kitchen garden have been doing quite well in the extended cool weather.  Several days ago the broccoli was ready for the first harvest.

We used it with asparagus in a stir-fry with black bean sauce.  It was delicious.  Here is my recipe:

Asparagus-Broccoli Stir Fry with Black Bean Sauce

Organic Ingredients:
1 bunch asparagus, sliced into one inch pieces
1 bunch broccoli, chopped into bite size florets and stem pieces
1 cup black beans (soak in water overnight to soften)
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 tbsp ginger, finely chopped
Sea salt
1/2 cup Sake
Olive oil
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp sesame oil
Rice, serve hot (I cook in rice cooker)

Directions:
Heat olive oil in wok.  Saute ginger, garlic and onion until golden.  Add beans and salt liberally; allow beans to cook for several minutes.  Add sake and sugar; mix all ingredients well.  Add asparagus and broccoli and cook until crisp-tender.  Drizzle with sesame oil and serve with hot rice.  Makes four servings.

Summer is FINALLY here!

So now that we are a third of the way through June, summer-like weather has finally started to make an appearance.  The sun is out, and that means it is time for me to get caught up on all the warm crop planting that I had hoped to finish at least a week ago.  No matter; now is the time to investigate which varieties of vegetables have less than ~85 day growing season and stick those in the ground.  I plan to make a trip over to Hungry Mother Organics today to pick up the majority of my plants:  tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplant, cucumber, etc.; whatever they have in small plant form that I was planning to grow anyway.  I figure this gives me a good start on making up time as opposed to planting everything from seed.

Last weekend I did at least manage to get my onion and potato sets planted.  The potatoes this year are yukon gold, red norland and a purple variety.  The onions are red, white and yellow.

Red Onions

White Onions

Mulched Potatoes & Onions