Garden Harvest & Carrot-Cashew Curry, YUM!

This past Labor Day we completed our second large garden harvest. We harvest a little something every day, but this was our second big harvest of root crops. We are going to try storing the beets and turnips in our pseudo root cellar - the crawl space. I think we will plow through the carrots and potatoes right quick and so storage is not really an issue.

Steve was our carrot harvester. In the front of this bed, we've already planted our second sowing of carrots for a late fall harvest.


We planted some potatoes at the last minute due to the gift of some sprouted potatoes from a friend and we are so glad we did! Check out these bad boys!

From the 3 sister's garden, I harvested a good number of sweet dumpling squash. We love this little squash so much and are so excited for the curing period to end so we can dig into this deliciously sweet squash.


Here's a not-so-hot photo of our haul for the day, but it at least gives an idea of the amount of food we harvested. I am continually amazed by what a few seeds popped into the ground offer us. Pictured: carrots, beet, turnips, potatoes, onions, tomatoes and a random Indian corn.


With all this homegrown produce we are always searching for new recipes. Last night we made Carrot-Cashew Curry from Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest and oh my, we both were thrilled - even proclaiming this soup to be one of our most favorites! We had no idea it would be this good and so did not document the cooking process, but I thought I would share the recipe with our deletions and additions and a photo of our leftovers. Sorry - we gobbled our beautiful prepared bowl right down before we thought otherwise.

Carrot-Cashew Curry Recipe

Preliminary: Put up some rice to cook before you begin. Use 3 cups water to 2 cups rice. Bring to a boil together, cover, and turn heat to very low. White rice (plain or basmati) will be done 20 minutes later. Brown rice (plain or basmati) will be done 40-45 minutes later. (We used sweet black rice.)

1 tbsp canola or peanut oil (we used canola)
1 tbsp grated fresh ginger (we used 1 tsp ground ginger)
1 tsp mustard seeds (we used 1 tsp ground mustard)
1 tsp dill seeds (we used 1 tsp dill weed)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp turmeric
2 cups sliced red onion (we used our Valencias)
4 large cloves garlic, minced (omitted)
2 tsp salt
2 medium-sized potatoes, thinly sliced (we used 3)
5 large carrots, thinly sliced
2 cups orange juice
1/4 tsp cayenne (omitted)
1 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced (omitted)
1 cup yogurt
1 1/2 cups toasted cashews

1 - Heat a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven. Add oil, ginger, mustard seeds, and dill seeds, and saute over medium heat for 3-5 minutes, or until the seeds begin to pop. (We skipped over Step 1 since we used dry spices.)

2 - Add the remaining spices, and the onion, garlic, salt, potatoes, and carrots. Saute for another 5 minutes, then add the orange juice. Cover, turn the heat to medium-low, and simmer until the potatoes are tender (~15 minutes).

3 - Add cayenne and bell pepper. Cover and let stew another few minutes, until the peppers are just barely cooked. (At this point it can be set aside until shortly before serving time.) (We skipped this step since we did not use any peppers.)

4 - Heat the curry just before serving, stirring in the yogurt at the very last minute. Serve over rice, topped with cashews, with Chutney and Raita. (We did not make these last dishes and I am not including the recipes for these sides, so check out her book if you want those.)

Sweet Black Rice -

Carrot Curry Mix -

Toasted Cashew Topping -

ENJOY!