The Garden is History

Measuring the success of a garden isn’t simple.  If it was a farm, it might be.  You’d go by the output: the size of the crop, bushels per acre, or money made.  Those are objective large-scale indicators.  I don’t think that’s what gardeners are after when they buy seeds and plants in the spring and imagine what can be eaten fresh and preserved to be eaten later after frost finally brings growing to an end.  Gardens are smaller in size and scope and more complex.  They’re valued by gardeners in a different way, I think.

If I was simply measuring output, what remains to be enjoyed during the winter, I’d just count the number of jars that came out of the pressure cooker and the bags of vegetables in the freezer.  Here’s what that looks like for this year:

              Jars of Jerk Marinade                                  25         

              Jars of Irish Asian Chili Paste                     13

              Jars of Chilla Sauce                                    12

              Jars of Pickled Peppers                                 6

              Amount of Sriracha Sauce                          TBD

The jerk marinade is a Jamaican sauce whose main ingredient is habanero peppers.  I’ve jiggered the recipes so that amount of ingredients in one batch fill my food processor.   A triple batch filled that number of jars.  Here’s the recipe for a single batch. 

              1 5/8 cup Sunflower oil

              40 Habaneros unseeded

              40 scallions

              30 garlic cloves peeled and smashed

              1 cup thyme leaves (no stalks)

              1 cup fresh ginger peeled and grated

              1/2 cup brown sugar

              4 cups Allspice berries

              3 1/3 T kosher salt

              2.5 tsp black pepper

              Churn till smooth in processor.  Remove to a large bowl, add

              1 cup white vinegar

              2.5 cups freshly squeezed lime juice

The classic way to use this marinade is slathered on chicken wings etc. overnight.  They’re great when grilled over charcoal.  You can also use it as a table sauce by thinning it with soy sauce.  The first time you use it, wash off all the marinade before grilling. Next time, if you think you can handle it, leave the marinade on while grilling.  Either way, it will clear your sinuses.

The chili paste recipe has evolved.  It’s roughly based on a Thai-style paste called Nam Prik or Bird Chili paste. When making it the first time, I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I winged it.  And liked the result a lot.  So, as it stands it’s an Asian chili paste modified by an Irishman.  Thus, Irish Asian Chili paste.  Here’s the recipe for one batch.

              Shallots                                           8 halves

              Lemongrass                                   6 pieces of the white part, 4-5 inches long

              Lime juice                                     1/2 cup.  Fresh squeezed is best.

              Garlic                                            1/2 cup peeled then smashed, or vice versa

              Ginger Root                                   1/4 cup grated

              Worcestershire Sauce                    2 T

              Kosher salt                                    3 T

              Hot Peppers                                  Enough to fill processor.  Use the kind you like. Mix it up.

 Notes on the lemongrass.  I used to grow it in the garden, and the stalks were skinny without a lot of white.  The stuff you buy in any Asian grocery is far superior.  I’ve concluded lemongrass grows better and bigger in South Asia than Illinois. 

You can use this paste conventionally, mixing a hockey puck-sized, 4-ounce lump of paste with coconut milk or broth to make the base for spicy meat and/or vegetable dish.  But my family uses it mostly as a spicy condiment.  It’s versatile.  But you must like heat and spicy flavor to enjoy it.  Irish Asian chili paste has a big kick.

The Chilla sauce is a sweet and sour sauce from my mother’s side of the family, probably of Dutch origin.  We used Chilla sauce on the farm specifically for roast beef.  I never saw the word for this sauce written down so that’s a phonetic spelling.  We had dinners centered around roast beef almost every Sunday of the year on the farm.  Big meals, nice days.  Those meals and the companionship drew my older married siblings and their kids, my nephews and nieces, back home after they moved out.  I make this sauce for us.  It’s McClure/Staubus/Deal comfort food.

Thankfully, Mom finally wrote down an ingredient list and rudimentary instructions.  She had to think about it, as she carried most of her recipes around in her head.  She had a hard time figuring what to write as a cook time, as she claimed to go by the color. She cryptically told me the sauce must turn from bright red to brownish.  I’ve since determined that’s about two hours.  Here’s that recipe.

