Backyard Grocery

Our early fall harvest so far has been amazing. Rick planted green beans in September, not really expecting anything from them. Fifteen pounds of beans later (not exaggerating), we still have more coming in every day. They are huge and delicious. I found Happy Dawg pulling some off the lowest vine today; she was very pleased.

Acorn squash, beans, pork, and leeks—all local and seasonal.

So, what to do with an abundant harvest? Make a nice dinner. I had a pork loin from the Maple Avenue Market and an acorn squash from the SMART farmer’s market (which I love, by the way). I thought both would go nicely with the beans and leeks I harvested.

I really didn’t do anything fancy to prepare this early autumn dinner. This is in part because I was tired and hungry when it came time to make it! And it was in part because when I have such good and fresh ingredients, I don’t feel a need to get fancy. I prepared each item the following way:

• Pork cut into medallions, seasoned with salt and pepper, and pan fried in grape seed oil.
• Leeks sliced and sauted in pan after I took the pork out of it.
• Pumpkin, sliced in half, roasted, and seasoned with salt and pepper.
• Green beans sauted in olive oil and tumeric.

Ta da…dinner!

I can’t wait to see what the following weeks bring to the garden. We got our greenhouse up today, so our spinach and other greens should be very happy in the coming weeks. My celery root is getting big. I’m not sure when to harvest it; it’s usually in season in the winter, so I’m going to keep it in the ground as long as I can and hope the bulbs get really big. This is our second year with the big garden plot and we are having a blast experimenting. What’s growing in your garden this fall?