So Long Sweet Summer

I don’t have new pictures for this post, so we will have a smattering of summer recap photos.

Pools are closing for the season, my favorite roadside ice cream stand has a week left, and the last few tomatoes are dangling on browned vines. It’s the end of summer, folks. I would have denied it for another month if possible, but these markers will not allow. It’s not that I dislike fall, not by any stretch. I actually love fall. I love sweaters and rainy days and crunchy leaves and hot cider and pie. I think Thanksgiving may even be my favorite holiday. Oh, but summer…

As someone who has (somewhat) recently fallen in love with eating out of my own garden, fall marks the end of my bountiful season. Goodbye to fresh caprese salad, the basil has gone skunky, the mint is dried up and exhausted by the relentless sun, and this last batch of peach lavender ice cream is lackluster with peaches that were at the end of their fruity rope.

I’ve been reading The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball again, and it inspired me enough with tales of a farm’s first hardworking year to get out into my yard and clean things up for the season. With gloves and hoe, I chopped up the overgrown weeds, pulled out the withered tomato plants, and stacked their cages. After a full summer of lovely growth that begins to tower over my head, I’m always amazed at the state of clear bareness to which the garden can return. I found that the soil was a wonderful shade of deep brown, nutrient rich even before I have added the compost that’s been sludging around my barrel.

A word about the compost. Normally I would say that my compost is a fairly balanced mixture of kitchen scraps and yard refuse. Your greens and your browns that keep it all breaking down nicely and smelling…not great, but not bad, either. Well, the other day I was taking another bucket out to be deposited into the hot, buggy barrel, and what I saw was unlike anything I had seen before. I suppose it had been a while since I had opened it up, and things were breaking down to the point of – tar? It looked like a tar pit, you know, like the kind that burps up dinosaur parts? It was almost black, the consistency of slimy mud, and all around it, just under the surface was the slithering of some seriously happy, fat worms. My guess was that maybe we had gotten a little kitchen waste-heavy and there wasn’t so much dried up brown stuff to even it out. Anyway, it was gross. It was gross in the way that delights nine-year-olds and myself. 

I also planted a crop of small lettuce heads that will give us a nice punch of crunchy green as the weather turns crispy. This was my first time not only doing a fall planting, but also harvesting the lettuce seeds myself from their fluffy little pods. Once the lettuce sends up its leggy flower shoots, the seeds are created much like dandelion puffs. You can then gently grab them, give them a few twists between two fingers, and the seeds drop off into your waiting palm below. Easy! These particular lettuces were gifted into my garden by my elderly Mennonite gardening friend, Verna. They are lovely small heads that can be harvested in single leaves or chopped at the base to take advantage of their tender hearts. I hope they come through!

Finally this week, I made one last batch of bright lime cilantro salsa with our own tomatoes and jalapenos along with a savory chicken and veggie pie. One to say goodbye to summer, one to welcome in the homey cool weather.

Lime Cilantro Salsa

Set a small pot of water to boil. Blanch 6 large tomatoes (or their equivalent) so that you can easily peel their skin away. Chop the tomatoes finely and put in your large mixing bowl. Use the rest of the boiling water to pour over half a chopped onion and a few cloves of minced garlic that are waiting in a sieve or colander. Add them to the mix. Mince two jalapenos with the seeds and white removed. It will be a spicy salsa this way. Rough chop a big ole handful of fresh cilantro and add to the mix. Add the juice of one big fresh lime. Salt and pepper to taste. Thank me later.

Savory Chicken Pie

I already had about a half cup of pulled chicken (free range organic), so I didn’t have to prepare that part. See if you can get your hands on some of that and then get free range organic chicken broth (they carry it at Weis markets). Set up your heavy cast iron skillet with 2 T of butter. Add 1 chopped up carrot, 2 chopped up celery stalks, a handful of chopped fingerling potatoes, and some chopped broccoli. Saute with a little water to steam everything for 5 minutes or so. Stir in 2 T of flour until it gets a little toasty. When it starts to stick just a bit, add 2 cups of chicken broth to the mix and scrape all of that goodness off the bottom. Let it cook for probably 10 minutes or until the gravy thickens. Add chicken, salt, and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into a separate bowl and allow it to cool down. Run out to the store because you realize you do not have pie crusts. Get 2. Allow to thaw on the ride home, then pour your mixture into the first crust. Cut off the crimped edge of the second crust and flip it onto the top of your now covered pie. Crimp the new edges together. Cut 4 slashes in the middle of the pie just like the pie that little Jack Horner stuck his thumb into.  Brush the top with an egg wash mixture of water and egg. Bake at 425 for 30 minutes. Serve to an applauding audience. Or, cut up and freeze for the week.