KW Homestead

Pasture Raised Poultry & Edible Landscaping Plants Since 2013

Tag: greenbeans

What’s Happening in the Garden…

We planted some more today, and checked on a lot of our little plants. Here’s what’s growing around here… 

beans

Provider greenbeans (first planting of three so far)

peppers

Baby pepper plants: bell peppers, cayennes, jalapenos, and aji.

 


harvesting

Jason harvesting some greens for the chicken soup!

plants

Baby paste tomato plants and their friend, basil!

herbs

Oregano and thyme that came back strong from last year’s planting.

spearmint

Spearmint… What a wonderful smelling intruder!

beans

Beans round 2.

tomatillos

The tomatillos are looking great!

 

zucchini

Zucchini!

pond

Our little garden pond, beloved by fish, frogs, and our flowering comfrey plant.

 

potatoes

This year we’re growing our Irish potatoes in straw instead of in the groind… Should be easier to harvest!

  

cilantro

Our cilantro went to seed very early this year!

  

thyme

Thyme in a tire… What a perfect planter!

  

bed

A bed of snow peas, green onions, and carrots.

  

snow peas

Snow peas!

  

A beautiful, volunteer chia plant. What symmetry!

 
.:.

saving greenbean seeds: strategies and thoughts

now is the time for our first planting of greenbeans to be left alone and allowed to go to seed. this means that we are simply letting the mature beans dry on the vine until the pods are brown and gross looking (when they even look like they’re molding or something… which they usually aren’t unless you’ve had tons of rain). once the pods look brown and funky, you rattle the pods to hear if the beans are wiggling inside. if they are, then the pods are ready to be harvested and the beans are ready to be removed and saved. you can see from the photo below that the beans in the ziploc bag are darker red/brown. they were collected at the right time, whereas the other beans were collected perhaps a little too soon and some are lighter in color or small and a little funny shaped. i’m not yet sure if these beans will be as fruitful as the others, but we’ll find out next year!

i also tried another experiment with bean seed preservation, which involved dehydrating (using the dehydrator) some large and tough beans that were still green. as expected, the beans did not really cure, since they need to stay on the vine until their nature-designed time for becoming viable seeds. it was still an interesting experiment, though, and i’m glad to know a bit more about curing our seeds for next year!

greenbean hulls and greenbeans, in different stages of curing

greenbean hulls and greenbeans, in different stages of curing

.:.

pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, and greenbeans!

today i spent a portion of the day pickling some our veggies for eating later in the year.

so far, jason has been the only pickling champion in the house so today i decided to try my hand at it.

i did 6 jars of veggies today… 2 jars of arkansas pickling cucumber slices, 1 jar of arkansas pickling cucumber spears, 1 jar of arkansas and white wonder cucumber spears, 1 jar of green tomatoes, and 1 jar of greenbeans.

i did some experimenting with spices, so we’ll see how that goes!

cucumber slices with garlic, dill, and jalapeno slices.

cucumber slices with garlic, dill, and jalapeno slices.

cucumber spears with garlic, dill, and jalapeno slices.

cucumber spears with garlic, dill, and jalapeno slices.

greenbeans with garlic and jalapeno slices.

greenbeans with garlic, jalapeno slices, and dill.

green tomato slices with garlic, thyme, and basil.

green tomato slices with garlic, thyme, and basil.

two weeks from now,  we’ll see how they taste!

.:.

 

 

 

 

the greenbean season begins: greenbean water!

time again for greenbeans!!!!

(for some background information about why i insist on writing greenbeans instead of green beans, click here)

what a wonderful day it is! the greenbeans that we cooked tonight did not come from our garden, actually, but from my father’s garden. our greenbeans went in a little later than his did and we shouldn’t be getting any from our plants for a week or so. we almost waited until ours came in to eat any, but we just couldn’t resist my dad’s offer of about 5 pounds of delicious, homegrown greenbeans!

we cooked all of them tonight, cooking them the way we usually do… boiling them in water with a dash of salt and olive oil or coconut oil. we’ve determined that it is a waste of time for us to snap them into “manageable” sized pieces since we enjoy them best whole, with just the stems snapped off. we usually serve them in a glass casserole dish because the beans fit in there perfectly and a dish that has a lid makes for excellent fridge storage.

freshly served, steaming greenbeans doused with coconut oil and salt!

freshly served, steaming greenbeans doused with coconut oil and salt!

when we serve the steaming hot greenbeans we add a dash of salt and drizzle some coconut oil over the top. so delicious! rarely do we use forks when eating such treasures and relish in picking up one at a time with our fingers and munching away! we’ve found that cooking the greenbeans without snapping them also makes for much better greenbean sandwiches with dill mayonnaise (it sounds bizarre but they are fantastic!). the long greenbeans rarely fall off of the bread this way.

an amazing bi-product of boiling the greenbeans is the pot liquor that is left behind. some foods, such as various greens, leave behind a liquid that is not beneficial and even harmful for you to drink. not greenbeans! greenbeans leave behind a pot liquor (we call it greenbean water) that is rich with the nutrients of the greenbeans, in a concentrated form!

greenbean water, still in the pot. though it may look funky, we promise it tastes amazing!

greenbean water, still in the pot. though it may look funky, we promise it tastes amazing!

this might also sound bizarre but it is delicious! we save the greenbean water in the fridge and drink it, sometimes adding a little bit of soy sauce for extra flavor. such extra flavor is not required, by the way, because greenbean water (if you’ve added salt and one of the above-mentioned oils) is already refreshing and even creamy. you can feel the nutrients as you drink it.

cheers to that! perhaps we could toast with greenbean water sometime during the wedding?

