some stuff we grew (the update on our other child)

There's a movie below of Anna sorting the food. Richard dug those up on sunday for our roast. Those are some monster potatoes! There's also some beets and carrots in there, both of which did very well this year.
We've already eaten 1 squash and have 1 in the fridge, that totals 11 spagetti squash from one plant! Wow. that was prolific! Hopefully I still like it 10 weeks from now. Our basil did very well this year (all 30+ plants of it). I think I made about 20 batches of pesto to freeze (which is 3 cups basil each). I loooooove pesto. This is our first year actually having tomatoes! However beautiful those romas are, they are mushy and nasty. But they did make some good tomato sauce - and anna eats 3 or 4 each day with meals and as snacks. Crazy girl. What you can't see in the pic is our eggplant - i think we got a total of like 7 or something. It's really good. We like the "black beauty" variety. So anyways, here's some recipes for what we made with our harvest if you are interested.


Pesto!
3 cups packed basil leaves
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup toasted almonds (pine nuts are called for - but I'm not shell'n out 13$/#)
1/4 tsp salt
Food process it all and freeze! (or eat right away)

Eggplant Parmesan
2 eggplant (ours were small, so I used 4)
4 eggs whipped
enough bread crumbs (I used like 1/2 cup crumbs, 1/2 cup ww flour and 1/2 cup cornmeal) - you might need more depending on how much eggplant you have
29 oz pasta sauce (or just enough of home-made to cover)
parmesan cheese
mozerella cheese

slice eggplant 1/4 inch thick
dip in egg - then in bread crumbs
place on cookie sheet covered in foil and bake at 350 20-30 minutes until browned
put a layer of pasta sauce on bottom of pan
layer of eggplant (if you only have 1 its okay if they don't touch - last night I had a ton, so they were right next to eachother - it doesn't really matter)
sprinkle on parmesan cheese (enough to touch each piece of eggplant)
cover with thin layer of sauce
Put down another layer of eggplant
Sprinkle with parmesan.
layer of sauce
continue until all epplant is used up ending with sauce
then top with mozzerella cheese (to your liking - it is richard cooking then like 4 cups - but I used about 1 cup last night and it was perfect)

Tomato Sauce
10 cups peeled tomatoes (i use it all but the stem)
3 T EVOO
2 medium onions
4 cloves garlic
1 T fresh basil
1 T fresh oregano
1 T fresh thyme (so cool that we have all 3 of these in the garden!)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar

Blend the tomatoes.
Chop onions, cook in oil (medium - low year) until clear. Add garlic. Cook until fragrant, don't let it burn or brown. Add fresh herbs (i just chop them in food processor). Stir in tomatoes and cook down until you like the thickness (took about 5 hours for me). Stir in salt, peper and sugar. Freeze or use within 2-3 days.