Dinner

Hi folks, Mandi here.

When Jordan is working dayshift, I often cook supper so it's ready when he gets home, which is usually quite late.  Many of you will know that I greatly dislike cooking; for this reason, I prefer to cook simple comfort food.  Thursday was Jordan's first shift for this rotation, and it was decided we'd have something we both grew up with: hamburger gravy.  This meal would also provide the perfect opportunity to check on the potatoes in the garden and the buckets.

At the beginning of June, I had planted a container garden, which is simply planting in buckets or other containers instead of the ground.  I knew we wanted potatoes, and that I'd had some success container planting them the year before, so I went to the local nursery/garden centre, Art Knapp's, and picked out the only heirloom potato they had: Seiglinde.

(Heirloom means that they haven't been cross-bred or genetically modified, and that you can harvest the seeds for planting in the future.)

Thus I knew what potatoes we had in the buckets.  But there were two rows of potatoes in the garden that were mysteries.  Row A, as we'll call them, had been planted before we looked at the house in mid-June, and were a decent size at that point.  Row B had been planted in late June, sometime between doing the inspections and getting possession.  When we got possession on July 5, they had sprouted and were about 8" tall.  We could tell that they were different types of potatoes, as the leaves looked different, but we had no information other than that.

So Thursday night, I eagerly grabbed a spade (the potato fork needs a new handle, which I'll be grabbing from town today) and headed to the garden to see what I could find under those potato plants.

I decided to harvest one plant from the buckets, two from Row B, and one from Row A.  This is what I got:

Clockwise from top left: bucket, Row A, Row B.  The Row B potatoes include the two seed potatoes (the two big ones) - this weren't eaten as they were a bit soft.

As I cleaned them, I was quite pleased with the Seiglindes.  They were beautifully coloured, with the skin being about the same colour as the flesh, and as the tag promised, they were firm and shallow-eyed.

As I cleaned the Row A potatoes, I was surprised to discover that these looked like the Seiglindes as well!  Awesome :)

Row B was a different type of potato.  They had a rough, darker skin, similar to the skin on Russet potatoes.

And when I cut them open, some had purple inside!!

All the potatoes went in to the same pot.  They boiled well, and were easy to mash with butter and milk.  And the verdict is: they tasted delicious!  Much better than any of the yellow-fleshed potatoes we often pay about $1/lb for at the grocery store.  I will definitely be planting more of the Seiglinde potatoes (even if I have to buy the 'seeds' from Art Knapp's again - I think we'll be eating all of these!!).

We got frost last night, so I'll definitely be harvesting the potatoes on Sunday (after I fix the root cellar today).  I'll keep you updated once the harvest is finished.  :)  And for the curious: today's dinner will be slow cooker chicken and rice soup, with carrots from the garden.