Friday Favorite: Spring Rolls
Spring rolls are a favorite around here. I love that you can stuff them with a wide variety of herbs and vegetables and you end up with a healthy and delicious meal. Last week, I found a watermelon radish at the farmers market, with the lettuce & carrots in the fridge, nori sheets, herbs in the windowsill, and carrots in the avocado in the pantry, we ended up with a wonderful dinner. I also love to add Maine shrimp or smoked salmon if I have it.
Since we love these so much, I got Vietnamese cilantro and Thai basil from Renee’s Garden to plant this year. I’m thinking of having a corner of the potager dedicated to spring roll ingredients. In the summer I love using zucchini noodles in them.
Of course what makes the spring rolls is the sauce, I love to mix up ginger, garlic, hot pepper, cashew butter, tamari, fish sauce, and toasted sesame oil.
Are you a fan of spring rolls?
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Friday Favorite: Vegetable Soup
Since the garden is bursting with fresh vegetables, I’ve been making pots of vegetable soup. The soup gets ladled into wide mouth pint mason jars and tucked away in the freezer, ready for quick meals come cold weather. We eat some in the summer too, last night I made a pot of minestrone and we will be enjoying that this weekend. It was filled with: potatoes, cabbage, zucchini, tomatoes, onions, garlic, celery, green beans, and herbs from the garden.
I make soup with whatever vegetables are ready to harvest, curried broccoli, tomato, vegetable, etc. It’s nice to know that there are instant meals ready for fall days when I’d rather spend every drop of sunlight working in the garden. I also love using up all those bits of vegetable peels to make vegetable stock for all these soups. I feel like I’m making the most of the bounty of summer.
What’s your favorite kind of soup?
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Friday Favorite: Frozen Strawberries
Way back in June, we had a flush of strawberries. Our patch produced over 100 quarts of berries. A few went into a batch of jam, some were eaten fresh, some went to the neighbors, and the rest were frozen. Lately, on these hot days, I’ve been enjoying strawberry smoothies for my lunch.
They’re quick to make, tasty to eat, and give me just the right boost of energy without being too filling. I add frozen strawberries to the blender, a spoonful of Greek yogurt, a pinch of salt, and a splash of maple syrup. Whir it all up and enjoy!
What’s your favorite quick meal on a hot day of garden work?
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Making the Most of Each Harvest
One of the things I find myself doing is trying to maximize what I can grow in the garden. I don’t like to waste anything, particularly things I grow. The result has been a lot of creative ways to use up things that might otherwise go into the compost, like broccoli stems.
I used to peel them and cut them up, then I started putting them in my mini food processor and dicing them finely. Then I make slaw with them or blanch and freeze them to be added to soups or sauces. I really love doing this because it essentially doubles my broccoli harvest. These shredded bits are particularly good in the curried broccoli soup I love to make.
Do you have any great tips for maximizing your vegetable harvests?
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Friday Favorite: Rehash
Last Friday I talked about homemade pizza and how I make it and freeze it. There were lots of questions in the comments so I decided to answer a few of them here. First off, I bake the pizzas before freezing, though not fully. I undertake them by a minute or two. The key is to get the crust fully cooked but not browned. Then I cut the pizzas in quarters and freeze them in ziploc bags. If I want to freeze them whole or in halves I use the 2 gallon ziploc bags.
When I want to reheat the pizza is usually pull it out and thaw it on the counter for 15 minutes or so. Then I warm it in a cast iron skillet – crazy I know. Pizza reheats much better in a skillet than it does in the oven, I think it doesn’t dry out as much and the crust gets much crispier.
So if you have any more questions about freezing and reheating homemade pizza let me know, I’ll be more than happy to answer them.
