Approaching Autumn

I penned the headline "Approaching Autumn" a few days ago, planning to write about harvest and other joys of a summer-into-fall in Montana.   Then, we got winter!!

Winter weather, via the Montana Department of Transportation's camera at Lost Trail Pass (http://rwis.mdt.mt.gov/scanweb/losttrail.shtml) -- 40 miles south of us and 3,400 feet higher, in mountains on the Montana/Idaho border.

Luckily, in the valley we're getting precipitation as much-needed rain, or as I wrote a friend last night: "There's snow on the mountain tops and rain in the valley. Wildfires are out. Life is good."

This is how I meant to start the post.  We're learning that our gardening season in Montana starts late, in June to be safe, and red -- red-leaf lettuce, fat red strawberries and eventually blood-red raspberries. And it ends with red,  in the form of a bumper crop (this year) of fat, red tomatoes, hot red peppers and red-skinned apples from local orchards as well as from crab apple trees in the neighbors' yards.  For us, the raspberries have been stars; they showed up on our inherited brambles in late June and early July. They were juicy and flavorful. We picked colanders full.

One raspberry collection, ready for making into sauce...

...Two cups of raspberries zizzed (my husband's word) in the blender with 1/2 cup sugar and 1/4 cup water, then boiled for 3 minutes, cooled and chilled. Serve over chocolate ice cream and your guests go silent, scraping sides of their cups for every last bit of raspberry goodness, seeds included.

As for tomatoes, they're hanging on during the recent cold weather. Daytime temps approaching 60 have helped them along.  But with frost in the offing, I've gone full bore into the tomato-sauce making business.

This combo of Celebrity and Oregon Spring tomatoes joined Romas in the sauce.

My favorite tomato sauce recipe is a quick one from Margaret Roach (http://awaytogarden.com/): She sautes whole, peeled cloves from one head of garlic, slowly in olive oil, until soft. Then she adds a mixing bowl full of chopped tomatoes, skin on, seeds in. She keeps the pot on low, covers it for awhile and later adds chopped basil and chopped Italian parsley. Salt and pepper to taste.

My quick tomato sauce via a recipe from author Margaret Roach.

What follows are more snapshots of my "harvests" (I think I could easily become a vegetarian in this state that so prizes its meat of beef, bison, elk and deer!).

Wild huckleberries that we picked up high on a trail to Bear Creek Overlook (armed with cans of bear spray, just in case).

Red nasturtium blossoms from my garden could easily get tossed into salads.

My little garden just before frost, with raspberries at left yellowing up; kale and arugula, center, just getting started where lettuces and peppers used to be; an herb garden at right still going full steam -- except for the basil that we pulled and brought inside.

Another way to cook our carrots, tomatoes, peppers and zucchini is to cut them in chunks, drizzle with our favorite Kirkland brand of Tuscan olive oil from Costco (http://blogs.laweekly.com/squidink/2011/03/olive_oil_tasting_affiorato.php) and roast together in a hot oven to serve as a side dish, or even over pasta.

Speaking of zucchinis, I challenged our friend Eric to a zucchini war with these overly prolific vegetables, but that was before I saw his stash (see a sampling, above)! I conceded defeat. My car, my back porch and patio, my front porch have been saved from zucchini overload.

We did get three red-tinged pears from a little tree that we also inherited. How to bake with them, I wonder?

No question about baking with hundreds of the valley's red McIntosh apples. We volunteers loaded them into pie shells the other day and decorated the crusts with plastic presses (above) for freezing, before the annual Apple Day celebration, Oct. 6, here in Hamilton (http://www.ravallirepublic.com/entertainment/article_d1df8d72-090c-11e2-8c97-001a4bcf887a.html).

And as I left the site of pie making, I saw Bambi out near the parking lot feasting on more bright red produce -- crab apples that had fallen from a tree.