This morning's breakfast looked something like this. I'm qualifying this statement because I forgot to put the jam and toast on the table until after I'd snapped the pic. And, oops, the tea was still on the counter. Plus I made Bruce take his plastic salsa container off the table and stand there holding it because the red from the salsa clashed with the pinky-purple of the the flowers (you know how happy he gets when I get all Martha Stewart on him).
Before I get too sidetracked, today's post revolves completely around the diced, fried potatoes that are in that bowl which is hiding behind the plate of bacon.
Earlier in the week, these same potatoes were still nestled in the second raised bed that's in the upper garden. The vines were taking their sweet time dying down and looking more and more raggedy with each passing day, so I decided to hurry the process a little. With a shovel, small hand rake, garden gloves and a glass of wine, I went to work.
I swear, potatoes have got to be my all-time favorite vegetable to harvest. Digging for spuds is sort of a cross between searching for buried treasure and an Easter egg hunt. You carefully dig in the area where a brown vine is coming up...
...and out pops first one potato...
...and then a whole cluster literally tumbles from the earth, as though they're absolutely overjoyed to be out and joining the party at last.
How endearing is that, I ask?
Several hours and two glasses of wine later, I'd harvested all the potatoes from this bed. When I ordered my potatoes this spring, I chose a mix of different varieties from a catalog that specializes in potatoes called Ronniger Potato Farm. I ended up with about 25 pounds of seed potatoes planted in three raised beds.
This bed had three varieties planted in it: German Butterballs in the washtub, dark purple Royal Majesty and the small ones in the foreground are Bintje.
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| The fencing is to keep out the hens |
After I hauled off the potatoes, I tidied up the bed and planted sunflowers in the middle.
Back to the potatoes.
I've already harvested most of my other potatoes, but was waiting to store them until I got this last big batch out of the ground and cured. The problem is that my 25 pounds of seed potatoes turned into over a hundred pounds of eating potatoes. Last year I stored them in the bottom crisper of the refrigerator with good results, but this year I have a lot more and they all won't fit. So I decided to clear out the bottom shelf of the cupboard next to the sink (my crock pot - which gets used, at most, once a year - now lives in the garage).
Today was tucking-in-the-potatoes day. First I sorted the potatoes by variety and put them in baskets which I labeled with cards with the potato names written on them. Then, in a stroke of inspiration, I got the catalog, cut out their pictures and descriptions and taped these on the cards below the names. Finally, in large print, I added how best the potato should be prepared -- boiled, mashed, fried or roasted. So very Martha Stewart!
With no further ado, I give to you: The Frogpond Taters!
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| Yukon Gold |
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| Bintje and Kipfel Fingerling |
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| Purple Majesty |
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| German Butterball (2 baskets) |
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| Purple Viking |
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| Caribe and Yellow Finn |
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| Red La Soda |
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| A mix of mini-tubers for planting next year |
{Thunderous Applause!!!}
After getting everyone's portrait, came the tricky part of cramming all of those baskets into one small cupboard. But it was easy -- the baskets just slid into their places, one after the other.
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| One |
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| Two |
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| Three |
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Fry up four eggs from our Frogpond hens |
And that was that.
Then it was time for breakfast.
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Dice up a Purple Majesty and Several Bintjes |
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Sautee in olive oil |
And there you go. Breakfast!
(And it only took six months to get the ingredients together...)
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