OREGON S GAY/LESBIAN/BI/TRANS NEWSMAGAZINE
AUGUST 21 2009 J 5 J W
VOICES
Eat What You Con. Con What You Can't
The dog days of summer are here and for
the farmers among us who grow edible crops,
we re basking in our bounty right about now.
It’s a good tomato year, thanks to the heat
wave and plentiful sun this season, the plums
are dropping quicker than we can keep up
with picking them, and the corn tasseled long
ago. Summer evenings are long, warm and
often spent outside, most likely after sharing
a good meal from thQ garden with friends.
But that means it’s one of the busiest for
us “edible farmers.”The harvest! The harvest!
How to keep up? No need to throw those
zucchinis in the nearest unlocked car. And
by all means, do not let those berries go to
waste. You may be tiring of them now, but
come winter’s grey months, the satisfaction
of opening ajar of homemade jam and eating
a spoonful of summer on your morning toast
is a little slice of joy—one of my favorite cop
ing mechanisms for our long, dark winters.
A friend once told me this fun little say
ing: “Eat what you can, can what you can’t.”
So first up: are you eating your harvest? No,
are you really eating your harvest? Because
that means zucchini for breakfast. One of my
favorite ways of eating zucchini is cubed and
barbecued in a grill basket until just done but
with grill marks. Make a lot, enjoy what you
can for dinner, but save a handful or two for
a morning omelet. Combine with fresh herbs
(cilantro and basil are my favorites), chopped
Halve, lengthwise, your tomatoes.
Romas work g rea t for this. Use a
rimmed baking sheet a n d drizzle
it with olive oil. salt, p e p p er and
seasonings, if you like (fennel
seed is especially nice). Arrange
the tom atoes, cut-side down, in
a single layer on your pan. Roast
for 10 hours in a 200 degrees F
oven. W hen cooled, slip off the
skins, then p a ck into freezer b ag
portions for winter meals an d
or help build a rich base for a pasta dish in
December.
One of the simplest and most rewarding
ways to hang on to and enjoy your garden
bounty is by making and freezing pesto.
Spread it in ice cube trays, freeze and the next
day, pop the pesto cubes into freezer bags.
And then there’s the wonderful world of
canning. We’ve been putting up berry and
peach preserves, Asian plum sauce, and soon
we’ll be canning tomato sauce. Most of the
produce we use for canning doesn’t come
from our own garden, but from local farmers
from where we u-pick or directly buy. The
Portland Fruit Tree Project (www.portland-
fruit.org) organizes harvest parties of urban
fruit trees. Owners give permission to the
group to pick the unused fruit, and part of
the harvest goes to a local food bank, part to
the volunteers.
When it comes down to it, enjoy the boun
ty as much as you can now, but make sure you
put some away for the coming months. On
the warm evening I stayed up late canning
plum sauce, I knew one of those jars would
be opened and used for Thanksgiving dinner,
when friends and family gather at our table.
They, too, will enjoy the harvest and our work
this summer.
tomatoes long after their season is gone.
They make for a fabulous pizza in January
blogs about her adventures
in her.kitchen and garden at lelonopo.com.
THE
SASSY
GARDENER
by LeAnn Locher
tomato and queso fresco for a fantastic way
to start your day.
More ideas? Zucchini bread. Remember:
it freezes well. So start baking. What about
zucchini pickles? I’m not a pickle fan, but
having tasted the zucchini pickles served at
Higgins and Pause, I’m a believer. I followed
the recipe from the Zuni Café, and it couldn’t
have been easier. Turmeric really makes these
zucchini pickles sing.
You’re still swamped with summer squash?
Start grating and measuring by 2-cup incre
ments. Store in freezer bags (don’t forget to
date and label them) and come November
when you’re in more of a baking mood, pull
out your 2 cups of grated zucchinis and bake
bread to your heart’s content.
As for all of you tomato lovers, now is
your time. Caprese salads (tomato, basil,
mozzarella drizzled with balsamic and olive
oil) are a staple at our house come August,
picked fresh from the garden. But what
about preservation? Slow roasting tomatoes
has becorfie one of my favorite ways to keep
Slow Roosted
Tomotoes
L e A
nn
L ocher
r
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