Pumpkin Steaks

Tonight I fixed ‘Pumpkin Steaks’. They were fantastic if I do say so myself!

Here is the setup

I made them with ‘Casper’, my 208 lb whitish pumpkin that Erika Wanenmacher carved up into a jack-o-lantern for Halloween.  I used some that she saved for me from the inside.  Here is how to make them.

You’ll need raw pumpkin and something big enough to cut into 1/2″ steaks. Be sure to remove the skin.

Crush up some Ritz crackers to make cracker crumbs. I like the cracker crumbs better than bread crumbs as they have a  more buttery flavor.  Add some herbs to the crumbs. I added some dried thyme, sea salt and pepper. Beat 2 eggs and some milk in a bowl.

Take the steaks and dip them into the egg mix.

Then press the steaks into the crumbs on both sides. Put some olive oil in a fry pan and heat it up till it is very hot but not smoking.

Put the steaks in the frypan and saute till golden on one side.

Flip and put a top on the pan. Cook until it is golden on the other side and a fork pierces them easily. Take some honey and drizzle just a little of it over the steaks and serve. Delicious.

Giant Pumpkin Patch wrap up

‘Orange Crush’

Let’s catch up with the GIANT PUMPKIN patch!

My giant pumpkin patch produced 1298 pounds of pumpkins this year but there were no recordbreakers for 2012. My biggest ‘Orange Crush’, weighed in at 385 lbs (which is on display at our glass studio-Liquid Light Glass at 926 Baca Street in Santa Fe) was picked up and transported by my 8 strong buds which I affectionately call my ‘pumpkin crew’. Not as big as my 2012 NM State Record of 448 lbs. ‘Orange Crush’ will be the star of this year’s ‘4th Annual Pumpkin Bash’ on Nov 10th.

pumpkin crew 2012

pumpkin patch with ‘Hugo’ in foreground

‘Hugo’ came in at 262 lbs (already went to The Food Depot to feed people).

‘Casper’, 208 lbs-carved by Erika Wanemacher

‘Casper’ came in at 208 ( carved into the biggest jack o’ lantern in Santa Fe by Erika Wanenmacher), ‘Beautiful Baby’ came in at 190 lbs (on display at Prairie Dog Glass), two smaller ones for the State fair came in at 100 and 153 lbs.

And this year a young man from Albuquerque named Olin, broke my NM State Record, growing a pumpkin (named Shelia) that weighed 530 lbs! He started the seed on St. Patrick’s Day and had it in the ground on April 1! WOW! Putting them in the ground in April would be impossible up here at 7000 ft high with our short growing season. Great to have some competition in this state. Congrats Olin but look out next year!

Catch Up in the Veggie Garden

I can’t believe I haven’t posted in almost a month! Not like me! But I have an excuse-I’ve been headless with the final harvesting of giant pumpkins, tomatoes, harvesting the rest of the veggie garden, being ‘The Tomato Lady’ selling tomatoes at the Santa Fe Farmers Market AND planting the fall garden. What’s that you say? Planting a fall garden? Am I not burned out yet of the season? Well almost, but I know I will crave something green in Dec-Jan so I sucked it up and planted some greens in my cold frame. They are already looking so pretty and green. So now that it has gotten cold at night and the garden has been put to sleep (I disconnected the drip systems), I will catch you up on what’s been happening in the garden in the next few posts and what to do with all that produce!

Garden pictures

Well the vegetable garden is winding down-the sunflowers are done, the corn is done, strawberries are done, and the potatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers are almost done. The beans, rhubarb, zucchini, chard and tomatoes are still kicking. In fact it looks like I’m going to get a gazillion green tomatoes to bring into the house to finish ripening.  I had a lot of flowers in the garden as well this year. Here are some pictures of the garden area throughout the season.

