Fresh Peas Please!



Our Pea Patch: Garden goodness at its finest!

 Fresh peas. Need I say more? Although I would love to write about my children and the fun we are having this summer, I first must write about the peas. We have a pretty large garden and yet we never seem to have enough peas to eat. This year we tried to plant enough to satisfy our growing family. I planted about 75 peas. Not all of them came up, but a lot did. Everyone thought we would have enough. Little did they know that my love of peas goes way back!


Picking peas when we were little.
Very few made it into the house.



Showing off my treasure.













I don't remember a time when I didn't love peas. I could seriously eat them all day. Sugar snap peas are my favorite. When we were little, our favorite way to eat them was to let the pods get really fat and then eat the peas inside. It still is my favorite way to eat them!

We try very hard to eat local and organic foods as much as possible. Most of  our vegetable eating during the summer is from our garden (except carrots and onions-we can't grow enough of them!). Throughout the rest of the year we try to eat what we have preserved or what we can get from our local food co-op from local farmers. 

In the past, I would often purchase those ever-so-tempting bags of peas at the grocery store. They always look so appealing in the market and then I'd get them home and they are just not quite right. Anyone who has ever eaten a fresh pea knows what the deal is. You just can't replicate fresh peas. They even don't taste as great an hour after picking, let alone sealed in a bag pumped up with who knows what type of chemicals. So, just like I vowed not to purchase out of season strawberries, I haven't been purchasing out of season peas.

You would think 75 pea plants would be enough. My dad thought for sure I would have enough to freeze for the winter. Our last peas are hanging on the vines as I type. Not one frozen. Almost all of them were eaten fresh or grilled.

Grilled peas and onions--yum!

Have you tried grilled peas? So many people I have talked to haven't tried them. Other than fresh, they are my favorite.  I just add an onion, olive oil, thyme and salt and onto the grill they go (or oven or campfire as we found out this year).

Jasper finally learned this year how to pick peas without pulling up the whole plant. He loves them almost as much as I do. Tabitha had her fair share too. Poor Eric was the only one who didn't get very many.  Next year we will definitely have to double our pea patch. As I picked our last fresh one of the year I asked Eric if it was too late to start another crop. I think it is a chance I am willing to take in order to get more of that sweet goodness.


That's Jasper hidden among our pea patch.



Little Bits of Summer in a Jar!

There is nothing that says summer like fresh, local, organic strawberries. After I read Sharon Astyk's book about food preservation a couple of years ago I really wanted to try to dehydrate strawberries. She mentioned that when she opened the jar it was like smelling summer. She was so right!

Preparing strawberries last year.

There are so many reasons why I wanted to dehydrate strawberries for us to have throughout the year. I have to admit I used to be a person who would buy organic strawberries from Chile in January. The horrid eco-footprint, bland taste, high cost and a little nudging in the right direction from my husband made me determined not to buy them out of season again.

So, last year (2010) we decided to dehydrate enough strawberries to have a pint to open every other week for the year (that is about 28 pints).  We did a little more than that last year and we had two pints left over when we bought our first flat of strawberries this season!

I also have to mention that I made it through the whole year without buying organic strawberries! Not only did it save us money, it felt great! And you know what? I didn't miss them at all because we had our strawberries. We ate them like candy all year long.

How did I do it? Well, we have an excalibur dehydrator. We love it! It can fit 1 flat of strawberries in the dehydrator at a time.  Each full load I get about 6 1/2 pints of dried strawberries. I store them in canning jars and use our vacuum sealer to seal them shut. They stayed fresh and yummy all year!

Last year I was 8 months pregnant with Tabitha while cutting strawberries. I thought that was challenging. Ha! This year I cut most of them outside on the picnic table while trying to watch both of the kids. Because I knew how much I had to do, this year seemed to go quickly.

We have found the larger strawberries work better for dehydrating and the smaller ones for jam. Where do we get all of those strawberries? We get them from our local Farmer's Market. We have been getting them from Hayton Farms for the last two years. They are picked the morning of the market. They are so ripe and so fresh that you really have to use them that same day.

From this year on, I just have to add a few more pints as we have more "eaters" in our family. It is a great way to save money, support local farmers, and enjoy strawberries all year round. When we open a pint of strawberries it truly smells like a bit of summer in a jar!  Enjoy!


My two little strawberry helpers with our strawberries for the year!



What to do with the garlic scapes?



One lonely garlic scape left in our garlic patch!

We were first introduced to garlic scapes about 4 years ago when we got them at our Farmer's Market. They add such wonderful flavor to our stir fried dishes- especially when good garlic is hard to find early in the summer. We started growing our own garlic and had a handful of scapes at a time to use in dishes or salads.

This year we have about 40-50 garlic plants. That is a lot of scapes. I cut the first batch on Summer Solstice. I used some in a stir fry and then gave a bunch away to friends as I knew I wouldn't use them before they went bad. 

I was determined to find a use for them. When a second wave of scapes were ready, my search began. Grilled? Stir fry? Yep.  Scape pesto is supposed to be awesome.  I'm not too much into pesto, so here is what I decided to do:

Our second garlic scape harvest this season!

• Frozen Scapes-  I chopped the scapes to 1/2 inch pieces (I used all of the scape) and sealed them in a freezer bag.
• Garlic Scape Oil  I finely chopped the scapes with a food processor and then packed them into canning jars. I covered the scapes with oil and then vacuum sealed the jars before putting them into the fridge. It smells heavenly!  



My first batch of garlic scape oil!



I think my next adventure with scapes will be a garlic scape soup recipe. Sounds yummy! What do you do with garlic scapes?