Garden Harvest Experiments
What am I going to do with all these radishes?
The temperatures are rising here, and that means the cold weather crops need to get out of the heat and make way for a succession planting of carrots and green beans. Our radishes and arugula have been the Spring garden champions, but they are not liking this heat, so it was time to bring them in, en masse.
Experiment 1: Arugula pesto: I have heard about this for years, and finally made some with our very successful arugula crop. I am the only one who likes arugula and I couldn’t keep up with our harvest. Now it’s getting hot and I need to get the arugula harvested before it bolts. I added the juice of two lemons, garlic, and cashews. Cashews are my go-to for balancing a spicy pesto and for an easy freezable pesto since you aren’t supposed to add the cheese before you freeze it. For the pesto that we are eating now, I added some aged gouda.
Results: Not too spicy and I love the strong lemon flavor. I slathered a lot on hard boiled eggs for a picnic lunch, and later put it on pizza with goat cheese and an egg.
Experiment 2: Radish pickles, using the pickle juice from my kids’ favorite grocery store pickles. I just sliced the radishes 1/8 inch thick, put them in a jar and poured the pickle juice over them. They are stored in the fridge, but I don’t have a guess about how long they will last. I used daikon radishes, which are great for pickling.
Results: The radishes took on the flavor of the pickle juice within an hour, and after 24 hours they had an excellent pickle flavor and are much less spicy. We have been eating them for a week now and and the flavor is a little more watered down - the radishes had a lot of water in them and I think that diluted the pickle juice. Still good as a topping, but not so flavorful on their own. I would do this again, but in smaller quantities for quick eating.
Experiment 3: Fermented radish and carrot slaw. I also have some red radishes that grew too big before we could eat them. I shredded them with two carrots and layered in about 3 tablespoons of salt in the jar along with some garlic, cumin seeds and red pepper flakes.
These are French Breakfast Radishes, not a type often used for fermenting or pickling, but I have pickled small ones in the past with great results. I figured that they even if they were hard at the skin and spongy at the center (because they grew in hot weather and much past their expected harvest size) the shredding and fermenting would make them a good texture.
Results: Delicious! And a good texture. I let them ferment on the counter for 3 days, and now they are going into the fridge to slow down the fermentation process. So far I have eaten it on hot dogs, in sandwiches and on rice bowls. All delicious.
Love pesto, you can do so many different ones. Arugula gives a nice peppery finish. I like to use mint, basil, coriander, thyme, all sorts of herbs; and all kinds of nuts like cashews, sunflower seeds, pine nuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, walnuts or chestnuts. Sometimes also olives. And I vary the cheese: nice with parmesan pecorino, any aged hard cheeses. I always make it fresh so I have never freezed it before. Enjoy!
These are all excellent ideas! For what it's worth, we've frozen pesto with the cheese in it already and not had any trouble or noticeable change in texture. I'm fascinated by the shredded radish ferment! My sister has been making a radish + radish green frittata the last few years, which we often have as our go-to for working through excess from the garden and CSA delivery.