Give It a Rest

In typical Montana fashion, we've gone from nice and warm to suddenly cold.  Hello, Winter! For once, the weather guy was actually correct in his predictions. We spent the start of our week outside, enjoying the beautiful fall temps and getting things ready for the coming freeze.

It was a lovely season of growing and harvesting for us.  There isn't anything quite as wonderful as picking your dinner out of your very own gardens!  Here are a few pictures from spring to fall.

Got lots of kale and chard. I will miss going out every morning to pick greens for my smoothies!

New strawberry patch.  It did really well.

Tying up the raspberries

Ready for the compost bin :)

Our tomatoes did well, but I think I will plant cherry tomatoes next year.

Beets!!!  

We had an abundance of lettuce and greens. Daily salads during the summer.  Lovely!

Fresh carrots are the best!

Kyra's radishes. :)

New little plants.  Had to cover them with a net. Birds love berries, too.

My herb garden did so well! I was able to have fresh herbs all summer and still have lots to dry or freeze for winter.

Little carrots

Buttercrunch lettuce.  Sooooo good!!!!

Freezing rosemary in olive oil.  Great way to preserve your herbs for winter!

Putting the gardens to bed...

Got the garlic all planted and mulched

In the process of cleaning out the beds

Straw for mulch and compost bin

And so the gardens are all ready for their long winter sleep. Vegetable beds are cleaned out, garlic is planted.  Our herbs and fruit, in another garden on the side of the house, are looking rather sad and cold.  I admit that I cried a little when it was all done.  Thank you, Father, for blessing our little gardens with such a bountiful harvest. 

Goodnight, Garden.  Until next spring...

Eat Your Greens!

Gardening in Montana is challenging, but so far this year we are doing quite well.  Lots of yummy greens out there. It's quite satisfying to prepare a meal with veggies grown in your own backyard. Last night we had mustard greens with our dinner and they were absolutely delightful.  I thought I'd share with you the way I prepared them.

Here are the little sprouts, trying hard to survive snow, below freezing temps and hailstorms.

Thankfully, they persevered.

After bringing in the freshly picked greens, I soaked them in a big bowl of water several times.  Just swish them around, drain the bowl and repeat.  Once that was done, I rinsed each leaf and put them in the colander to drain.  Trust me, unless you like your greens gritty, you'll want to rinse them well. 

Being a Texan and all, I decided to cook up some bacon to go in the greens. Applegate Farms has really good nitrate-free bacon and is by far the best bacon we can get at the store.   Anyhoo...I chopped the bacon along with some onions and fried it up in my favorite skillet.

While the bacon and onions were cooking, I chopped up the washed greens.  Once the bacon/onion was browned I added the chopped greens, a few at a time.  Greens pretty much cook down to nothing, so I had that colander stuffed with as many as I could fit.  I let them wilt a bit in the skillet before adding the next handful, until all of the greens would fit in the skillet.

Once the greens had wilted, I added a couple of teaspoons of apple cider vinegar and salt to taste and let it simmer for a couple of minutes.

Next came chicken broth.  I think I ended up putting in around 2 cups. I let that simmer for 15-20 minutes, basically until the greens were tender and good.

After simmering and cooking out most of the liquid, the greens just needed a little more salt and a bit of pepper.  You can do that to taste.  Here is a pic of the finished greens...

Honestly, these were sooooooo tasty and good!  I hope you give them a try.