Transitioning to winter meals

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get. I now know exactly what that means.  Lately I've been too busy to sit down at my computer to write my regular posts, and I do have some things to write about.  In the meantime the weather has changed drastically, making all that I have to tell you about the garden old news. But, I'm just not ready to give it up.  Some things you have to do in order, so I will continue to tell the of the aging of our garden and our transition to a winter diet.

  Any of you who have been regular readers know by now that my M.O. is to wander through my garden until I receive divine inspiration regarding what to cook for dinner. That approach has worked so well for me this summer, although in recent weeks the pickings have been slim, indeed.  I have fought many an internal battle about food planning.  For months I have made trips to the grocer only when milk, flour, or some other essential was needed. Now I'm facing the need to plan and shop.  What a drag. Well, only if that's what I tell myself.  Finally I have taken on the challenge.  And, really, once I got started, it wasn't so bad.  It's true that we can still eat well in the winter.

Last week I finally spent a day drinking tea and pouring over some of my favorite cookbooks.  I organized myself, made a list of about 25 meals I wanted to make, sorted out some for the first week, and made a shopping list.  The following day I shopped.  Since then we have been eating, mostly according to plan, vegetables still provided by the garden, but supplanted by the grocer.

We still have very nice salad greens, carrots, leeks, and a few tomatoes that were picked when still green and have been slowly ripening in the house.  We also have cabbage and brussels sprouts.  For this meal I combined our lovely greens with gently blanched carrots from the garden, our tomatoes, hard cooked eggs from a friend, and Oregon-caught tuna for a  Salad Nicoise.  I tossed the greens with a vinaigrette and topped the tuna with a dab of dilled mayonnaise.  A few slices of fresh bread and a glass of red wine made a very nice meal.  November 11th, our very last summer-like dinner.

It's all about lettuce - we're definitely in the green now. Reyn first planted lettuce seeds on February 11th, then followed with a second planting three weeks later.  When it was time to transplant the seedlings, the first batch went directly into the garden, while the second planting went in the ground - but, within the cold-frame.  At the time we were experiencing unusually mild weather.  Well, that didn't last long and we have now been blessed with a typical long, wet, cool Oregon spring.  The seedling which were planted in the garden spent weeks hunkered down in survival mode, while the plants under the protection of the cold-frame basked in the warmth and put all their energy into large, lush, delicate leaves.  We ate our first salad on May 5th and have been enjoying an abundance of greens since then. We have been surprised and delighted by the size and tenderness of the leaves.  While they taste like baby lettuce leaves, they are huge.

We are happy to begin settling in to our preferred mode of meal preparation, which begins with a trip to the garden.  It is truly a gift to finish our meal with a salad of greens so fresh that they were in the ground only an hour before.  Tonight we enjoyed a Salad Nicoise on a giant bed of fresh greens.

The salad consisted of a combination of steamed red potatoes, lightly steamed green beans (from the freezer), cubed tomatoes, a few calamata olives, a can of wild, line-caught Oregon Albacore tuna, 2 hard boiled eggs (eggs purchased from a woman at the swimming pool each Monday morning), a garden fresh sliced scallion, a few capers, and a good measure of chopped parsley.  Toss all with a lemon vinaigrette and pile atop a mountain of greens.  Yummm . . . .