Romaine lettuce

Slugs appear to be attacking the bok choy, though. Dan dusted them with diatomaceous earth, a natural pest control method. It’s the fossilized remains of a type of algae called diatoms available in garden centers as a fine powder; it has tiny sharp edges that irritate the soft tissues of slugs and so, when sprinkled around plants, deters them from moving close enough to eat them.

Bok choy sprinkled with diatomaceous earth

So we’re hoping they come back. In the meantime, we’re enjoying a mixed green salad with our baked rockfish tonight.

A couple weeks ago, we pulled out the basil, tomatoes and tomatilloes and planted lettuces in their place. The baby romaine, spinach, red sails (red leaf lettuce) and bok choy are growing nicely. This past weekend, I added cilantro and flat-leaf parsley.

Should be a delicious winter.

Szechuan Pickled Green Beans

This refrigerator-pickle recipe for Szechuan Green Beans intrigued me because it’s so simple. It doesn’t involve the scary-seeming boiling-water method that is generally used for canning vegetables for the relatively long term – a few months to a year. This recipe just requires covering blanched beans with a seasoned vinegary brine and keeping it in the fridge. It will last for a month and the flavor deepens every day. Yum.

Szechuan Green Beans

• 1 pound green beans, washed, topped, and tailed
• 1 cup cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons dark sesame oil
• 1 tablespoon whole peppercorns, preferably Szechuan
• 1 (1-inch) knob ginger, sliced into coins
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced

Line several baking sheets with dish towels and set aside. Prepare an ice-water bath in a large bowl or clean sink.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop the beans into the water, no more than 1 pound at a time, and return to a boil. Blanch for 1 minute.

Scoop the beans out with a spider or slotted spoon and plunge them into the ice-water bath. Continue blanching in batches. Remove the beans from the ice bath with a slotted spoon and spread on the towel-covered baking sheets. Blot dry.

To make the pickles, pack the beans vertically in a quart jar.

Combine the remaining ingredients in a medium nonreactive saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 1 minute. Pour the hot brine over the beans to cover by 1/2 inch. Leave 1/2 inch of headspace between the top of the liquid and the lid.

Refrigerate: Cool, cover, and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.

Red, yellow and white onions from the garden

There’s really not much to this recipe. I trimmed the zucchini and cut it lengthwise into four planks. I whisked together the juice of one lemon, the same amount of extra-virgin olive oil, a 1/2 tsp. of Penzey’s Minced Garlic, a pinch of cayenne, a big pinch of sugar, and salt and pepper for a quick marinade. I also sliced a small homegrown red onion and trimmed the green beans.

Dan sprinkled Paul Prudhomme’s Blackened Redfish Seasoning on two tuna steaks and took everything out to the grill. We have this handy grilling wok that makes it easy to grill small pieces of food like cut vegetables.

After everything was grilled, we tossed the vegetables with the rest of the marinade.

The first zucchini of 2011!

Garden-fresh green beans

Grilled veggies, grilled tuna and remoulade sauce

Tomato blossom

Baby celery

Mesclun mix and parsley in a terra cotta pot

Tiny swallowtail caterpillars love the fennel

Medium swallowtail caterpillar in the fennel

Red leaf lettuce

Mixed lettuces – red leaf, green leaf and romaine

We also have a couple rows of English peas coming up.

English peas

And I’m really happy that the parsley made it through the winter, too.

Parsley

We’re trying a new vegetable this year: celery! They’re little babies right now – Dan started them from seed in the sunroom.

Baby celery

We have lots more to come – several kinds of tomatoes, hot and bell peppers, and purple tomatillos are growing from seeds in the sunroom, and we’re going to try Brussels sprouts again, too. Should be a fun summer!

After this cold, snowy winter, I can’t wait to get the garden going. Some of the lettuces we planted last fall are starting to come back with the warmer temperatures we’ve had this last week.

So here’s what we got:

Tomatoes

• Kimberly – early season, 1-2 oz. red fruit
• Margherita hybrid – mid-season, 5-6 oz. red paste tomatoes, great for pizza, pasta and roasting
• Oaxacan Jewel – late season, bicolor – yellow with ruby streaks, 6-16 oz.
• Purple Brandy – late season, deep pink-purple beefsteak, 8-16 oz.
• Rose de Berne – late season, Swiss heirloom, dark pink, 6-8 oz.
• Virginia Sweets – late season, heirloom, gold-red bicolor, at least 1 lb. each

Peppers and Tomatillos

• The Big Early Hybrid – bell peppers, 8″ long by 4.5″ wide
• Ancho 101 – used for Mexican stuffed peppers; can be dried and ground into chile powder
• Ixtapa Hybrid – 4-inch-long jalapenos
• Golden Greek Pepperoncini – great for pickling and in Greek salad
• Purple Tomatillos – We will probably have dozens of green tomatillo volunteers, so we thought we’d try the purple ones this year.

We’re also planting yellow and red onions, green beans and peas. Later we’ll add cucumbers and maybe some melons. We got one edible cantaloupe last year, so I’d like to try again and see how it goes. And I have some garlic cloves in the kitchen that started sprouting, so I need to get those in the ground, too.

This is my entry in the weekly photo challenge at Photo Friday. Last week’s topic was Breathtaking (yeah, I’m late posting again).

The Orange Crush is an unusual ingredient, but the carnitas did taste quite good. And it may seem like a lot of jalapenos, but we thought it had a pleasant but not searing heat.

Dan and Dad had the carnitas with rice and beans, but I made soft tacos with mine. One of the toppings is homemade pickled onions – yummy!

And have a very Merry Christmas!

Slow-Cooker Carnitas by Eric

5 lbs. pork shoulder roast
1 large red onion, trimmed, peeled and cut into large chunks
6 jalapeno peppers, stemmed and cut in quarters; you may remove seeds and membranes for less heat
3 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed a bit with the side of a chef’s knife
12 oz. Orange Crush
toppings of choice: lettuce, tomato, cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese, pickled onions, hot sauce
Optional: rice and beans; flour tortillas

Trim excess fat from pork shoulder and place in the slow cooker. Place the red onion, jalapenos, garlic and 8 oz. Orange Crush in a blender and puree. Pour contents over the roast, then pour the rest of the Orange Crush into the slow cooker. Turn heat to low and cook for 10-12 hours. Shred with two forks.

Serve with rice and beans, or as a filling for tacos.

Tacos with Pork Carnitas

We grew the jalapenos in our garden last summer, and had a bumper crop yet again. Even after sharing with some co-workers who like hot food, we had plenty to freeze. Just put them on a baking sheet, so they don’t stick together in a clump, and place in the freezer till frozen solid. Transfer to plastic bags. When you’re ready to use one or more, leave them on the counter for 1/2 hour or so to thaw, or put them on a microwave-safe plate and microwave for 30-45 seconds.

This is my entry in the food blogging event Grow Your Own, originated by Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes.