Chorizo, chickpeas, poached eggs, FFF

Choizo w/ chickpeas & poached egg

This Friday's food forage dish was chorizo with chickpeas topped with poached egg.

The eggs came directly from our own chickens.

I used Mexican chorizo from Pine Street Market.




The chickpeas were our one cheat this week since there isn't a local source for them. We used dried beans and let them soak for a few hours first. Then into boiling water with one cinnamon stick.

Saute a diced onion and then add in the chorizo. Let this cook for a while before adding in the chickpeas. Then top the chickpeas and chorizo up with chicken stock. Let simmer for about an hour.

When ready to serve top with a poached egg. Each egg takes four minutes so don't forget to allow for the correct amount of time.

The greens are going pretty well in the raised beds now. They are on the eastern side of the house and it is about the only place that gets full sun.

Salad with truffle vinaigrette

I made a salad from lettuce growing in a raised bed we have here. This is a very good light and tangy vinaigrette for hot weather.

Truffle vinaigrette:

1 - tspn Dijon mustard
2 - tblspn honey
1- tspn white truffle oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
salt
pepper

Combine Dijon, honey and lemon juice in a measuring cup

While stirring, drizzle in some good olive oil to form an emulsion. Add truffle oil.

That's it!

I topped the salad with Goat's Milk cheese crafted locally from Capra Gia.

It isn't local but it's worth getting, Edmond Fallot dijon mustard, nothing can compete.

You can get it from iGourmet.com.

Georgia Olive Oil is made here in Georgia and is available from their online store if you cannot find it locally.











You can always find out what is available to you locally at Local Harvest.

Season's end

The tomatoes have run their course. They've been much appreciated and enjoyed. But now the time has come for them to make way for something else.

The experiment netted some fine results. Container gardening on the deck is viable. Not all of the varieties were home runs but we now know which ones we like the best.

There are still some producing tomatoes in the yard garden, so we'll get a few more tomatoes until a cold snap, maybe.

The shadows are long now and the main crop doesn't get any light at all really. The deck still gets light in the a.m. and so we'll try some more container gardening going forward.

Sitting Bull

Wild As Hell

Let's get crazy, I just got my rabies shot!

Why not?

Summer.

It's all getting shaggy around here right now.  The dog days are here. A good time to work inside.

The fences can wait until fall, the weeds can have their season. No use fighting it.

It's all wild as hell around here... that's the way we like it.

Tomatoes still trying to make it to maturity. There are so many varieties I don't have a clue which one's these are.

The cherry tomatoes are nearly done. Done as in finished, no more. Damn good though.

The eggplants weren't as promising as they might have been initially but for whatever reason they've taken off and should be ready soon.

Gigantic moons and the incessant chirping of cicadas, that's probably what makes the vegetables grow...maybe.

Summer's got it's own soundtrack. It's the one I like. Feet rough as sandpaper, farmer's tan, liver hanging by a thread.

Waiting on the fall..

Updates

I think these are Roma tomatoes. They were sown on February 7th.  I put them outdoors a couple of weeks ago. They are doing well so far. They are about a foot tall now.

Mar 25

 I think these tomatoes were from seeds leftover from last year.

I've started all new seeds from Baker Creek this year. There is about 9 varieties in this tray. Yesterday we potted them up.

It dropped into the 40's again last night and probably will tonight as well. But it is supposed to be in the mid 80's by this weekend.

We have a 700 percent increase in peach production this year. We have seven peaches versus the one we had last year.

This peach tree was just put in the yard last fall. The Elberta peach that produced the one peach last year, got hammered by frost while it was in bloom this season.

It didn't set any fruit at all. This new tree is doing very well and has grown a lot. It even got hit by a big poplar limb and has a large scar on it's side now. It seems to be healthy though.

The strawberries are literally going crazy. Hundreds I imagine. If we can manage to get some to ripen that will be fantastic.

Blueberries are really going good this year. I have about 4 or 5 big bushes that are loaded with them. Some of the smaller ones I planted last fall bloomed but I cut them off so they would grow a bit more since it's their first year.

They bloom all summer though so it isn't a big deal to drop the blooms off of them. I had a few blueberries all the way into November last year.

Here is one single berry that is beginning to ripen. All of the others are still green. So hopefully in a week or so we can start harvesting some strawberries.

There are a few tartarian cherries and a few nectarines as well. I'm not sure the cherries will ripen. The nectarines are very, very small still, so it's hard to know what to make of them yet.

There are a few gooseberries on as well. They seem to be doing okay, but I'm not sure how long I am suppose to wait to harvest them. I've never had one before.

Tomatoes & pepper update

Here is a shot of some Roma paste tomatoes I started back in February.

They've been outside on a few nights that dipped into the high thirties and seem to be withstanding it fine.

Here is a shot of the Olympus F1 peppers we started at the same time as the tomatoes.

The eggplant was doing very well, but I left it outside and it got hammered and gave up the ghost.

The remaining bing cherry tomatoes are still growing but haven't done as well as the peppers and roma tomatoes.

Tonight it is supposed to get down to twenty-five degrees.