2013 Midseason Report

Well, it's midseason, and this has been a disappointing year for a number of reasons. Overall, it's been a cool, rather wet summer. Today's high was 74 degF, in the middle of August when we normally have blistering heat. Also, our yard is shadier this year than last year. Our neighbor's Norway maples are just that much bigger, and more of the garden is in shade. In another few years, I may have to revert a good chunk of garden to lawn, or possibly just grow a lot more strawberries. And finally, rather mysteriously, my earthworms seem to have all vanished. This worries me more than everything else combined. Well, whatever the reason, it's been a tough year so far.

The potatoes keep not being ready. They should have been ready by the end of June. I think I made a mistake in placement. When we realized that our drip irrigation system would be blocked by our potato boxes, I reasonably moved the boxes to the ends of the rows. But there were two problems I hadn't considered. First, that's the shady end of the garden. Second, we discovered that the water pressure isn't high enough to push water up the drip tape into the tops of the boxes. Poor sunlight and less water equals poor production.

The squashes are having a tough time with fungal infections in all this rain. Five out of six of my zucchini plants' stems rotted out. Only one robust plant remains, the source of the impressive 16-inch zukes. (I am definitely saving that seed!) Similarly, the spaghetti squash, kabocha squash, and pumpkins are struggling, and the patty pans have yet to produce a single fruit.

The cucumbers are dying back two weeks early due to unseasonably cool weather. This has a pleasant counterbalance: the broccoli is still producing happily in the middle of August. This weekend, I'll be planting fall peas in their place, and I have more broccoli and cauliflower starting in the greenhouse.

The corn has been... odd. Only half of the blue corn came up at all. I started some more in the greenhouse and planted it, but it has yet to put out pollen, and I'm concerned the ears on the older stalks won't pollinate properly. Meanwhile, the sweet corn came up fine, but no one warned me that edamame grows four feet tall! It's overgrowing and stunting the corn, so I'm not looking at a great crop there either.

Several attempts to reseed carrots have simply failed, and I'm not sure why.

But we do have some nice successes. The tomatoes, despite quite a bit of early blight, are going gangbusters now. This weekend, I'm hoping to make tomato jelly. The New Zealand spinach was a huge success and very tasty. The eggplants and peppers are starting to come in, the beets have been growing like mad, and the beans and kale are as prolific as ever. And the basil! Big bushy beautiful basil! We have quite a few cantaloupes on the vine but not many watermelons. I have no idea if they'll make it to ripeness in this cool weather. In fact, even with the disappointments, we are hard pressed to keep up with harvesting, though that may have more to do with me going back to work.

So perhaps it's just as well that we're not inundated with food. Still, I can't help feeling disappointed. I grand plans for canning, and thus far, I've put up only three quarts of bread-and-butter pickles and two quarts of raspberry preserves, plus two gallon bags of frozen beans. Well, it's only midseason. We'll see what the fall brings.

Squashes of Unusual Size -or- You Should Absolutely Eat Things Bigger Than Your Head

My zucchini plants have been assaulted by ants, which have burrowed right into the stems, hollowing them out from the inside until they finally snap. I've been so concerned with the bed infested with ants that I entirely forgot about my other zucchini bed. When I finally remembered to check that bed, I stumbled across a Squash of Unusual Size:

Bigger than her head!

It was sixteen inches long. I tried to weigh it, but my bathroom scale first informed me that it is low on battery and then proceeded to tell me I weigh 331.4 lbs, so I decided it wasn't the most reliable of instruments. I think I exercised great restraint in not throwing it out the bathroom window.

So, what do you do with a zucchini of such prodigious girth? Really, there's just one thing to do: Stuff it. Stuffed zucchini is a great family tradition and an excellent use for such a tough customer. Here's the basic recipe, followed with a blow-by-blow account of cooking this beast.

Stuffed Zucchini

Extra virgin olive oil, lots
2 small fresh yellow onions, diced
2 shallots, thinly sliced
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped (I should have used more. Bump it up to 6-8 cloves.)
1 lb. organic free-range ground beef  (Vegetarians, this is optional. Use more pine nuts.)
8 broad beans, cut in 1-inch pieces
8 oz. oyster mushrooms, cut in 1/2-inch pieces
1 cup fresh basil leaves and blossoms
2 stems fresh rosemary
2 stems fresh parsley
2 stems fresh oregano
2 stems fresh thyme
sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup dry sherry
1 gargantuan 16-in. zucchini
16 small tomatoes + 1 small plum tomato, diced
8 leaves Russian and Winterbor kale, coarsely chopped
1 cup gluten-free breadcrumbs
(should also have added 1/2 cup parmesan cheese )
2 cups shredded mozzerella cheese

First, I preheated the oven to 375 degF. I heated about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a braiser pan, my go-to saute pan for big jobs. In this I browned the ground beef over medium heat along with the onions, shallots, garlic, and mushrooms. The mushrooms absorbed quite a bit of the oil, so I added another tablespoon or two. When the beef was about half-cooked, I added the broad beans. I chopped the basil coarsely and threw it in, then stripped the leaves of all the herbs from their stems, chopped them up together, and threw them in as well. I seasoned the whole lot with salt and pepper, and as the beef finished cooking, I moved the mixture from the pan into a bowl with a slotted spoon.

