Here's half of our newly planted backyard garden:
Much to our surprise, the plants loved our backyard! We must have great soil, because even though we planted our plants so late in the season and hardly tended to them at all we had many flowers blooming (the petunias went crazy) and had tons of tomatoes, peppers and some squash!
Here's one of the batches of veggies from our garden:
Here's are some the goodies I made with another gathering of veggies from the garden:
Butternut Squash Soup
Here is the recipe for Butternut Squash Soup, modified just slightly, from Williams-Sonoma's Thanksgiving Entertaining (one of my favorites!!) cookbook:
1. Preheat the oven to 450F and line 2 baking sheets with aluminum foil (maybe drizzle a little olive oil on the foil, when I baked the fruits and veggies they stuck) or you can also just put the fruits and veggies directly on the pan.
2. With a vegetable peeler, peel 2 butternut squashes. Cut the squash into 1 1/2 inch cubes.
3. Peel and chop 2 yellow onions.
4. Place the onions and squash together on one of the baking sheets. Drizzle with 3 tablespoons of canola oil and 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Make sure all pieces are coated.
5. Peel, core and chop 1 large Granny Smith apple. Place it on the other prepared baking sheet and drizzle with a little canola oil and balsamic vinegar.
6. Bake the apple for 30 minutes and the onions/squash for 45 - 50 minutes.
7. Place apples, onions and squash into a large dutch oven and add 6 cups of low sodium chicken stock and 1/4 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg (you can just take one of the whole nutmegs and grate it across a microplane).
8. Bring the soup to a boil over medium-high heat and then reduce to medium and simmer for about 20 minutes.
9. Puree the soup in a blender until smooth, you'll probably need to do this in batches.
10. Return the soup to the dutch oven and stir in 1/2 cup of half-and-half.
Green Tomato Bread
On a quest to find something to do with all those green tomatoes, I stumbled across something I had never heard of...Green Tomato Bread...sounds a little weird, but it was so yummy!
Here's the recipe I found on www.food.com posted by a "Southern Chef from Louisiana":
1. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease/flour two 8 1/2 by 4 1/2 (the banana bread size) cake pans.
2. In a very large bowl, combine 3 cups of flour, 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of baking soda, 1 teaspoon of salt, 2 cups of white granulated sugar and 1 tablespoon of cinnamon.
3. In a smaller bowl, mix together 2 eggs, 1 cup of vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon of vanilla.
4. Make a well in the dry ingredients and slowly stir in the wet ingredients with a wooden spoon until just combined.
5. Fold in 2 medium sized chopped green tomatoes and 1 1/2 cups of chopped pecans.
6. Pour the batter evenly into the two prepared cake pans and bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Let the loaves cool for at least 10-20 minutes on a wire rack before removing from the pan, otherwise (as I experienced) they will just crumble apart. Still tasty, just a little messy!
Green Tomato Salsa
One last thing to make with all those green tomatoes...Green Tomato Salsa. Since they're unripened tomatoes, green tomatoes are quite different from red tomatoes...a really faint sweetness, possibly sour and a bit of a crunch.
I can't find the exact recipe I used but the following recipe has all the ingredients I used (minus some hot sauce) and the ingredients are grilled rather than raw as I made the salsa. Next year, I'll definitely grill the ingredients to really highlight the flavors, can't wait!
Here's the not so spicy recipe for Green Tomato Salsa from Food & Wine Magazine's website, www.foodandwine.com, posted by Laurent Tourondel:
1. Slice one Vidalia onion in 1/2 inch slices and brush with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the grill to high heat. Grill the onions for 6 minutes, turning once. At the same time, grill 1 pound of green tomatoes on high heat for 8 minutes, turning once.
3. Chop the onion into salsa-size pieces.
4. Peel and core the green tomatoes and chop.
5. Mix the onions and the green tomatoes together in a large bowl with 1 large chopped red tomato, 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro and 1 tablespoon of fresh lime juice. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
From the Garden
-Green Tomatoes
-Red Tomatoes
-Butternut Squash
Grocery List
-Pecans
-Cilantro
-Vidalia Onion (1)
-Yellow Onion (2)
-Lime (1)
-Granny Smith Apple (1)
-Low Sodium Chicken Stock (1 box)
-Half-and-Half
Pantry Items
-Flour
-Sugar
-Baking Powder
-Baking Soda
-Salt
-Cinnamon
-Whole Nutmeg
-Vanilla
-Eggs
-Vegetable Oil
-Olive Oil
-Canola Oil
-Balsamic Vinegar
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