.:.

farm food friday: oma’s green bean casserole

my mom makes the best green bean casserole, partly because she always uses green beans from my dad’s garden and partly because, well, she doesn’t open up any cans while making it–she makes it from scratch. this is not the first or the last of oma’s recipes that you’ll see on our blog (oma is the german name for  grandmother–the name my mom wants to be called once grandkids arrive).

i just tried my hand at recreating her recipe a few days ago, and i can say that i think i did a pretty good job. maybe you’re thinking, “it’s not thanksgiving… why the sudden enthusiasm about green bean casserole?”

well, as is the tradition with farm food friday, i try to share some recipes that highlight a certain homestead ingredient that we (or you) might have a lot of or might just really love eating! hence the green bean casserole idea.

a little bit about my love for green beans: it started so early that i can always remember loving them, even as a young child. i loved them so much, in fact, that in my school days i would always say that green beans were my favorite food when asked. all the other kids would look at me like i was crazy, since they had all said pizza, ice cream, or spaghetti. i also can’t seem to write or type green bean as two words, and i have to backspace and correct myself each time because instead i type greenbean. i don’t think my interest in compound words is to blame, rather that i’ve always imagined that green beans are the beans, worthy of mono-word-dom. all other beans are secondary to me, and i imagine they always will be.

so now that you know what sort of greenbean fanatic i am (yes, the vote is in and i can now resume using greenbean rather than green bean), you might be even more interested in this week’s farm food friday recipe. yum!

the ingredients:

  • 3 pints of greenbeans (grown in our garden, snapped, boiled, and frozen in their own broth since september). greenbean broth is super nutritional, and once you use the greenbeans for the casserole, i recommend saving the broth for drinking later. it’s best when warm!
  • 1 or 1 1/2 large onion(s)
  • 10 garlic cloves
  • 6 medium or large baby bella mushrooms (optional). once our shiitake mushrooms come in we will be using them instead!
  • milk (i use unsweetened coconut milk, but whatever you use for baking or cooking will be fine)
  • olive oil or butter
  • flour
  • garlic powder
  • salt and pepper
  • soy sauce
  • french fried onions (optional)

the gear:

  • a large saucepan
  • a medium-sized casserole dish
  • large spoon, whisk, knife
  • cutting board
green beans

our greenbeans, frozen and preserved since september 2013

onions

diced onions!

veggies

sauteing veggies–after adding the garlic and mushrooms

casserole

the casserole mix, before baking!

the directions:

  1. before you begin cooking, drain the liquid from your greenbeans (but save it!) to have them ready to mix in when the time comes.
  2. dice and saute the onions (in plenty of olive or butter) on medium-low for about 10 minutes. add some salt and garlic powder while stirring.
  3. dice the garlic gloves and mushrooms and add them once the onions appear transparent. add a couple dashes of soy sauce while stirring.
  4. at this point you will begin to make the rue in the same pan as the vegetables. the key is to keep the ratio between the olive oil/butter and the flour equal. so, add as much of these ingredients as you like (depending on how much liquid you would like your casserole to have) but pay attention to your ratio and be sure to create enough rue so that once you stir in the greenbeans you still have some stir-ability. i believe i added about 1/3 cup of flour to my pan, and a little bit less than 1/3 cup of olive oil (since there was already a good bit in the veggie mix). use your whisk to stir this in well.
  5. add a couple more dashes of soy sauce and a bit more garlic powder, salt, and pepper.
  6. add around 1 cup of your milk and continue to stir the concoction with the whisk.
  7. this is the time to check your rue; taste it if you’d like. add any more of the spices or more flour, oil/butter, or milk if you feel like the recipe needs more balance.
  8. when you’ve decided the rue and veggies are good-to-go, stir in your pints of greenbeans.
  9. once the greenbeans are mixed evenly among the other ingredients, transfer all to your ungreased casserole dish. spread the mixture evenly throughout the dish and smooth the top.
  10. bake in the oven for 40 minutes, at 350 degrees.
  11. briefly remove the casserole from the oven and sprinkle as much or as little french fried onions over the top that you like (i put a ton of them on top, while my mom doesn’t put any).
  12. bake in the oven for another 10 or 15 minutes, depending on your desired crunch factor.
  13. serves 6-8 average folks, or 3 or 4 gluttonous jasons and emmas. enjoy!

p.s. an added bonus to this recipe… it tastes even better as leftovers, since the rue and vegetable flavors have had time to meld. next time i plan to make a double batch so that it lasts longer in our house than just for 2 meals.

.:.

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