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Fall-Time to trim tomato blossoms off

As the tomato season starts to wind down in the fall, I believe it’s time to redirect the plants’ energy so I trimmed off most of my blossoms on the tomato plants. This helps ripen the remaining tomatoes on the plant.  I also cut off those crazy branches that are overgrown (and have blossoms) back to the last tomatoes that have been set on that branch. The idea here is to redirect the plant’s energy to stop making blossoms and put its energy into ripening as many tomatoes as possible before it freezes.

I also trim off any diseased branches where the leaves are dying or turning yellow and spray with Serenade again (probably for the last time). Late in the season, tomato plants are getting older and are more susceptible to diseases so my hope isn’t to cure any diseases but just keep it under control so we can still get many tomatoes. Besides we want all those green ones still on the vine that we have been patiently waiting for!

Giant Pumpkins

 

Closeup of pumpkin in back of car

This year I haven’t posted much about my giant pumpkins but I do have some growing. My biggest is named ‘Orange Crush’ because it’s coloring is more orange than any other that I’ve grown before (most have been salmon colored). It is also the bumpiest one I’ve ever grown-not the prettiest-but pretty doesn’t count in giant pumpkin contests-weight does. Gnarly dude! It’s weight measured approximately 289 lbs yesterday and averaging 8.6 lbs a day and should hit 300 lbs tomorrow. It’s seed came from the NM state winner that I grew last year. It is behind last year’s record setter but ahead of the previous year’s winner I grew, so I don’t know what to make of it. Will it get bigger than last year or not? Only time will tell. Still have this month and a week of October for it to grow. A lot will depend on the weather-if it gets cold all of them will slow down to a crawl but if it stays warm and doesn’t freeze at night, it has a chance.

My second biggest is ‘Hugo’ which is flat and oval shaped and on a different plant.  Rather beautiful, smooth skinned but doesn’t weigh as much coming in at 182 lbs averaging 5 lbs a day so far. I will leave it to see how big it will get.

I also have three smaller ones-2 on one plant and one on a fourth. I weighed them all and decided to take one that weighed 153 lbs  (shown above-I love the glow) and another one that was 100 lbs to the State fair today. I cull some of them to take to the fair but of course leave the biggest ones to keep growing for the contest in Colorado.

I also took my two biggest zucchini (so far) to the fair as they don’t give ribbons for them at the national contests. One was 38.5 lbs and the other was 33 lbs.  Last year’s record I set came in at 62 lbs. at the Colorado weigh off. I still have more zucchini growing that I hope will get bigger than last year.

 

Home Grown New Mexico Canning Class

 

favorite pickle so far

Dill Pickles (Photo credit: sleepyneko)

Duskin Jaspers and I taught a ‘how to’ canning class this morning at Milagro community gardens for Home Grown New Mexico. He showed how to make and can salsa using a water bath method. I showed how to make raw tomato sauce and we both talked about making dill pickles. For those of you who didn’t make the class, here are the handouts we gave out on canning.

General Canning Information

Selecting tomatoes and tomato recipes

Duskin’s Favorite Pickle Recipes

 

Fall Harvest

Here is some veggies I got yesterday! Chard, zucchini, french fingerling potatoes, carrots and beets. Yummy!

What’s wrong with this zucchini?

What’s wrong with this zucchini? The one on the left is yellowing and shriveling up. It wasn’t either fully pollinated (some bee didn’t do her job) OR once again it was too hot when pollination happened and it didn’t take hence it is self aborting. Just like tomatoes, all squash likes the heat but not when it is trying to pollinate. The zucchini on the right side of the photo is fine.

If your gonna grow garlic this fall..

English: A basket of garlic (allium sativum) o...

