thanksgiving harvest

[majorcatfish]

being out of town till last night, we are having thanksgiving dinner saturday. needed time to roast the veggies for the stock to brine the turkey and chickens in and rub the boston butts with mustard and spices so everything has time to marinate a couple days..

while gone it rained 3" in 36 hours and then it was down to 19 last night, it was like breaking perm frost to get some veggies out this morning..


interesting ice formation


had time to finally get all the brussel sprouts harvested sorted blanched and put away....



the carrots from today i think taste better than anyothers that we grew all season...
going to harvest the rest of the spinach for tomorrow nights dinner .............the garden is getting smaller by the day.....

 

[ninnymary]

OMG Major, that is a lot of brussels sprouts! I am so impressed. I'm lucky that all of my family loves brussels sprouts. Wish I had room to plant some. I know my granddaughter Olivia would love to see them grow. I love to see that others have the room to grow more interesting things than my greens.

Mary

 

[so lucky]

Great Brussels sprouts harvest there, Major! Did you grow them from plants or seeds, and when? Like when you put cabbage out in the spring, or do you do cabbage in the spring where you live?
Brussels sprouts are the "in" vegetable right now. You are so IN. I'm jealous!

 

[lesa]

Looking good! I just harvested my Brussels sprouts, carrots and parsnips, as well. I just love the idea that they can stay out in the garden so long. It was actually snowing a bit, when we were harvesting. Later in the afternoon, it was a white out! I love my cold weather crops! Hope you enjoyed all your garden goodies today...

 

[majorcatfish]

Great Brussels sprouts harvest there, Major! Did you grow them from plants or seeds, and when? Like when you put cabbage out in the spring, or do you do cabbage in the spring where you live?
Brussels sprouts are the "in" vegetable right now. You are so IN. I'm jealous!

started them from seed mid april indoors, after i had to kick everyone else out to my redneck greenhouse.
had doubts all season wondering if they were going to be bitter or sweet, but after that first cold snap we had picked a few stalks, my fears were put to ease.... sweet guess we shall see how they are from the freezer over the winter...figure if they past the freezer test going to plant more next season.
good to know that i am part of the IN crowd now, hum guess i will need to change the people i am hanging out with you mention brussel sprouts to them and all you get is yuck...
And yes cabbage can be planted spring and fall out here.


" going to plant more next season"
WOW THATS ONLY 5 MONTHS AWAY WHERES ALL MY 2014 SEED CATALOGS WHEN I NEED THEM


lesa
everything that i picked went into making veggie stock except one carrot the dw and i eat that one she went out and picked more for dinner. the parsnip in the pic was a second try planting have one one there that has a bigger top on it,wonder how big that sucker is ?????? christmas time will tell.
being my first year growing with raised beds it does make it fun growing fall/cold weather veggies...

mary
thank you very much and they really do not take up a lot of room to grow.grew 11 stalks in a 3x4 area.

 

[digitS']

I am curious about roasting veggies . . .

Just so you can put them in a big pot of water and boil 'em for an hour?

I like to roast the bones before boiling them for stock. It gives the stock a nice roast beef or roast poultry flavor. Altho' there's a risk that I will leave them too long and they'll burn. So . . . I don't always put the bones back in the oven. Veggies with a beef roast are good as long as they don't overcook or drown in fat. But, how does roasting just the veggies help?

Any chance it has to do with "sugars?" That parsnip, really all the roots, look just as sweet as they can be.

Steve

 

[journey11]

I adore brussels sprouts. What a nice bunch you got there.

That is some weird ice. Do you suppose the rain froze as quickly as it fell? We had the same scenario up here, except we only got 1" of rain that day. Had it been just a couple of degrees colder, that would have made for a nice snow accumulation.

ETA: Roasted veggies are the best! If I'm grilling, I put them in foil packets with a couple pats of butter and a sprinkle of Cajun seasoning. Or in the oven, same way except in a foil covered casserole dish. You don't have to add any water as long as the foil is on tight. They steam themselves. The flavor is so much better because they don't get watered down. One of the tastiest veggies to add in the mix is radishes. They are so yummy roasted and add something to the other veggies too. Are you going to roast your radishes, Major?

 

[mrcman]

Major,

The wife and I love brussel sprouts. That's a mighty fine looking batch of them.

Tony

 

[majorcatfish]

Yes roasting the veggies brings out the sugar in them,all I do is
Rough chop the veggies place in a roasting pan drizzle olive oil
Over them and place in the oven with the rack set one level up from
The bottom and set to broil. Toss every 5 minutes till all veggies have a
Nice roasted color takes about a hour.
Once done everything goes into a stockpot and simmer for about a hour and half
Then strain and place stock in a ice bath once cold pour
Into a cooler then place you birds in and cover with ice...


Journey roasted the radishes for the brine, but oven roasted
Potatoes and radishes are out of this world..

Anytime it rains and gets below freezing this happens anywhere
There is lose soil, it's a great look at what's called heaving.

mrcman thank you very much...

 

[digitS']

This is cool ! Can you believe that after 50 years I still realize that I predate the common use of that word .

Neat-o!

Maybe cool is better . . . after all, you are cooling the stock, salting and using it for a marinade! How cool is that!?

I often marinade meat. Lately, I've done a couple of things different with meat. I'll include fish - rub it down with onion salt. Part of my don't use "salt" as salt. It probably comes from decades of using Mrs. Dash.

The 2nd thing I do is never use thinner cuts of beef without marinading. I have never marinaded roasts - rubbed them a little once in awhile and didn't seem to gain much from that. Didn't seem to gain much by doing any rubbing on a chicken. They'd always panic and run around the yard. Kidding! I gotta get back to roasting chickens. Yeah. I always thought it was such a good idea.

Now . . . NOW! I can try "brining" a chicken in vegetable stock to see if I'd be willing to risk a turkey. Gotta say that I'm not too much of a turkey-guy. I have resisted ~ successfully ~ any efforts to have turkey for Christmas. It is roast beef - thank you. Sometimes, fairly often, the turkey reappears in January but not even associated with any special day. Good food, inexpensive, I get lots of bones for soup & casseroles.

Chicken we eat weekly, year-around. Usually, it is in stir-fry. Of course, beef too. Pork . . . see above: marinade. Simple, easy way to add flavor. See above: Major's post -- roasted vegetables for brine . . ! Where's my Steve Raichlen cookbook!?

Steve