Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Beans and Broccoli

With very little attention from me, the garden has begun spitting out produce. On Sunday I picked 12 ounces of beans and two heads of broccoli; yesterday I got 1.25 pounds of beans and four heads of broccoli. For the record, that first harvest of beans was 11 days earlier than last year.

Beans and Broccoli

I planted a row and a half of a mix of green, yellow and purple beans. I went with a bush variety since dealing with tomato staking is such a pain so, despite how back breaking the harvesting can be, I haven't wanted to add bean structures to the garden set up fiasco (and it is always a bit of a fiasco).

Pretty Beans

We had some of the beans for dinner last night. They were wonderful.

Broccoli

I'll start freezing the beans (in half pound batches) tonight, but I'm not sure what to do about the broccoli. I put in several plants because once the main head is harvested, the plant continues to put out single florets and I wanted those to be useful. The problem is that I don't know what to do with 6 (so far) heads of broccoli. Freezing is out, since neither of us have had good experiences with frozen broccoli (mushy, watery, blech!). Probably we will eat it until we get sick of it, then start pawning it off on friends and colleagues.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty pictures!! Sounds like you've been busy.

What about pickled broccoli? Can you pickle broccoli?

We've got a recipe for slow-cooked broccoli soup that's quite disturbing and, yet, pretty darn good. It may be a waste of fresh-from-the-garden broccoli, but if you're going to end up freezing it, you might want to give it a try.

Sharon said...

Jealous I am, uh huh. That's Yoda-speak for how I feel when I see other people's gardens because we can't grow much of anything there except onions and potatoes.

Anonymous said...

I like the broccoli soup idea. There are probably plenty of recipes that freeze well with broccoli in them. Food Network or Cook's Illustrated might have some ideas...