Harvest Monday–25 Feb 2012

 

The garden is under a foot or more of snow with a few inches more on Sunday, so anything from the garden is coming out of the basement or the freezer. Last week I used the next to last red onion from the garden to make Rouladen, a German dish similar to “birds”. The supermarket had some thin sliced sirloin steak featured, which prompted the idea of serving this. The beef was sliced into strips and pounded to make it thinner.

 

A slice of bacon was laid on each strip, the strip slathered with Dijon mustard, and then sprinkled with the chopped red onion from the garden and sweet gherkin pickles.

 

 

The strips were then rolled up and fastened with toothpicks. The Rouladen were browned on all sides and then braised in some beef stock and red wine for about an hour. The juices make a great gravy, rich with mustard, onion and bacon

This Sunday we had roast chicken. I used one of my two remaining  Meyer lemons to flavor it. The lemon zest was blended with butter and dried basil from the garden and inserted under the skin of the breast and the juice dribbled over the chicken. The chicken was then roasted for an hour with mini carrots and asparagus from the store. Spring asparagus is starting to arrive so we enjoy it while it is available. My daughter wanted to make a pumpkin cheesecake, but unfortunately the pureed pumpkin that was defrosted last week to make waffles was moldy, so we resorted to canned pumpkin, which has a totally different and stronger flavor from fresh puree.

To see what gardeners around the world are harvesting from their gardens or freezers, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.