This side dish is quick and flavorful. You’ll want to eat it quickly or drain it on paper towels. Once this dish begins to cool down the side becomes too greasy to enjoy, so serve it very hot, and plan to reheat if necessary. 3 cups of carrot tops only makes about 1 cup once they are sauteed. You also don’t want them on the heat for too long or the leaves will burn and crisp up. The garlic brings most of the flavor to this dish. The strong garlic flavor compliments the dulled bitter flavor of the carrot tops. Carrot tops can be polarizing your first couple times eating, but I always heard you should try a food 5 times before you make a decision, because before that, you won’t like it due to novelty. This recipe makes 1 cup, which is enough for 2-3 side servings.
Begin by preparing your carrot tops. Clean them, then trim the stem to the bottom of the first leaf.
Begin heating the pan over medium heat. Add 1 Tbsp oil. Crush your garlic and break them in half, then add that too. Cook until garlic turns golden.
Add your remaining oil and your carrot tops. Stir to coat until everything has wilted. Remove from heat. Crush the garlic and stir into carrot tops. Remove carrot tops to drain on paper towels, or serve immediately.
First, I wash my beans. I then shake them dry or dry them on a paper towel. I cut both ends off my green beans, then cutting the beans into two or three pieces. I transfer those pieces into a gallon freezer bag, use the water displacement method to remove extra air, then I label with item month and year, then I freeze. I have already done two large harvests this month and was able to fill this bag in just 2 weeks. I planted 12 green bean vines.
To do the water displacement method, fill a large bowl or pot with water. Seal your bag 3/4 of the way and remember the edge that is open. Begin submerging the bag into the water. Leave out the edge that is open, and once most air is removed, seal the rest of the bag. You can then flatten out the contents of the bag for easy storage.
Onions
When I harvested all my onions, I first had to let them dry out. So, I stored them in this container on my kitchen windowsill. The windowsill gets pretty warm but it doesn’t get much sun, just a bit when it’s setting, and it’s not very strong that time of day. Once the tops all browned, I began preserving. If you have a root cellar, you can chop off the tops just above the stem, and clean off the roots, then they can immediately go into storage. If you don’t have a dry space under ground like me, then you can simply dice them and place them in the freezer for future use. I got two full sandwich bags, and I have used them heavily before processing the last of them. I once again used water displacement method to remove air.
Carrots
Carrots can lose nutrients if you pick them and leave the tops on in hot weather. So, our harvest was in two batches. We emptied a bin, took the carrots inside. Cut the tops from the carrots. then repeated with the second batch. Once all the carrots were harvested, I scrubbed them to remove dirt and the roots. Once all were processed, I cut off the tops and the end of the root, then I sliced then and transferred them to gallon freezer bag. I then used water displacement to remove the air, labeled them, then added them to my freezer.
Tomatoes
My tomatoes were starting to go bad, and since I haven’t had any more to harvest lately, I figured one small canner of tomatoes was better than nothing for now. You aren’t supposed to use rotting or damaged tomatoes, however that is how my family has done it for generations. First, cut off any bad spots deep into the tomato. Sanitize your knife and the spots. Then treat them like normal tomatoes. Drop the tomatoes into boiling water, boil for 1-2 minutes, then transfer into an ice bath. After a minute or so, the skin will loosen from the fruit. Remove a tomato and place on a cutting board. Cut off the top stem then peel off the skin. Dice your tomatoes then add to a preheated jar. (I just soak them in very hot water.) Fill your canner 1/2 way with water and bring to a boil. Also bring a small saucepan of water to a boil, then add the needed number of lids and remove from heat. Push down on the tomatoes and add any extra juice from your dicing. Once near to the top, you need to add Lemon juice and salt. For a Quart add 2 Tbsp lemon and 2 tsp salt, and for a pint, add 1 Tbsp lemon and 1 tsp salt. Add more tomatoes/some very hot water to get to 1/2 inch from the upper lip of the jar. You will then need to stick a butter knife down the edges of the jar to remove air pockets. Then you can wipe the rim clean, add the lid and ring, finger tight, then once all are ready, add them to your water bath, add additional water to cover the jars, bring that to a boil, the process for 85 minutes. Once they are done, carefully remove hot jars and place on several towels on the counter, and let cool to room temperature. Check the tops to see if they sealed, remove the rings, wipe down the jars and label, then store in a dark and cool location for the most available storage time.
Original recipe can be found here. I used Dried Dill instead of fresh, though the original recipe used fresh dill. I also forgot to add onion, so that also changed the flavor.
I made this recipe a week and a half ago. This weekend I was making picnic food, and I thought these pickles would pair very nicely. These pickles are very good. They aren’t as sour as store bought pickles, but they had the right flavor and tasted great! I used 9 tsp dried dill, 2 garlic cloves, and I forgot the onion. Despite this these pickles were very good and still had a fresh flavor about them. If you still have as many cucumbers as I do, this would be a great recipe to make!
This is a recipe I made in order to use up some extra pulled pork in my fridge. It is a very straight forward recipe. I didn’t add any seasoning to it, because the pork had more than enough on it’s own, however, if you are gonna make this from pork butt, or unseasoned pork, you can play with some fun french herbs like thyme, rosemary, marjoram, or basil. This also tasted great over noodles! This recipe made 4 adult sized meals.
This weekend we got a huge harvest from the garden. We pulled our 2 fabric pots of carrots and we harvested green beans after several weeks of waiting. For the green beans, we rinsed them then immediately preserved them. (I’ll do a post about preservation of food really soon. I have decided to freeze veggies this year since I have no interest in pressure canning.) As for the carrots, we pulled them in 2 batches and immediately took each batch inside to remove the carrot tops. You should immediately remove the carrot tops from your carrots once they leave the ground, because if they sit in 90 F weather for more than 10 minutes, it’s bad for both the carrot and the tops, if you plan to use them like us. Once all the carrots were separated, I used a brush and water to remove the dirty and roots. I also threw the carrot tops in a strainer and rinsed them before prepping them meals by removing extra length off the long stems.
I’ll do a post soon about how I preserved the carrots and green beans, as well as how I am saving my onion harvest that I pulled the end of last month.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about the garden for next year and maybe planting more for this fall. I have seeds for more radishes that I plan to plant this fall, however I’m still terribly indecisive. We are thinking of putting up one to two more raised beds by the peach tree that would be low maintenance plants, but we’re still deciding on that too. So far, I’ve decided on double the tomato plant for next year, 10 indeterminate, and another row of green beans but on a trellis double the height of the fence this year. I would also like to plant garlic this fall for next year, but I’m still determining were to place that. We are planning two fabric bags of each, potatoes and sweet potatoes. And, if we are able to get in one more bed, I’ve been thinking about bell peppers, cabbage, and broccoli. If we add a second bed, I’m also considering more onions and carrots. If you have any thoughts or input, it is greatly appreciated. This was my first year with a garden, so any advice is helpful.
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