fall plantings, apple cake, and a lovely dahlia

with the weather getting much brisker and the sun not shining on us quite as often as during the summer, we've been spending a little less time in the garden. but, we managed to muster up the motivation to get out and plant some garlic and rainbow chard.
back in july, we bought several heads of garlic at the farmers market on lopez island, knowing that we'd be able to plant it in sept/oct. considering october is quickly passing, we decided it was about time to get these guys planted.

we also inherited some garlic from brian's late uncle bob's
farm in montana. it was really a special feeling to plant these in our garden - i really hope they mature and we can keep saving cloves to grow year after year. all in all, we planted 4 long rows of garlic.

on sunday, we also planted a couple rows of rainbow chard. we've been really pleased with the swiss chard we planted months ago that is still coming up after we cut it. had some yesterday with some chicken sausage, white beans, and fresh rosemary - a really delightful autumn meal.

the rainbow chard (assuming it germinates!) will provide some much needed brightness in the garden as winter approaches. we're hoping it's not too late in the season to start. with our relatively mild winters, kale, chard, and other hardy greens tend to do really well here (though this is our first time ever really testing out that theory).


all this talk about vegetables...after planting the garlic and chard, i headed back inside to make use of some apples we'd had sitting around from last week's farmers market and a friend's yard. several week's ago i saw a recipe for a raw apple cake that sounded delicious. by the way, the blog where i spotted it is just great - mixed greens.

anyway. apple cake. i love apples and they are in abundance this time of year. but one of the secret reasons i decided to test this recipe out was to further convince my dear husband that we really should purchase a couple of apple trees. i also wanted to test out our new bundt pan - something i've always been intimidated by, for some reason. perhaps because "bundt" is a funny word that is strangely difficult to pronounce.

regardless, the apple cake turned out quite well - very much like a carrot cake. i tweaked the recipe just slightly by using whole wheat pastry flour, and i made up my own cream cheese frosting by whipping it with a little powdered sugar, cinnamon, and chopped walnuts.


to round out this piecemeal post, i photographed a lovely dahlia - my favorite flower. we planted a handful of bulbs late this spring - some of which my mom gave to us from her massive stock and others we purchased at...costco. i believe this stunner is actually from the aforementioned big box. dahlias remind me of pike place and northwest summers. we'll be planting many more next year.

green tomatoes

so we put together an assembly line for fried green tomatoes. step 1: slice tomatoes, salt and pepper them, let sit for 10 minutes. then proceed to dip in the following items in the following order: milk, flour, eggs, and cornmeal. be prepared for the mess and have patience to wash your hands once you get these guys into the fry pan.

cook on each side for just a couple of minutes in a few tablespoons of oil (we used olive oil). put them on a plate with a paper towel and salt immediately. we had some sour cream and sweet chili sauce on hand (an odd combo that worked quite well). i imagine some fresh squeezed lime on top would be pretty good too.














in round two of the green tomato experiment, i ventured into the sweeter side and tested a recipe for green tomato bread (recipe below). it turned out very much like zucchini bread. don't know that you can actually taste the tomatoes, but my coworkers seemed to enjoy it.

in non-green tomato news, we went to the last MI farmers market of the inaugural season yesterday, and i got greenhouse tomato envy (i could make a really bad joke here about being green with envy, but i'll spare you...kind of):


green tomato bread
3 c flour (i used "white whole wheat" whatever that means)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 c white sugar (preferably organic evaporated cane juice)
1 c brown sugar
1 T cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 c veg oil (i used a light olive oil)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c finely chopped green tomatoes
1 1/2 c chopped pecans or walnuts

preheat oven to 350 degrees. grease and flour 2 loaf pans. in mixing bowl fitted with paddle attachment, sift together first 6 ingredients. add eggs, oil, and vanilla until just incorporated, then add tomatoes and nuts. (i found the batter to be a little dry at this point, so i added a little bit of milk - 1-2 T - to bring it together). pour into loaf pans. bake about 50-60 min - test w/toothpick. cool on wire rack.