Why I Love Onions

I love all kinds of onions. I like them young and green in the earliest part of the spring. I like them round and fat when they've been saved from an earlier garden.

Red ones.

Yellow ones.

White ones.

I even like those lame sweet ones from Vidalia, Georgia.

Cooked up with peppers and garlic, they are perfection. Baked with other veg in a slow oven, when they wear a light coat of olive oil and some kosher salt, they are the best part. Chunks baked into stuffing are more than acceptable.

But as the winter swoops down on the mountains, these are my two favorite ways to eat them. The first makes perfect sense and is an Appalachian favorite. After cooking a nice pot of beans--mmmm, pintos--I like onions chopped and diced and sprinkled all over the top of my bowl of beans. Corn bread on the side is handy, too.

Lately I've been making onions the way my mom used to to go on top of hot dogs. Only I don't have them on dogs. I plop them on top of scrambled eggs and sometimes I eat them rolled in a whole wheat tortilla.

And sometimes, I eat them with a spoon. Here it is, super simple, a little weird but good.

1 whole onion, diced
3-4 T mustard, whichever you prefer
2 T mayonnaise, either homemade or Duke's
Salt to taste, coarse salt is best

Stir it all up.

That's all.

How much do you love onions?

PS I also love garlic and ramps. Yum. Stinky foods.

And good for you, too.

Hidden Peppers

Yesterday was Tidy Up The Garden Day. All the dregs of harvests past had to be snatched up from the ground, the good dirt shaken from the roots and then off they went. Some to the compost, others down the steep bank, to discourage the kudzu.

This was not the best year for peppers--unlike last year when I pickled huge glowing jars of bells, jalapenos, habeneros, and bananas. This year, we only grew three varieties--a green bell, a red bell and some sweet banana peppers. I'd frankly given up on them but when I reached down to pull them up, I found stragglers under the leaves. Crisp and perfect peppers.

There were the usual lost onions. Every year there are onions that are pulled during the dry season and the tops pull loose, leaving the bulb underground. In the cool days following the last autumn rains, they send up rich green shoots again and are there to be picked and enjoyed.

So, last night for a late-night snack, I chopped up some spring onions and squirted a little mustard on them. I sliced up a long green pepper and used the fat slices to scoop up the mustardy onion.

I drank a bright beer with it and it was the perfect combination.

Honest, it was!

The Last of the Rosy Beans

I accidentally grew some beautiful red beans this year.

Let me 'splain.

I got the seed at some remainders/seconds store here in the Salem of the South. Once the coveted haricots started bearing their slender spears of delight, I planted these red beans in the Italian garden. For some reason, I thought they were Kentucky Wonders.

Imagine my surprise when the beans that were left a couple of days too long on the plants started getting red streaks on their wide backs.

Weird.

I finally--after harvesting two messes of them--checked the box of seeds to look for the package. Rosa, they are called. Italian flat beans that eventually turn completely red on the outside. The inside is a big white bean with red streaks.

I've saved seed for those and the haricots, also this year's super prolific okra.

We ate the last of those rosy beans tonight, alongside some tender pork steaks cooked in red wine, with mushrooms.

Cider Pressing!

Late last month, I travelled to western New York for a weekend of chilly camping and a harvest festival including pressing fresh cider. At the Brushwood Folklore Center, there are a lot of wild apple trees. This year the crop was not bountiful enough for us to press much cider, but we did add a few of the wild apples to the bushels the campsite bought from a local orchard. The cider was absolutely delicious. I brought about a half gallon of unpasteurized fresh cider home, and drank a glass or two every day until it was (sob!) gone.

We also built a wicker man from crabapple boughs we pruned on labor Day weekend, and burned him in our ritual bonfire.

Here are a few photos of our adventures of Heartsong Harvest Weekend...enjoy!

Cool Enough to Cook

I know, I know. I have been too busy planting and picking and canning and freezing to even think about cooking.

It's been awful. I've been living on fresh tomatoes and wormy apples.

But now the rains have come back and the temp has dropped and we can think about eating again.

To that will ask--guess what I just had for supper?

I sauteed taters, mushrooms and zucchini in bacon drippings. Then I added some crumbled up bacon. Real bacon, not those crappy bacon bits in a jar. I sprinkled it with good Celtic sea salt and ate it while drinking a dry, crisp hard cider from my own orchard.

Can life be yummier than that? I don't think so.

Another lovely aspect of cooler weather is the ability to bake in this old un-air-conditioned house. A good friend had a birthday yesterday and I made some pasta primavera and we finished the meal with...

a chocolate carrot cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting.

Yep, made from scratch--from the grated back garden carrots to the licking of the mixer beaters. Handmade and pretty darn yummy, if I do say so myself.

I had never eaten such a beast but I was thinking of a dense, rich and chocolate-y cake and that came to mind.

Next time, I'll make it as a chocolate, chocolate-chip carrot cake.

O, yes.

Last of the Summer Sandwich

We have a delicious summer sandwich--it may be the perfect one for me. Here's how it goes--

Fat banana peppers from the garden are sauteed in olive oil and just a smidge of butter.

Four eggs are whipped up with a little water and scrambled.

On whatever bread is around, we slather mayo on one side. When the eggs are ready, slices of cheddar are laid reverently atop and allowed to soften. The peppers go atop the cheese and slices of fresh tomato go on top of that.

Mayo side down on top.

Slice, if you like.

Juicy, messy, delicious.

We had what was probably the last one today, since we're not having a bang-up pepper season this year.

(The sandwich pictured above also has some avocado on it but otherwise very similar.)

Canning is Not for the Faint-of-Heart

The time for preservation has come, dear friends. It began with picking apples and processing them into juice, then setting them down as cider.

We'll bottle that this week.

Then the currants were picked and processed, then frozen. Now they are in the ale pail, on their way to this year's currant wine.

The apricots were picked and processed a while back and now they are simmering in a pan--with rather a lot of sugar and cinnamon--darkening into fruit butter.

The grapes are ripening and will become both wine and jelly.

The last of the raspberries are in a pie.

And last night we made blueberry preserves with local bloobs.

There's a colander full of Cortland apples on the table, pondering their destiny.

Pie? Jelly? Crisp?

They'll get processed tomorrow and bunged into the freezer. Then we shall see.

What are you eating, this first night of Lughnasadh?