URBAN GARDENS: Late Summer / Autumn

I've put my green fingers back to work in my latest Urban Gardens trilogy, this time focusing on planting for late summer/autumn. With the help of my neighbour/gardening guru, Erica we learned how to get the soil ready as well as what to plant at this time of year. The trilogy shows the before, during and after proving how easy it is for you guys to start your own urban garden. Clearly if I can do this anyone can!

Urban Gardens - Transplanting a Plumeria Tree

This is our next installment of our Urban Gardens series. We've been busy all summer shooting with our neighbour Erica, the gardening guru, so we're putting those together right now but here's a taste of what we've been up to.

Our neighbour Erica has been an avid gardener for longer than I've been around here. She's grown everything from artichokes to corn to tomatoes and so on. But this time something clicked and I found myself wandering over there to take a gander at what she was up to. It was brilliant. She had lettuce, cabbage, swiss chard, mint, oregano, carrots...the whole 9 yards. It reminded me of growing up in Ireland, where growing your own veg was the norm. You didn't need a hugh selection maybe some carrots, potatoes and onions. Enough to make soup or an Irish stew.

This got the juices flowing to start blogging on Urban Gardens. Myself and herself try to eat local as much as possible so this idea is right up our alley. And even more surprising, it has spread like wildfire throughout our neighborhood. Erica kindly lent a portion of her garden to our other neighbours Chris and Jen, who have planted even more veg like eggplant, leeks, arugula, beets, pole beans and zucchini. Herself the elf decided to jump on the bandwagon and starting small, she planted some herbs such as cilantro, thyme, oregano and basil. On the other side of us Cristina and Dave are trying their hands at heirloom tomatoes so by summer we should be in good shape to salad party!

The best part about this though is that we're a beach neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA. For those of you at home still shivering, tough! It's great to see the community bonding together over home-grown organic food. I've decided to keep track of the growth spurts in both gardens in hopes of inspiring some of you out there to try your own Urban Garden. I'm going to pass on all the info I get from these two and any of you out there who want to pass on any insights, don't be afraid! Let your inner jolly green giant pop out.

It feels great to be surrounded by these organic veggies (cabbages and all) and my fellow beach foodies.

Check out the video!

ANOTHER FRIDAY DINNER

HEIRLOOM TOMATOES
I got a comment from John who asked for suggestions for heirloom tomatoes, apart from eating them as they are. Since they're still in season right now, I wanted to find out a bit more about them so I headed over to another farmers market yesterday to get the scoop. Apparently there are over 4,000 varieties available worldwide from Greece to Italy to the US, New Zealand and on to Russia. I shit you not. I thought there was only around 400. Heirlooms are open-pollinated, which means the flowers are pollinated by wind or insects. This also means you can save the seeds and they'll produce the next year. Heirloom tomatoes are bred for taste not appearance, which you probably noticed if you've seen some of them. We see the first batch get to the markets around March when the season begins. I got some mixed opinions as to when the season's finished up but it's somewhere between November and January, either way we've got a couple more months to go. The main reason why the season is getting longer is because of global climate change, which as we know affects more than just our tomatoes, but that's a different story altogether.

I came up with a few suggestions other than the usual tomato, mozzarella and basil salad:
Homemade heirloom gazpacho (use different colored tomatoes)
Orzo w/ blistered grape heirlooms, fresh herbs (parsley, mint), mozzarella
BAKED COUS-COUS STUFFED HEIRLOOM
Recipe below Serving suggestion: Pair with grilled paprika dusted tofu and asparagus
4 servings
4 x medium heirloom tomatoes (not too ripe and vary colors for presentation)
2/3 x cup un-cooked cous-cous (2 cups cooked)
1 x cup water or broth (low sodium preferably) I like to control who much salt I use
1 x tsp. salt
1 x lemon, zested
1/2 x red onion, fine dice
1/2 x red pepper, fine dice
2 x tbsp. olive oil
1 x tbsp. fresh basil,chopped
1 x tbsp. fresh parsley, chopped
1 x tbsp. kalamata olives,chopped
2 x tbsp. feta cheese
S&P to taste
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Begin by bringing your salted broth or water to a boil and once ready add cous-cous, cover and remove from heat for allotted cooking time per instructions on box. Make sure you check it so it won't overcook. Saute the onion and peppers in olive oil on medium heat not getting too much color. Once ready set aside in mixing bowl.
Meanwhile, cut tops off your tomatoes and carefully scoop out the center. Keep the insides. Chop and add to your onion pepper mixture. TIP: You can do this ahead of time and keep them in the fridge. I suggest putting some paper towel in the cavity to soak up some of the juice.
Once everything is ready, carefully using a fork, mix your ingredients together. Taste and adjust seasoning as preferred. Gently fill each tomato with your mixture and bake covered for 20-30 minutes. Because all heirlooms are different, the cooking time may vary so when the tomato is soft to the touch you're ready.
You can serve this with any entree or even as an appetizer. Enjoy!

Spuds and lots of them!

Surprise, surprise an Irish guy talking about potatoes. Who'd have thought?
I was at the Santa Monica Farmers market yesterday and met a friend of mine, Denis who works for Weiser Farms. They produce some great sustainable root vegetables, potatoes, carrots, onions.
They have about 10 different varieties all of which have distinct qualities. If you're looking for a mashing potato for instance, the German Butterball is the best along with the French fingerling. A lot of the fingerling varieties are great for roasting as you can roast them whole and they look and taste great. The fingerling potatoes are generally more expensive though, as they have to be hand picked. Check out the Purple Peruvian fingerling and the All Blue for something a little different. Although not related they're similar in color and texture and look great. Sometimes when I do buffets I roast a few different varieties of fingerlings which look brilliant together. I like to keep it simple, especially with great ingredients, just olive oil, S&P and garlic and they're delicious.
The great thing about going to these farmers markets is that the vendors love to talk about their products and it's a great place to learn and see new varieties.
At least we don't have to worry about parking!