For the love of Produce...
Replies
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Alatariel75 wrote: »I (foolishly) planted multiple zucchini plants and have the happiest veggie garden I have ever had this year! I'm inundated! Good thing I'm inventive, and love zucchini!
I also have an enormous amount of Tomatillos growing, I think I'm going to be canning a lot of salsa verde!!
Oooo, lucky you (more like clever, industrious you)!
Visions of chilaquiles dance in my head, with tomatillo salsa, roasted sweet corn, black beans and other goodies in the mix. But that's probably not calorie-efficient, is it?
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Alatariel75 wrote: »I (foolishly) planted multiple zucchini plants and have the happiest veggie garden I have ever had this year! I'm inundated! Good thing I'm inventive, and love zucchini!
I also have an enormous amount of Tomatillos growing, I think I'm going to be canning a lot of salsa verde!!
Keep your eyes open; you'll almost certainly have volunteer tomatillos next year. Perhaps for several years! If you have volunteer squash, they won't breed true so good luck figuring out what they are.
I recently learned that planting an avocado seed from one from the supermarket won't give you an avocado tree of the same variety as you bought, because of the grafting! Fascinating!Alatariel75 wrote: »I (foolishly) planted multiple zucchini plants and have the happiest veggie garden I have ever had this year! I'm inundated! Good thing I'm inventive, and love zucchini!
I also have an enormous amount of Tomatillos growing, I think I'm going to be canning a lot of salsa verde!!
Oooo, lucky you (more like clever, industrious you)!
Visions of chilaquiles dance in my head, with tomatillo salsa, roasted sweet corn, black beans and other goodies in the mix. But that's probably not calorie-efficient, is it?
Yum, that sounds amazing! I could definitely make that fit my calories!
I also have radishes (sooo much better fresh from the garden), cucumbers, cucamelons, eggplant and tomatoes! I love my garden this year!3 -
@SafariGalNYC, I haven't seen that squash around here yet, but I love Winter squash. If you feel inclined, could you let us know how you like that one after you try it, maybe a mini-review?
Still my all-time favorite so far is an heirloom called Georgia Candy Roaster, banana-shaped, pale orange skin (sometimes with a bit of tan), huge - like 18" long or so, maybe 10 cups-ish once roasted and smashed. It's not (despite the name) crazy sweet, but very meaty, moist but not excess juice when roasted, rich flavor, with especially large seeds that are great for roasting.
It's not a long keeper, but I try to buy several in Fall to roast and freeze, usually around 25 2-cup freezer bowls. I've mostly only seen it in farmers markets, rarely in a few small stores that buy produce locally. I blew it this Fall because other parts of life got seriously complicated.
That's a normal good-sized kitchen cleaver in there in front of the back (uncut) squash, for scale.
Happy Thanksgiving all! 🍁
Re @AnnPT77 - that Georgia candy squash looks awesome!! I have to look for those!
My MFP produce review- 🤓
The Koginut squash has become one of my favs! When I first opened it, the fragrance was like a cross between a watermelon and papaya.
So I baked the koginut squash for 45 min at 400 - the texture is more velvety than butternut. It carmelized a bit more than the butternut I also had roasting. Perhaps it has more sugar?
Butternut I find has a very mild taste, I thought the Koginut was more complex and slightly fruity. Really nice. A keeper at our house!
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Alatariel75 wrote: »Alatariel75 wrote: »I (foolishly) planted multiple zucchini plants and have the happiest veggie garden I have ever had this year! I'm inundated! Good thing I'm inventive, and love zucchini!
I also have an enormous amount of Tomatillos growing, I think I'm going to be canning a lot of salsa verde!!
Keep your eyes open; you'll almost certainly have volunteer tomatillos next year. Perhaps for several years! If you have volunteer squash, they won't breed true so good luck figuring out what they are.
I recently learned that planting an avocado seed from one from the supermarket won't give you an avocado tree of the same variety as you bought, because of the grafting! Fascinating!
It wouldn't be ~from~ grafting, but if avocados don't breed true, then you have to graft them to get the fruit you want. When you graft, you take a piece of scion and graft it on to a root stock (or onto a branch). What you get from grafting is the advantage of one root system with the branch qualities of the scion. Apples work the same way. To plant a particular variety of apple, you graft the scion of the apple you want onto some rootstock that may be resistant to some disease and also defines the size of the tree.
However, like a squash, they don't breed true. An apple seed will not propagate a tree that grows the same kind of apples as that fruit came from. We had a squash plant once that we thought was some weird zucchini. It turned out to be some weird winter squash kind of thing. It was tasty enough, but we never really figured out the best way to cook it.
I didn't realize that avocados don't breed true. Of course I can't grow avocados here; they aren't hardy enough in the cold. Heirloom tomatoes breed true. Hybrid tomatoes don't.
Aint plants fun?
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@SafariGalNYC, thank you for the detailed review (with photos, even)! The Koginut squash sounds really intriguing, different from the pack: I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for it here, so I can try it. Looks/sounds yum!2
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Still my all-time favorite so far is an heirloom called Georgia Candy Roaster, banana-shaped, pale orange skin (sometimes with a bit of tan), huge - like 18" long or so, maybe 10 cups-ish once roasted and smashed. It's not (despite the name) crazy sweet, but very meaty, moist but not excess juice when roasted, rich flavor, with especially large seeds that are great for roasting.
I just came on here to post about this Ann. I've seen you post about it a few times and I happened to see seeds for "North Georgia Candy Roaster" from my seed supplier so I bought them and grew them this year, in the UK!
I got one ENORMOUS plant and two stragglers (not a good year for my garden) which yielded 4 squash, the biggest weighing in at 12.8lbs!
I just cooked the first one up and made squash porridge with barley groats, and it is delicious. Looking forward to roasting some seeds as well but I am saving plenty to plant next year as I can see this being a stable crop in my garden. Thanking you for the recommendations.
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@FeatheredEmpress . . . oooo! Squash envy!
I'm glad you enjoyed your squash after all that work.
As you might guess from their size, the seeds take longer - usually much longer - to roast than what generic recipes on the web suggest. I like to roast them with some popcorn salt and a good-tasting chili powder, but plain would be good, too. I don't remember how long I actually did roast the last batch . . . I'm afraid I have a poor memory for numbers. I usually just start a little longer than the standard recipes, then taste-test periodically (making sure they're not too hot going into my mouth!) until they're the way I like.
I've only roasted in the oven, haven't tried air fryer or any other method. (I don't have an air fryer.
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@FeatheredEmpress . . . oooo! Squash envy!
I'm glad you enjoyed your squash after all that work.
As you might guess from their size, the seeds take longer - usually much longer - to roast than what generic recipes on the web suggest. I like to roast them with some popcorn salt and a good-tasting chili powder, but plain would be good, too. I don't remember how long I actually did roast the last batch . . . I'm afraid I have a poor memory for numbers. I usually just start a little longer than the standard recipes, then taste-test periodically (making sure they're not too hot going into my mouth!) until they're the way I like.
I've only roasted in the oven, haven't tried air fryer or any other method. (I don't have an air fryer. )
Do you lower the temperature or just increase the time? I'm worried about burning the outside and not having the inside crispy. I'll be trying them in my Instant Pot air fryer as I begrudge turning the oven on just to roast a handful of seeds.
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FeatheredEmpress wrote: »@FeatheredEmpress . . . oooo! Squash envy!
I'm glad you enjoyed your squash after all that work.
As you might guess from their size, the seeds take longer - usually much longer - to roast than what generic recipes on the web suggest. I like to roast them with some popcorn salt and a good-tasting chili powder, but plain would be good, too. I don't remember how long I actually did roast the last batch . . . I'm afraid I have a poor memory for numbers. I usually just start a little longer than the standard recipes, then taste-test periodically (making sure they're not too hot going into my mouth!) until they're the way I like.
I've only roasted in the oven, haven't tried air fryer or any other method. (I don't have an air fryer. )
Do you lower the temperature or just increase the time? I'm worried about burning the outside and not having the inside crispy. I'll be trying them in my Instant Pot air fryer as I begrudge turning the oven on just to roast a handful of seeds.
In the oven, I just increase the time.
I hear you about the oven and small batches. If I had an air fryer I'd probably experiment. Since with those squash I'm usually roasting 2 at a time - all I can fit in my oven - I usually have at least one full cookie sheet of seeds anyway.
I roast the seeds in a single layer for best results, which may not be necessary in the air fryer - I dunno. There may be air fryer recipes on the web for it that would give hints. I still think they'd need more roasting than the standard seeds, because they're so big and plump.
They're annoying to fully separate from the residual pulp, but IMO worth the effort.
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@AnnPT77
I saw a Georgia Candy Roaster squash in my co-op. I thought about buying it, but I was on foot and didn't have a backpack. The thing weighed over eight pounds. I'm tempted, but that's an awful lot of squash if for some reason it's not to my liking. I'm not a huge fan of Hubbard, and I bet they are similar.0 -
My tomatillos are starting to ripen and I'm so excited to start making and canning salsa verde... good thing I'm excited because I have a LOT of tomatillos LOL.
My garden is still producing zucchinis, cucumbers, so many cherry tomatoes I'm swimming in them, radishes and my French carrots are starting to approach harvest!5 -
@Alaterial, I have seasonal produce envy: It's full Winter here, snow on the ground and temps this past week down to around 10 F/-18 C. Local farmers - or truly dedicated home gardeners - may still have some of the hardier greens like kale holding steady in hoop houses or similar, and possibly some root crops like parsnips still in-ground under a heavy layer of straw or other mulch. But mostly, what you're harvesting so wonderfully now was July/August joy here, and now it's time for eating what we canned/froze, sprouting some seeds, bring out the keeper varieties of some things from the root cellar kind of storage.
Enjoy those yummy goodies that are in-season!3 -
@Alaterial, I have seasonal produce envy: It's full Winter here, snow on the ground and temps this past week down to around 10 F/-18 C. Local farmers - or truly dedicated home gardeners - may still have some of the hardier greens like kale holding steady in hoop houses or similar, and possibly some root crops like parsnips still in-ground under a heavy layer of straw or other mulch. But mostly, what you're harvesting so wonderfully now was July/August joy here, and now it's time for eating what we canned/froze, sprouting some seeds, bring out the keeper varieties of some things from the root cellar kind of storage.
Enjoy those yummy goodies that are in-season!
I kind of feel bad posting my bounty when I know so many people are snowed under haha! I admit, I do love living somewhere where even in winter my garden produces, just different things!
This year I planted something I'd never had before, tromboncino squash! It's amazing, I've never seen it in stores, but when it's young and green it's like zucchini, and if you leave it on the vine it turns orangy brown and becomes like butternut squash. I had some baked yesterday and it really does taste like a mix between the two, delicious!!
They grown huge, too - Here's yesterday's harvest, with one of my regular zucchinis for comparison:
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Ooo, @Alaterial, those look interesting!1
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