English: A basket of garlic (allium sativum) offered for sale at the farmers’ market in Rochester, Minnesota (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If you’re gonna grow garlic this fall, and I suggest you do, this month is the time to get your beds ready for it. Add lots of aged horse manure and some greensand to your bed. Then turn it over and wait till October to put the garlic in (you should be ordering now). Don’t worry if we have a freezing night or two in October, it won’t hurt the garlic as the ground won’t actually freeze until later (like December) and the garlic will start to send its roots down, getting a good headstart for spring. I ordered my garlic about 2 weeks ago and am getting some softneck and hardneck varieties which will arrive in October. It’s such an easy crop to grow and the flavor is far superior to store-bought garlic that it’s one crop I always grow in the fall. Just remember to put lots of straw on it as a mulch AFTER the nights start to freeze and pick a bed that you won’t need right away next summer as the garlic won’t be ready till late June-July.

The reason I grow hardneck is for the outstanding flavor although it has a shorter shelf life and must be used up in a few months. The reason I grow softneck garlic is because it has a longer shelf life up to 10 months and there are many tasty varieties of it as well. Besides I’m looking forward to braiding softneck garlic which will be a challenge as I never learned how to braid hair!

Why we don’t have ripe tomatoes right now

So if you still have tomato plants after the curly top virus hit many of our plants, congratulations! I had 84 tomato plants and am down to 48. Thankfully I planted more this year or I wouldn’t be at the Farmer’s Market. I’ve gotten many questions on why we don’t have many ripe tomatoes now. Lots of green ones, but few ripe ones and normally we would have LOTS of ripe tomatoes now. The reason is we had an unusually hot July with day temperatures over 90°F almost every day and the blossoms dropped back then, failing to set fruit.  The number one reason for blossom drop is high temperatures over 90°F  during the time blossoms would normally set in July (the number two reason is cold temperatures under 55°F). Once the temperatures dropped below 90°F in August they resumed setting tomatoes again hence the green tomatoes we are seeing now. So basically we are a month behind but should start seeing most of the tomatoes ripening.  Ahh, the challenges of growing vegetables in the high deserts!

Univent Automatic Coldframe opener

I just got a Univent automatic opener that opens and close a cold frame lid. I’ve wanted one for a long time. This will save me time running out and opening it on a warm fall day (so my veggies don’t cook) and then running back and closing it when it gets cold later in the day (so they don’t freeze). It is a temperature sensitive opener designed to open windows in greenhouses or lids on cold frames. It can be adjusted to start opening between 60-75°F. It fully opens at 86-90°F up to 18″ and fully closes at 55°F.

Here is a little info from ACF Greenhouses on them- “How do automatic vent openers work? Vent openers do not require electricity. The opener has a metal cylinder containing a mineral which expands when heated. This pushes a piston that opens the vent. As the temperature cools, the mineral shrinks and a spring closes the vent and resets the piston. The opening and closing of the vent is gradual allowing just the right amount of air flow for cooling.”

You can get them from ACF Greenhouses or I got mine from Peaceful Valley. Now all I got to do is get my fall greens in!

‘The Tomato Lady’-sold out

Today was a good day! First day back as The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers market sold out. A great big thank you to all my patrons who waited for my tomatoes to ripen!  Many thanks! Only a handful of tomatoes and 1 zucchini left. Behind my table are some other vendors at their tables. See you next week!

Tomato Lady of Santa Fe returns to the Farmers Market this Saturday August 25, 2012

Tomorrow, Saturday, August 25, I am returning to the Santa Fe Farmers Market as ‘The Tomato Lady’. At this time I have over 15 varieties of organically grown heirloom tomatoes from luscious black tomatoes like Purple Cherokee, supersweet yellow Virginia Sweets to Italian Red Costoluto Genevese and many, many more . I have over 50 plants and 25 varieties that will ripen as we go through the season. They are beautiful. They are gorgeous! And they taste wonderful! Magnifico!

I also have Shishito peppers, Costata Romanesco zucchini and Fairy eggplants that I will sell as well. Next week I will add some sunflowers out of my sunflower forest and Emerite French filet beans. I’ll be inside the building-look for ‘The Tomato Lady’ sign above my booth. Hours are 7am-noon. Hope to see you there!