Everywhere We Go
“Everywhere we go we end up foraging something” said Mr Chiots yesterday as we were picking up chestnuts at the family cabin.
Several years ago when we harvested them it was a huge pain, literally. The spiny husks weren’t easy to open and we were constantly yelling “OUCH” as we were picking them up. I donned leather gloves and removed the nuts of most of the ones we gathered. They nuts were rather small, not nearly as nice as the ones we picked yesterday. It was a great year for chestnuts, they’re all nice and plump and 99% of the husks were already popped open on the ground, no yelling involved.
Several years ago we roasted some at the family Thanksgiving meal, but none of us were really huge fans, except one of our nieces who enjoyed them. I’m never one to check something off until I’ve tried it many times and in a variety of forms. So, I’m hoping to roast some and I will try my hand at making some chestnut flour to use for pasta, pancakes and maybe some gnocchi.
We ended up with about a half a bushel of chestnuts, they’ll need some attention here in the next couple days. I think I’m going to try a variety of preservation methods from drying, storing in the fridge, freezing the roasted ones, and boiling a few to freeze as well and of course roasting some, drying them and grinding them into flour.
They’re a healthy treat, not technically a nut, they’re classified as vegetables since they’re a starch. They contain fiber, potassium, iron, zinc and manganese. Hopefully we can learn to love this classic healthy food, especially since we can get it every year for free.
Any experienced chestnut eaters out there?
Any recommendations for ways to eat or store them?
Share this:
Peppermint for Beneficials
The peppermint is blooming in my garden right now and the bees, butterflies and other pollinators are loving it. I’m so happy that it’s blooming at this time of the year when nectar and pollen are quite scarce. I love watching the peppermint patch as it’s abuzz with all types, sizes, and colors of pollinators.
I must divide these plants and add more clumps around the gardens. I know they can be invasive, but in my woodland gardens invasive things barely hold one against the saplings and wild flowers. I find myself trying to incorporate more and more plants that bloom and provide nectar or pollen throughout the season just to provide sources of food for these lovely little insects.
Do you have any plants blooming for the pollinators? Do you plant with them in mind?
Share this:
‘Goldman’s Italian American’ Tomato
This year I decided to grow ‘Goldman’s Italian American’ tomatoes in my garden after reading about them in The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World’s Most Beautiful Fruit by Amy Goldman. Notice her last name and the name of the tomato – not a coincidence.
They’re described as: the famous Goldman’s Italian-American Tomato has ongoing production of large, red, voluptuous (large in the hip) pear shaped, paste tomatoes with exceptional flavor and few seeds. Individual tomatoes can reach one pound each. Makes one of the creamiest tomato sauces. Named by Amy Goldman for her father’s grocery store in Brooklyn after she found this at a roadside grocery store in Cernobbio, Italy.
They’re quite a lovely tomato, perhaps one of my new favorites. The vines aren’t as productive as hybrids, which is common for heirlooms, but they’re well worth the space. Most of mine have produced huge tomatoes and the sauce they make is velvety and smooth, with great tomato flavor. They’re quite beautiful as well, almost stunning. If you’ve never grown this variety I’d highly recommend giving it a try in your garden. I’ll be saving seeds from a few beautiful species of this plant and I’m hoping I’ll have some to share.
Did you discover any great new tomatoes this year? Is there a variety you grow each year without fail?
Share this:
Potatoes, Potatoes, Potatoes
If you remember this spring I was talking about having potatoes coming out my ears if all my potatoes did well. I finally harvested all the potatoes from the garden with the ‘Kennebec’ being the last ones. I was pleasantly suprised at the size of these potatoes. When I planted them this spring only about half of the potatoes came up, so I bought some more and planted them, about a month after the original ones were planted. The original ones sized up into HUGE tubers, with the ones planted later being about the size of our ‘Yukon Gold’ potatoes. I can’t imagine how many pounds I would have gotten if they had all started from the beginning.
I ended up with a harvest of around 200 pounds of potatoes for the winter. Of course I’m giving some to my mom since we planted most of them in her garden, but she also gave me some of her ‘Yukon Gold’ potatoes. I’m very pleased with our harvest, the best part is that potatoes need nothing but to be stored in a cardboard box in the basement, no canning, no freezing, no time/energy used for preservation.
A couple weeks before harvesting the ‘Kennebec’ potatoes, my mom and I harvested the fingerling potatoes. I wasn’t sure how the fingerlings would do, I assumed they would produce a smaller yield, but I was amazed when they outproduced every other kind of potato we planted. ‘La Ratta’ was the most productive potato in the garden, and I’m quite happy since they’re quite delicious and the perfect size I think, no cutting required, just wash, toss with olive oil and roast. I planted 2 varieties:
La Ratta: Long prized by French chefs as a top quality fingerling. We cannot recommend this variety highly enough, an absolute delight to cook with. Long uniform tubers, yellow flesh with firm, waxy texture and a nice nutty flavor, holds together very well. Especially good for potato salad or as a boiled potato. Commands a high price both in the restaurant and fresh market trade. 100-120 days.
French Fingerling: This is a wonderful variety! The rose-colored skin covers its creamy yellow flesh. Very versatile and good for any style of preparation. Peeling is not necessary or recommended. Rumored to have been smuggled to America in a horse’s feedbag in the 1800s. 90-110 days.
I will definitely be growing fingerling potatoes again, especially ‘La Ratta’ since they were the most productive. I’ll also be definitely grow: ‘Kennebec’, ‘All-Red’, and ‘Purple Viking’. I’ll probably try a few new varieties next year since that’s one of the reasons I garden, to try new things. I’m sure that my garden will always have a nice space devoted to the lowly potato.
Do you grow potatoes? How was your harvest this year?
Share this:
Make Your Own: Infused Oils
Along with using plantain as a quick treatment for bug bites and other wounds, I’m also trying to make some plantain essential oil so I can make a beeswax salve to carry with me. Then when I’m out and about I can still have access to it’s therapeutic benefits. I decided I would try to make some plantain essential oil here at home instead of purchasing it, so I read a few articles on making essential oils at home. These are different than distilled oils that you buy which are much more concentrated. Since I don’t have a home still, so I’ll be making oils that are infused with herbs not the distilled essential oils.
I read a few articles and each had different methods of making essential oils, different amounts of herbs were used in each recipe. I made mine by using a combination of all the recipes I read. I didn’t want to make a whole cup of oil as I thought I wouldn’t be able to use it up quickly, so I made a half cup. I simply chopped up 3 Tablespoons of fresh plantain and put them in a small jar and topped it with 1/2 cup of good organic olive oil (you can use other types of oil if you’d like, I happen to always have olive oil on hand).
Some recipes called for the heating of the oil and herbs, some simply called for steeping for a few days in a warm spot then removing the spent herbs and adding fresh herbs every couple days. I’m opting for this non-heating method. I’ve been steeping the herbs on my kitchen windowsill and will be refreshing the herbs a few times until the oil smells strongly of plantain. If the weather gets too cold, I may warm the oil occasionally is a pan of water, but only until slightly warm, not too much heat as I’m thinking this may damage some of the benefits of the herbs.
When it’s finished I plan on putting it in an amber bottle with an eye dropper. This winter I’ll experiment in making salves with beeswax that I’ll be able to carry around in a little tin, I’ll be sure to blog about it when I do. I’m also looking forward to making more essential oils, I bought a tea tree plant this spring and I’m hoping to make tea tree oil next, as we use a lot of tea tree oil here at Chiot’s Run.
Have you ever made essential oils at home? Do you use essential oils often?
