Friday, July 26, 2013

Potato and bean salad with New Zealand spinach


Ok, I admit it, I love a nice vinegary potato salad. I know I wrote about new potato salad earlier this  month, but this is another twist on the recipe, and salads have been my go-to thing to eat during this endless month of heat.
Anyway, I'm writing about potato salad again because I harvested the rest of my my blue potatoes last week, since the foliage had died back completely. They were one of the first crops I planted, way back on April 4th.
 The yield was a bit less than last year. According to my research this is due to all our wet, hot weather-- apparently  potatoes are stressed by being too wet for too long.
After I put  some medium tubers aside in the crisper for next year's crop I had about 15 pounds from 2 lbs of seed pots, half mine, half from H Depot. I am going to harvest the Yukon Gold  and fingerlings next week -- the foliage has died back indicating that they are ready. I still have a couple of healthy patches of Russet pots, so I hope I get decent yield over all.
To make the salad I boiled some small blues and a mix of Burgundy and Dragon Tongue beans, then diced  half of a Candy onion  and mixed it with the warm pots and beans.  I dressed them in olive oil, red wine vinegar, a bit of grain mustard, salt and pepper. Then I ate the salad over a bed of New Zealand Spinach-- a new crop for me, and an excellent substitute for spinach. I added a slab of feta and it was delicious!

Here is the potato harvest:
And the salad:


Sunday, July 21, 2013

First trombone squash fruit/flower of the summer!

I got my squash in a bit late, so it's just starting to produce fruit. The trombone squash vine has been growing a foot a day during the recent heat wave. Here's a pic of the first squash of the season, flower still attached: