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Corn, Carrots & Cake

Green Spaces

I’ve been slowly working at finishing out the garden. This process always takes much longer than setting up the garden. Just planting seeds (as if it were that easy) goes fairly quickly: throw the seeds in the ground, add water, and wait. (Let’s ignore weeding.) Digging root crops, cleaning off the dirt residue, and storing them isn’t so quick. Then there are the above-ground crops that require more prepping for long-term storage. Whether you can, freeze, or dehydrate (or use a combination), it’s time-consuming work.

The last of my corn on the cob kept quite a long time in the fridge, but when it neared the end of its safe-storage capability, I made one final corn salad. This one included tomatoes, a red pepper, red onion, and basil, all of which I also had available. I left the corn raw. The dressing is quite tasty, fits well in my Whole Life Challenge, and will also work with lettuce or other vegetable salads.

Sweet Corn/Tomato Salad

• 8 medium ears corn, cooked, cut from ears

• 1 large red pepper, chopped

• 2 C cherry tomatoes, halved

• 1 small red onion, chopped fine

• 1/4 C basil, coarsely chopped

Dressing

• 1/2 C canola oil

• 1/4 C rice vinegar

• 2 Tbl lime juice

• 1 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp hot pepper sauce

• 1/2 tsp garlic powder

• 1/2 tsp grated lime zest

• 1/4 tsp pepper

Toss salad ingredients together in a large bowl. Whisk dressing ingredients together, pour over salad. Toss gently to coat. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, covered, before serving.

I’ve not been adding the tomatoes until serving as they lose flavor when refrigerated. And I’ve kept the dressing in a cruet and add it right before serving. Now, about that corn salad I wrote about last week, the one with the hot pepper in it: I don’t recommend using a really hot pepper. It continued adding heat the longer the salad sat in the fridge until it was unbearable. I’ve made a note on my recipe card to omit that, or only add a few red pepper flakes!

The fenceposts that held up the solar-powered electric lines have been dug out from the upper side of the garden. I’ll be able to get in there with the garden tractor next spring. The posts that held up the pea fences inside the garden are also down and stored for the winter. I still have to roll up a section (8 lines) of the drip system and get that stored away. All the blankets and tarps that protected the garden when we had those two frosts a couple weeks ago are also back in storage. The garden is starting to look pretty bare.

Most of my carrots are dug. The large ones are brushed off and will be packaged and stored in the extra fridge. They go into old bread sacks (recycling!) with air holes poked through using a sharp pen or pencil at various points. I’ll be enjoying “garden fresh” carrots almost all winter. The very small carrots from the second seeding are still in the ground. I’m hoping they’ll grow larger before the ground freezes solid. But if the deer that have free reign now the fence is down keep munching on those green tops, the carrots won’t have a chance.

I did get a carrot cake made last week. This was a new-to-me recipe, and I quite liked it so I’m sharing. Remember when I grated fresh ginger and froze it in teaspoon-sized lumps? Pulling out two lumps for this cake was so easy. They thaw fast. Does anyone else still have an old Kitchen Magician? I’m not sure if they were “only sold on tv” or not, but I still drag mine out whenever I need to grate lots of carrots. It’s easy to clean up, too.

Ginger Carrot Cake

• 2 C flour

• 2 C sugar

• 2 tsp baking powder

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 4 eggs

• 3 C finely shredded carrots

• 3/4 C cooking oil

• 3/4 C mixed dried fruit bits

• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger (OR 3/4 tsp ground dried)

Oven at 350 degrees. Grease and flour cake pans. Stir dry ingredients together and set aside. Beat eggs. Add carrots, oil, dried fruit, and ginger, mixing well. Add dry ingredients, mixing until smooth. Pour into pans. Bake 30-35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans 10 minutes, then on wire racks.

Frosting

• 2 (3oz) pkgs cream cheese, at room temp

• 1/2 C butter, softened

• 1 Tbl apricot brandy OR orange juice

• 1/2 tsp finely shredded orange peel

• 2 C powdered sugar

• 1 C pecans, toasted, finely chopped - optional

Cream butter and cheese together with brandy or juice. Add orange peel. Gradually add the powdered sugar to spreading consistency. Add more sugar if necessary. Frost cooled cake. Sprinkle with nuts, pressing lightly into frosting.

I only had dried citrus peel, and soaked it in the orange juice while the cake cooled. I wasn’t buying apricot brandy for this single recipe, so I used orange juice. I did add a bit extra orange zest to the frosting. And of course I sprinkled on the toasted ground pecans. (The cake does NOT meet my WLC restrictions, so I’ve only had 2 pieces. They were worth losing a point for each serving).

 

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