              1 quart tomatoes

              1 cup vinegar

              1 pepper cut fine (type undetermined.  Mom no doubt used a green bell.  I use a Jalapeno.)

              ½ cup sugar

              1 tsp cinnamon

              1.2 tsp cloves (ground I’ve found out)

              2 medium onions cut fine

              1 tsp salt

              Cook two hours

The quick-pickled peppers came about this year simply due to a bumper crop of peppers.  My daughter’s partner, June’s Dad, has been bringing around various “quick pickled” vegetables; kohlrabi, cucumbers, onions, peppers.  I tried it with hot peppers.  Here’s the brine recipe.  It’s amazingly simple.

              1 ½ cup distilled white vinegar

              3/4 cup water

              2 T Honey

              4 T Kosher Salt

              1 clove of smashed garlic per jar

              3 peppercorns per jar

              Fresh peppers/vegetables of your choice

              Thinly slice peppers and vegetables.  Place in jars with garlic and peppercorns.  Heat liquid to               near-boiling.  Remove, pour over peppers and veggies.  Cool.  Place lid on the jar and                          refrigerate. 

Quick pickled veggies last up to three months refrigerated, which is plenty of time because they are always eaten before that.  I think you can pickle damned near anything in that little brine brew, but I’ve chosen to thinly slice up hot peppers with onion and carrot.  I put a variety in the jar for color, along with other herbs and spices of your choice.  Get creative.  Orange Habaneros, green Serranos, red Jalapenos, and a few sweet Jimmy Nardellos or Sheep Nose peppers for balance.  It’s up to you.  I love that mix especially on hot dogs and sausages, but you can add it to anything.   Great in an omelet too.  

The Sriracha is a work in progress.  It’s my first try.  So far, I have a double batch of thin sauce that could be put in a shaker bottle.  What I’m after is a sauce the consistency of ketchup I can put in a squeeze bottle.  The distinctive thing about this sauce is that it's fermented.  Makes me wonder what   the Irish Asian would be like fermented.   In any case, I have a quadruple batch still bubbling away in a big glass jar in the basement.   Thanks to Konni Rodighier for sharing the recipe below.

              1 lb. unseeded stemmed red Jalapenos (aka Fresnos)      (16 big ones)

              ½ pound unseeded stemmed red Serranos                        (20 more or less)

              4 cloves of garlic peeled

              3 T brown sugar

              1 T kosher salt

              1/3 cup water

              ½ cup distilled white vinegar

Step 1

Chop peppers, retain seeds and membranes and place them into a food processor or blender with garlic, brown sugar, salt, and water.  Pulse several times to start.  Blend until smooth.

Step 2

Transfer puree into a large glass container(pitcher or big jar0.  Cover container with plastic wrap and place in a cool dark location (think basement) for 3-5 days, stirring once a day.  The mixture will bubble and ferment.  Scrape down the sides during each stirring.  Rewrap after every stirring.

Step 3

Pour fermented mixture into blender or food processor with vinegar.  Blend until smooth. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a saucepan, pushing as much of the pulp as possible through the strainer into the sauce.  Discard remaining pulp, seeds, and skin left in the strainer. 

Step 4

Heat sauce to a boil, stirring often until reduced to desire thickness, 5-10 minutes.  Skim foam if desired.

Step 5

Remove saucepan from heat and let the sauce cool to room temperature.  The sauce will thicken a little when cooled.  Transfer sauce to jars or bottles and refrigerate.

Cook’s note: I flipped the amount of Serranos and Jalapenos looking for a spicier blend.  It’s a bit hotter than the squeeze bottle you buy in the store.  I call it Wallace Township Rooster Sauce.

In addition to those jars, I have 5 quarts of simple tomato sauce from the San Marzanos.  In the freezer are 10-quart bags of peeled plum tomatoes and 10 bags of a specific mix of frozen peppers good in chili; Poblanos, Serranos, Jimmy Nardellos, and Sheep Nose pimiento.  They’re ready for winter cooking. 

