Eat What You Sow

Wanting to use several vegetables from the garden yesterday, I decided to stuff a pork tenderloin for dinner, but didn’t know how to butterfly the tenderloin. So, like millions of people everywhere, I googled it, and low and behold, there was a video! I ran out to the garden and picked some swiss chard, sage, squash and green beans. I sautéed the chard with garlic, pine nuts, sage, bread crumbs, and roasted tomatoes (unfortunately I’m still a week or so away from using tomatoes from my garden).

I followed the directions for butterflying the tenderloin, and added the stuffing on top along with a little salt and pepper, and rolled it up. Googling how to tie up the tenderloin, I was again rewarded with a video. This went into a 400º oven for 20 minutes, while I sautéed the squash and green beans (which I had blanched earlier) with a little garlic and salt.

I let the tenderloin rest for about 15 minutes before slicing. A very simple and delicious meal from the garden.

Micro-Farming

Two days away and life on our little micro-farm goes on. We returned home to a broody hen (poor thing, the other hens have really been abusing her; she is missing several wing feathers and walks around puffed up to protect herself from attack) and the collards pretty much decimated from cabbage worms. Although I diligently sprayed every single leaf with a homemade organic concoction—a head of pureed garlic and Cheyenne pepper—it didn’t work. I took great pleasure in picking them off and feeding them to the hens. Guess I’ll just have to continue this morning ritual if I’m to have any hope at all of eating collards from my garden this fall.


We also returned to small green tomatoes, green beans, tiny little eggplants, out-of-control zucchini, onions practically bursting from the soil, and a few pickling cucumbers.