The bitter melon have reached record sizes in the victory garden. Each one is about 12 inches long with a shorty coming in at 7 inches. I think this plant produces the coolest looking fruit. The skinny vines of the plant and the round bulbous green warts lining the outer surface of the fruit are two markers of how different this plant looks in and out of the garden. When cooking this delectable fruit, my family stuffs the long green spiky bodies with a mixture of meat, veggies, rice noodles, fish sauce and additional seasonings and submerges them into a broth to cook. The melon cooks and bobs into a soup bitter from the fruit yet sweet from the meat. We also pop the stuffed bodies into the freezer for winter time munchies. Warm bitter melon soup is good on cold days.
Another culinary triumph has swept through the victory garden. During the 2009 season, my family canned a variety of pizza and pasta sauces made with ingredients only found in our garden. That season brought us "The Great Tomato Harvest" and we did not have enough time to eat and give away all of the tomatoes. Needless to say we canned many jars of sauce that season. Flash forward to this week. As I was rummaging through the pantry I found the last jar of Morrison Victory Garden 2009 pasta sauce. I took this discovery has an opportunity to create a spaghetti sauce made from only ingredients from the victory garden. I grabbed the jar, popped it open, and poured the pasta sauce into a large deep skillet. I then picked, washed, chopped and added the following items from the victory garden: basil, chives, black bell peppers, squash and zucchini. I let the entire mixture of sauce, veggies and herbs simmer down to a thick mass of goodness. I placed cooked noodles on a plate, dumped a spoon full of veggie pasta sauce on top of the noodles, sprinkled the mound with Parmesan cheese and accented the dish with a long toasty piece of garlic bread. TA DA! You have a spaghetti dinner with sauce made from the victory garden... mmmmm!
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