So that’s the output as defined by jars in the cupboard and bags in the freezer.  But the garden gave my family and me so much more than that.  How many BLT’s did we have when the tomatoes came ripe?  Too many to count.  And tomatoes and peppers for salads over and over.  And fresh-picked tomatoes peeled and blended with peppers, olive oil, garlic, and salt for a same-day pasta sauce that you can’t beat. That’s what a garden can give you. 

My long row was six miles from my house in full sun with water nearby.  It gave me, sometimes my wife and kids, an excuse to get out of the house and drive into the country.  We saw sunsets, approaching storms, an unobscured horizon, every type of cloud.  It brought us closer to something big that you don’t get in town.   That itself made the garden worthwhile. 

Last summer, during a full-blown pandemic with no vaccine, those garden trips were more solitary and even more essential.  This year was more relaxed and social.  But these two years convinced me I need that garden even if I don’t bring a single vegetable home. 

But that won’t happen.  There is always that wonderful straight from the garden summer eating. 

I planted two kinds of Kale, broad-leafed Red Russian and Dino with the long spear-like dark green leaves.  I planted four of each.  It’s too much.  I couldn’t keep up with it all.  How many Kale salads can one small family eat?  I found I liked the Dino Kale much more.  Next year I’ll skip the Red Russian.

The broccoli never made the kind of heads you expect from the produce counter at your grocer.  It was good but there wasn’t a lot of it for such a big plant.  My Brussels Sprouts are still out there.  I’ll cut them next week for Thanksgiving.  For most of the summer, I thought they were failing, and then they came on strong in the fall.  They like cold weather, even frost.  Heads not quite as big as retail grocery sprouts but they’re very tasty. 

The peppers were prolific.  I don’t exactly know what makes a good year for peppers, but this summer appeared to be perfect.  I picked peppers all summer and they just kept coming.  I planted nine types: Serrano, Habanero, Cayenne, Jalapeno, Poblano, Sheep Nose Pimiento, Lunchbox, Shishito, and Jimmy Nardello.  Of those nine, I’ll plant seven again.  The Shishitos grew like crazy but they’re bland.  I knew they wouldn’t have a lot of heat, but I didn’t expect the lack of flavor. The Cayenne grew far fewer peppers than the Serrano and are not markedly different in taste.   I’ll skip both the Shishito and Cayenne.    

By far my best tomatoes were the plum tomatoes, which were nearly half the total tomatoes planted.  I went with a single variety, the two-chambered San Marzano, and wasn’t disappointed.  They grew like crazy and were plump and sweet.  But surprisingly, the slicers-Early Girls, Beefsteaks, Jet Stars, and the tomato cousin tomatillos never got to the size I expected.  I have no idea why one type of tomato would thrive while others were sub-par.  I have to figure that out before next year.  But I’ll be planting San Marzanos again.  Maybe more. 

The onions were, by and large, a bust.  We ate some as scallions, but the mature onions were small and unremarkable in taste.  Perhaps I’m not cut out to raise onions.  Why should they be so different than garlic?  Maybe I’ll give it another try. 

What was lost in onions was made up by potatoes.  We have never harvested such a big crop.  Every variety, reds, cobblers, fingerlings, even the quirky purple potatoes, were plentiful and tasty.  Some question the value of growing potatoes when they are so cheap in the store.  To them, I say taste a fresh homegrown potato and talk to me again.  I have a bunch in the basement waiting, with the dirt still on them, to be eaten.  Gives me a sense of security

Back home in my small house garden the Asparagus came in quickly and didn’t last long enough.  I need to plant more roots.  I haven’t dug the Horseradish, but you know Horseradish.  You can’t kill it.  It will be fine down there underground whenever I get around to using it.  The herbs had a good year in pots on the back steps.  I had enough flat-leafed Italian parsley and Basil to choke a horse.  Still need to grow more Thyme for the jerk marinade but it takes so much I doubt I will.  The rosemary had a great year.  I’m wintering a pot of it over in the house, so it gets a head start next spring. 

And that’s the garden report for 2021.