Garden: Still going

Mid-week, while picking more tomatoes, I spotted a perfect little bok choy bunch in the garden and told DH we'd have that for supper on Friday. So last evening when he went out in the rain to harvest it, I thought I'd just make a quick side dish to go with the defrosting chicken breasts. But when he came in with a handful of tender young green beans and a couple of yellow squash, too, I quickly chopped up the chicken and threw it in a bowl with some seasonings to marinate while I sliced a few Egyptian onions and scrubbed the potatoes. A meat and veg stir fry seemed like the best use of the available produce.

It took me about 20 minutes to get the vegetables prepped and the potatoes cooking. In less than 40 minutes from the time he walked in the door with the fresh garden produce it was on the table and we were sitting down to eat. We had crushed new potatoes instead of rice along with the chicken-bok choy-squash-green beans-and-onion stir fry. And sliced tomatoes, because we always have sliced tomatoes on the table when they're ripe from the garden.

With the rain still coming down today, we'll have more tomatoes, tomatillos, squash and green beans right up till frost. And the lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, kale, beets, turnips and cabbage should continue till the real cold weather sets in or beyond. Our potato onions from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange arrived this week and they'll go in the ground soon. Though the Egyptian or walking onions stay in the garden year-round, I'm looking forward to trying the potato onions as they're more like a globe onion than a green onion and with careful stewardship will multiply and be able to provide for most of our onion needs within a few years.

The marinade I mixed up was a blend of soy sauce, cornstarch, gingerroot, garlic, sesame oil, oyster sauce, balsamic vinegar and sugar that I use for chicken or pork.

Stir fry sauce

1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 to 2 teaspoons gingerroot, grated
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 to 2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/8 to 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 to 2 teaspoons sugar

Mix all ingredients together and add meat. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes or up to 30 minutes. Drain before cooking.

If I don't have fresh ginger I use refrigerated gingerroot I've preserved in sherry. And sometimes I use sherry instead of balsamic vinegar but I first started using the vinegar because it's a pantry staple here and sherry isn't always at hand.