Our harvest season begins in the next few days with our Southwest Gold beans! Whether it is Friday or Monday, we're finishing up the final details to prep before we start pulling beans. We're waiting on the last bits of the plants to fully dry out from actively green growth, something that seemingly takes forever when 90% of the plant is dried out. If we don't wait, we will lose beans that can still mature into dried beans. Green plant matter also has a tendency to clog up the bean thresher while we clean the beans, making it a high priority not to pull beans until the whole plant is dried.
After we get these first Southwest Gold beans pulled, we will head over to the Tiger's Eye beans. Generally our first bean out of the ground, the Tiger's Eye also have an unfortunate tendency to "shatter", meaning that the pods will break open and drop the dried mature beans a bit earlier than ideal. I have definitely crawled through the Tiger's Eye field on my hands and knees trying to find every last bean that fell before we got them over to the thresher. I have a hard time leaving behind something we put so much effort into growing.
If everything goes according to plan, we might even be able to use our new bean cleaner towards the end of next week! This new machine is the final step in cleaning beans that sorts out split beans, dirt clods, any plant material, and also under or over sized beans. With this machine, we get to avoid sending our beans to a different facility to be sorted, can clean on our time, and will hopefully have beans ready a bit faster - I'm hopeful for October!
How to Savor Summer Corn
By mid-August, I'm always lamenting that I haven't eaten enough corn yet this year. But it's also when corn is actually starting to come into season. To make sure you don't miss peak corn season this year, here's three recipes that highlight corn and also some of our chiles...
Esquites Flatbread: I made this last night in an attempt to clear out a few things in the freezer that included some frozen corn (always at peak flavor!), an old ball of pizza dough, and a random container of frozen chorizo. It was the exact amount of effort I wanted to put into making dinner. The recipe calls for Guajillo chile powder and we packed up the last little bit that we had on hand this morning and have about 40 jars for sale.
Corn on the Cob with Chile Lime Honey Butter: From my days of working at the Boonville Hotel, honey butter with a bit of chile and lime hits all the flavor notes of savory, sweet, and spicy. Use whatever chile you feel like going for!
Grilled Chicken Salad with Cilantro Lime Salad: Smitten Kitchen is a great place to head to when you are looking for dinner inspiration. My friend Lindsay used this dressing on a summer bean salad and sent over the recipe, but the grilled corn in here looks too good to pass up. It calls for chili powder to season the chicken thighs and I would recommend Smoky Piment d'Ville or Comapeño chile powder.
