Three for the Season

We're at the turn of the seasons now--the summer bounty is fading fast, the fall fruits and vegetables come into their own. If you haven't put up enough tomatoes to last the winter, it's probably too late. This was a tough year for tomatoes here; they grew slowly in the cool summer, and just didn't want to ripen. Boxes of field tomatoes for preserving showed up late, for just a few weeks.

We're ripening three trays of small tomatoes from the garden, yellow gooseberry and red pear. They're very tasty; as they turn their appropriate colors we snag them as snacks. The juicy cooling salads of summer are morphing into salads of sturdier greens, trimmed with carrot and daikon and the last few tomatoes.

Here are some turn-of-the-season recipes.

Last of Summer Pasta Dish

3 frying peppers (mild light green), seeded and chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/2 medium onion, peeled and chopped, or one leek sliced
2 stalks celery
oops too late for the zucchini--omit
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium head broccoli, cut into small flowerets
3 or 4 good-sized tomatoes with a few soft spots
4 oz tomato sauce (optional)
Fresh or dried herbs as available
salt and pepper to taste

Grated parmesan cheese
Freshly cooked pasta, regular or gluten-free

Heat the oil, add the chopped onion, garlic, peppers, and broccoli. Saute over medium heat for 5 minutes or more. Chop the tomatoes, cutting out the spots; don't bother to peel. Add tomatoes to skillet, and tomato sauce if using. Add herbs--maybe 2 tsp mixed fresh herbs such as thyme, oregano, marjoram, or 1 tsp dried, and if you have a little parsley, chop that and throw it in too. Add salt and pepper to taste. Let simmer covered until the tomatoes start to disintegrate and the vegetables are done.

Have the hot pasta drained. Place in bowls, top with sauce, and sprinkle with cheese. Yum.

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Beans and Greens Soup

I'm always careful to soak all beans very well before cooking, even these little guys. Be sure to pick over your beans well, removing bits of dirt or rock, and broken or discolored beans. Then rinse and soak. Don't use salt when cooking dried beans; it toughens them. You can salt them after they are tender.

1 cup navy beans
a little ham or small piece of ham shank, if desired
1/2 medium onion, peeled and chopped fine
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
time......
2 cups chicken broth, vegetable broth, or water
1 lb hardy greens as available: kale, chard, tatsoi (a dark green spoon-shaped green), mustard greens, turnip greens, etc., washed and chopped
8 oz tomato juice or 4 oz tomato sauce
1 large tomato chopped
1 tsp Thai curry paste of your favorite type, or 1 tsp chili flakes
salt and pepper

This is where the time comes in:
Day before, pick over, rinse and soak the beans in water to cover. Next day, drain, add fresh water to cover by 1 inch, ham if you're using it, and chopped onion. NO SALT at this point. Simmer 2 hours or more until beans are tender. Add water as needed to keep it from going dry.

While preparing dinner, heat the beans, add the broth and the chopped greens of your choice, and the tomatoes. Stir in the curry paste, chili paste, or chili flakes to the hotness desired, and salt to taste. If you like, you can throw in some small pasta such as Orzo or alphabets (always fun). Simmer 10 minutes or more, until everything is suitably tender.

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Rhubarb Crisp

We recently got some fall rhubarb, and I made this decadent dessert. It was totally wrong of us to eat the whole pan that night, but we did.

2 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb (frozen is OK too)
1/2 cup sugar, or to taste (you could use Succanat or honey)
1 1/4 cups brown rice flour
1 cup gluten-free oatmeal
8 tbs butter (1/4 lb stick)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup brown sugar (or 1/2 c Succanat and 1 tbs molasses)
1/2 cup slivered almonds

Put the rhubarb in a small pan with water to just cover, and the sugar. Stew gently until it becomes soft.

Mix flour, oats, sugar and salt in bowl. Work in butter with your fingers, until like crumbs. Reserve half of the mixture. Spread the other half in a 8x12 baking dish. Then spread the rhubarb mixture over it as uniformly as possible. Mix the almonds into the reserved crumbs and sprinkle evenly on the top.

Bake at 375 degrees 30-35 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit a few minutes before dishing up. You don't need to top with cream or ice cream, but if you do, I won't tell.