At this point, I turned off the heat, realizing that hollowing out the zucchini was going to take some time.  I used a vegetable knife to cut the zucchini in half, then made a slice 1/2 inch from the edge all around the inside of each half, without slicing through the skin below. I used a serving spoon to scoop out the inside. This is an inelegant process, but it doesn't have to look good. I hollowed out each half to a 1/2-inch thickness all around. I set the hollowed halves on an 18-inch baking sheet, then diced the zucchini into 1/2-inch pieces.

Zucchini shells. Yes, that's an 18-inch baking pan.

All the insides out.

Next, more olive oil, in which I toasted the pine nuts until lightly brown. These I removed to another bowl with the slotted spoon. I deglazed the pan with the sherry, and when it had reduced by about half, I tossed in the zucchini, tomatoes, and kale. When the zucchini started to become tender and the skins began to come off the tomatoes, I drained out as much of the liquid in the pan as I could without spilling veggies everywhwere. I added about half the breadcrumbs (this is when I should have added the parmesan cheese), then returned the ground beef and pine nuts to the pan. Mixing everything together (adding the rest of the breadcrumbs in, too), I left the stuffing to simmer.

Using the slotted spoon, I stuffed the zucchini. With the liquid cooked out of the veggies, and with a little careful mounding, all of the stuffing fit in quite nicely. I then topped the stuffed zucchini halves with the mozzerella cheese. Alas, I discovered the perils of topping an unstable squash. So I propped that half up using toothpicks and returned the cheese to the top where it belonged.

Zucchini shells filled with yummy goodness.

Oops! Cheese everywhere.

Wobbly zucchini propped up with toothpicks.

I put this in the oven and roasted it for about 30-35 minutes, until the cheese was nicely browned and the zucchini shells yielded easily to a fork but hadn't yet gone mushy.

Finished stuffed zucchini

This I served with fresh garden cucumbers and sungold tomatoes and angel hair pasta tossed with butter. Unsurprisingly, the kids at the table refused to touch the zucchini, which is why the pasta was there. So I may as well have used regular breadcrumbs instead of gluten free. Ah well. Between us, my husband and I ate half of one stuffed shell, and it was the skinny half. I am now thoroughly stuffed, just like the zuke. I am guessing that this could easily serve 8-10 people, more with additional courses (appetizers, a tossed salad or antipasto, a more serious pasta course).

VARIATIONS:

I used ground beef in this, but other meats work well, including ground turkey, ground pork, and italian sausage. However, meat is entirely unnecessary for this dish, and this actually makes a great and rather dramatic vegetarian entree. In that case, I would double the amount of pine nuts and increase the amount of mushrooms. If you can't find oyster mushrooms, portobellos will do. If you want to get fancy, try hen of the woods or chicken mushrooms, but only if you have eaten them before, as some people can have a reaction. And if you use such wild-harvested mushrooms, omit the sherry, as mixing wild mushrooms with alcohol can have dire results.

Speaking of sherry, you can use any dry white wine in this, or you can omit it entirely.

As for cheese, I forgot the parmesan cheese and sorely missed it. I highly recommend parmesan in and atop the stuffing. Romano works well, too. For the topping, you can also use fresh mozzerella, or you can go for a stronger flavor with asagio.

As for vegetables, the great thing about stuffed zucchini is that you can really throw just about anything you want into it. Broad beans aren't usually in this dish, but I had some, so I tossed them in. In the past, I've added eggplant and broccoli. Shredded carrots would probably be good, too. I suspect that fennel could be really delicious in this, although I've never tried it, and I'd use it sparingly to avoid overwhelming the wonderful basil. And fresh basil is really what makes this dish. Greens aren't required, but they are yummy. If you don't have or like kale, try spinach, chard, or beet greens.

A note about the tomatoes. I have to check my garden chart, but I'm pretty sure what I used were Grandma's Pick, an heirloom variety I'm trying for the first time this year. They're lovely little tomatoes, about two inches in diameter, as prolific as cherry toms, and have a nice firm texture and light tomato flavor. It's an excellent salad tomato, but I'm not sure it's robust enough for sauces. The one drawback I've found is that they don't seem very disease resistent. Nearly every tomato plant in my garden has early blight, but most of the plants are fighting it well. One Grandma's Pick, on the other hand, has lost most of its lower leaves entirely, although its top leaves and stems continue to grow and thrive. I think it may be time to spray with copper, though I'm also curious to see how well it does on its own. Well, maybe I'll spray one plant and leave the other to fend for itself.

The plum tomato I used was an Amish Paste. They're smaller than I expected and slow to ripen, but they are quite tasty. Thus far, they are also the least affected by the blight.

One of the very satisfying things about this dish was how much of it I grew myself. It's actually easier to list what didn't come out of my garden: olive oil, ground beef, salt, pepper, mushrooms (I do grow oyster, shiitake, and king stropharia mushrooms, but none of them are flushing just now), pine nuts, breadcrumbs, and cheese. Which means the total cost of this meal was about twelve dollars. Not bad.