Planning for Fall and Winter Harvests in My Seattle-Area Garden

One drawback to keeping a vegetable garden is that I always have to be thinking about what's around the corner. This sometimes prevents me from just existing in the moment and thoroughly enjoying what is growing. What I mean is not only do I feel like I have to anticipate trouble ahead (pests, weather changes, etc), but I also have to plan the planting for harvests 2 months down the road. 

We may be in the dogs days of summer still, but I am thinking about what vegetables I need to plant for our fall and early winter harvests. Vegetables that continue to grow into the early fall months in my area are all leafy greens. A few weeks ago, I began the Tuscan and curly leaf kales. I transplanted the seedlings into a couple of large troughs on the deck. I also began a second set of lettuce in a variety of pots on the deck. The hanging salad baskets where I grow lettuce in spring through early summer get too hot for lettuce in mid to late-summer. So,  I gathered up a bunch of different pots and planted lettuce seeds in those. Yesterday I used a pencil to wiggle and tease bunches of lettuce seedlings apart and separate them into additional pots. I also began several cells of spinach this week. I'll move these down to the garden in early August when the bulk of the heat is behind us in my area. (We are right now in the historically hottest 2 weeks of summer.) As I mentioned last week, I have a packet of seeds for lamb's lettuce/mache/corn salad. In the next week, I'll begin those seeds with plans to transplant to the garden around the first of September. The spot where the garlic will come out in mid-August will be worked for transplanting the lamb's lettuce. Lamb's lettuce likes cool weather and will grow in early fall then hold in the garden all winter and will come back in early spring. 

So that's what's keeping me busy these days. What's going on in your world?

Wartime Steak

Over the weekend, I found myself mesmerized by some World War 2 cooking and gardening films, the kind produced by government agencies in the UK, the US, and Canada. I'm interested in history, of course, but more interested in how ordinary people lived through extraordinary times. During WW2, British, American, and Canadian governments examined how citizens had been eating prior to the war and identified weak nutritional areas for some of the demographics groups. They took a fairly scientific approach in determining what foods should be suggested for society-wide consumption and how they should be prepared. Working within the confines of wide-scale shortages in some food groups, government agencies made suggestions and created recipes for the foods that would be needed to keep a society strong and healthy. (We've all heard about ration books intended to ensure everyone has an equal chance to buy foods in limited supply.)

In one film, the narrator highlighted a community kitchen in England that prepared the midday meal for a nursery, a school, and a community center for adults. The menu for all of the groups overlapped, but was slightly adjusted for different nutritional needs and tastes of the different groups. On one particular day, the kitchen was preparing what they called Wartime Steaks. One of the foods that grew well in the English climate and soil was carrots. Carrots were pushed for every meal, sometimes just as is, but other times "hidden" to stretch other, limited foods. 

Wartime Steaks incorporated grated carrot with ground meat, whole wheat bread crumbs, and minced onions, forming and cooking in small steak-sized patties. You and I might call these meatloaf patties, hamburger steaks or Salisbury steak. What makes the Wartime Steak differ from my own Salisbury steak recipe is the addition of grated carrot. Once cooked, the carrot disappears. But I do think it adds moisture as well as extra nutrients.

Anyway, I made a batch over the weekend for us to use in our lunches. I used 1 pound of ground beef, 1 carrot, 1 thick slice of whole wheat bread, 1/2 onion, 1 clove garlic, salt, pepper,  a dash of beef bouillon, making 8 patties at a cost of about 38 cents per patty. Each patty, then, uses about 2 ounces of meat. That's about how much meat I might choose to use in meat-based sandwiches at lunch time. I imagine the community kitchen baked these, as they cooked for many. I, however, skillet-fried them, saving the beef fat to use in cooking later. My family loved these and said they were far better than any sandwich made with lunchmeat.

Since my family loves gravy on any meat dish, I also made a Hunter's Sauce (Sauce Chasseur), which is basically a brown gravy blended with a bit of tomato sauce, chopped mushrooms, parsley, garlic, and minced onion or shallot. Some folks also add wine to this sauce. 

There are several other recipes I saw that I will give a try in the coming days or weeks. The many good tips and ideas for stretching more expensive foods apply today, too.