Summer's End

Surprise!  You missed us when you grabbed the others!

Pizza with homemade dough and sauce and garden grown arugula. Yum!

Tomatillo and Pepper Salsa

Olive Oil Pumpkin Bread

Beer Braised Pork with Polenta and Spicy Cabbage Apple Slaw

I've been doing a little cooking lately... 

It's that time of year again, when being outside in the garden is no longer an option, especially now that I've cleaned it out, composted it, and put it to bed for the season as of today.  It wasn't a bad haul for a garden that hadn't really been tended for a while.  I got about a pound of tomatillos, four cups of arugula in varying leaf sizes, a few stray tomatoes, and some potatoes that I didn't find when I harvested their brethren.  There were also some raspberries (and some still to ripen, if they beat the race with the weather) and some sorrel leaves.  The Lacinato and Curly Kale will be around for a month or so...if I don't devour it sooner.

There are some greens under row covers, and the peas are doing their best to mature in time.  The slugs have had a field day with them.  Alas, for the slugs anyway, there's no where left to hide now that the garden's cleaned up.  (Cue evil laugh track here.)

There will be herbs like parsley, dill, sage, thyme, and rosemary for a few weeks yet, and then one by one they'll drop off.  I'll be able to harvest sparingly from the woodier ones all winter, but I tend to go easy on them since I want them to come back in the spring.

We ate well today in the midst of all of the raking, shoveling, and ripping out of plants.  Lunch was the pizza, with a dough recipe from Giada De Laurentiis that I found on Epicurious and a roasted tomato sauce that I got from my friend Winter.  It was lovely.  So lovely, we might have eaten the whole thing...but I'm not telling for sure so you can think what you want. 

Dinner was Black Bean-Chicken Enchiladas with Tomatillo Salsa.  I wanted to make chicken stock, so I simmered a whole chicken until done, skinned it, shredded the meat (most went in the freezer) and added the bones back to do some more simmering.  I mixed the chicken with black beans, rolled the mix in corn tortillas, and smothered it with tomatillo salsa (recipe to follow) and cheese.  Baked at 350 for about 1/2 hour, it was a nice way to end the day (though my husband would think it nicer if the Patriots had actually won).  We definitely did eat all of those, hence no pictures.  (Cue oink here.)

Tomatillo Salsa
by Me

1 lb tomatillos, husked and rinsed
2 green onions
1 poblano pepper
2 Anaheim chiles
1 jalapeno
1 tbsp canola
salt, to taste
lime juice, optional

1.  Preheat grill to high.  Place all peppers and the green onions directly on the grill.  Use a vegetable grill plate or make a foil packet for the tomatillos; place on grill.
2.  Once onions are somewhat charred, move them on top of the tomatillos.  Let the skin of the peppers get blackened and blistered.  Remove to a container, cover, and let steam until cool enough to handle.  Cook the tomatillos until very soft and some are starting to burst.
3.  Chop the green onions and put in food processor.  Skin and seed the peppers, add to food processor.  Scrape in tomatillos and any juice.  Add oil and salt, and blend to desired consistency.  Stir in lime juice, if desired.