There's something in the air around here. I've been on an Asian kick for the past week. Sushi, stir fries, sweet-and-sour - I just can't get enough of it! Two of my Asian favorites are sweet-and-sour eggplant, and peanut sauce with stir-fried peppers and water chestnuts.

Sweet-and-Sour Eggplant

Here in Montana, I had to leave most of my eggplant in the garden as long as I could. It just doesn't get hot enough here to grow bumper crops of eggplant, but I'm pleased to say that the season closed with the harvest of a few beauties. My college friend Ambrose gave me this eggplant recipe years ago, and it's fantastic.

• 3-4 eggplants, small dice


• 1/2 cup peanut oil


• 1/2 cup ginger root (about 1 medium/small piece), small dice


• 1/4 cup garlic (about 1 medium/small bulb), small dice


• 1/8 cup sesame oil


• 1/2 cup soy sauce


• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar

Directions: Saute eggplant in peanut oil until brown (can't really overcook). Set aside to cool. Saute garlic and ginger in sesame oil until slightly caramelized. Add the rest of the ingredients and cook over low heat for 3 min. Mix with eggplant and let sit for at least an hour. Serve hot or cold.

This stuff is delicious over rice or noodles, but my favorite is with pita bread triangles toasted in the oven. That's the best kitchen tip I've got: Dress up any dip or dish with toasted pita triangles. They're easy prep and much prettier than your standard dipping chip.

Peanut Sauce with Stir-Fried Peppers and Water Chestnuts

I learned of this peanut sauce recipe while hiking in the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness a few years ago. Someone on the trip brought a plastic jar of this stuff on the trail, and after a day of hard hiking, I thought this was the best sauce I'd ever eaten. I don't know if you're familiar with the phenomenon where food tastes better when you're tired, in the middle of the woods, and without a variety of resource, but this sauce has nothing to do with that. It was just as good when I tried it at home, and I got to eat twice as much because I didn't have to share.

• 1/2 cup peanut butter


• 1/2 cup warm water


• 2 Tbsp tamari


• 2 Tbsp sugar


• 1 tsp rice vinegar (or other white vinegar)


• 3 cloves garlic, chopped


• 1 inch slice of ginger root, grated or chopped


• cilantro, cayenne, and salt, to taste

The original directions suggest that you mix the peanut butter with warm water first, but I like to mix the warm water with all of the other ingredients, mix in the peanut butter, and then add extra water to taste. If you have time, letting the sauce sit before serving allows all the flavors to mix nicely.

Stir-fry whatever you can find in your garden. It's been cold around here, and my pickings are pretty slim. I was able to round up a few peppers for this, but there wasn't much else that hasn't been canned or frozen (some by me, and some by the frost!). The peanut sauce really takes front and center with this dish, so you can slip in whatever veggies you like.

A cool wind "burnt" all my remaining basil to a brown yucky crisp one recent evening, which was frustrating and sad to see. The edges of the pumpkin runners were tinged with yellow and curley. The end of the season is upon us- this means the night winds are dancing on the 32 degree border.


Zucchini bread, here I come!

Therefore, I'm harvesting like mad. Tomatoes need to all come in off the vines before they are destroyed, the remaining zuchini and yellow crook-neck all got pulled inside, and the pumpkins are done. The potatoes could wait, but if the above-ground plants get too withered and crisped, sometimes the dog will knock them off and then we can't recall where we planted them, which makes harvesting them a nightmare. So better to get them out of the ground, too, instead of digging 27 random holes to find 8 potato plants.


The hanging pumpkin's final moment of glory.

But these last weeks of summer, I realize, are not about me. They are about the local farmers at the market. They are desperate to sell their produce, and it is beautiful like nothing I could ever grow. Flawlessly smooth organically grown eggplants, hundreds of pounds of heirloom tomatoes, bushels of basil, crates and crates of unbelievably beautiful bell peppers. I want to cry as I walk through the market. This is what I could grow if I was smarter, had more time, better educated in the ways of vegetables. Mere mortals, surely, but they are like food superheroes to me.


Someday I will be reincarnated as a successful eggplant and pepper grower. Until then, I have the farmer's market.

One unusual thing in Missoula is that a large portion (possibly a majority) of the small-scale farmers are either first or second generation Mung refugees. This is an ethic group displaced in part by the Vietnam War, as I understand it, and resettled in small cities around the US. Now, I can't be sure of this, but I really doubt that the highlands of Laos bear any horticultural resemblance to Western Montana. So not only are the farmers unapologetically brilliant at growing amazing produce, they are also self-taught! They aren't even benefiting from generations of living with our fickle climate, rocky soils, and hordes of pocket gophers. They are just geniuses of the soil. It isn't fair. I want to be them.


I should stick with pumpkins. I'm a New Englander by birth - my people can do pumpkins.

This was underlined in a moment of self-pity as I picked up a huge rubber-banded bouquet of basil. I stared at it in awe. My basil was dead, shriveled, and depressing to think about. A petite man with a thick accent told me it was $2. I asked, "How can you grow such a nice basil plant at this time of year? Mine all died!" He smiled widely and seemed to laugh at me. "Can't grow basil here. Need a greenhouse."

I guess know I need a greenhouse. Why did he have to rub it in? But he doesn't know that after buying 12 basil starts that were killed by a late frost, and then 12 more to replace those, I failed to harvest enough to make a single batch of pesto. He doesn't know that instead, I ended up buying all the basil that he had to offer in a fit of envy. He shouldn't care about my basil sob story, anyway. He's just glad to make a living, and I understand that.

I hereby resolve to not plant any of the following next year, because it will be too depressing when I go to the market. I will leave these things to the professionals. No bell peppers! No hot peppers! No eggplant! And for god's sake, Leigh, don't get your hopes up with the basil!

Harvest time this year has brought much more produce that we could imagine. It seems like everything I've made in the kitchen lately has been an attempt to maximize the path between the garden and the dinner table - I must say it's made for some interesting pizza concoctions.


Having a lot more produce has also led to a recent salsa experiment. I've made plenty of fresh salsa before (which I love), but I've never tried any cooked salsa. If I didn't have all these tomatoes, I might have skipped it, but cooked salsa will keep much longer than the fresh stuff. Now that it's done, I plan on eating salsa from the garden throughout the winter. I also plan on using up many of those mystery peppers that came from the assorted pepper mix of seeds!

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil


• 30 or so smaller tomatoes


• 2 green peppers


• Assorted peppers (hot and otherwise)


• 1 large onion


• 1/4 cup vinegar


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 3 tablespoons of salt


• 4 cloves of garlic

Chop/dice all the veggies. Sautee onions and peppers with the garlic. Combine with the tomatoes, sugar, and vinegar in a large pot. Simmer anywhere from ten minutes to a half hour to thicken the salsa and let the flavors mix. Salt to taste, and enjoy!

There are all kinds of fun variations you can do with cooked salsa. You can add corn, beans, apples... it's up to you and your garden!