An impressive veggie

This past weekend, my dad brought in some cowpeas. Now, the type of cowpea that we grow is pretty impressive looking as well as delicious. The name of what we grow is Georgia Long, and they do get long. We’ve even seen a few reach 30 inches.

The ones dad is holding there aren’t quite that long but they are about ready to finish drying for seed.

Anyway, the Georgia Long bean is one that my family originally got from a Seed Savers Exchange member from Missouri back in 1987. Here’s a short story that my dad wrote about this cowpea, “I received seed for this variety in 1987, from a Seed Saver’s Exchange Member in Missouri.1
Right away, my wife Jerreth and I shared some seed of Georgia Long, with her grandparents in Salem, Illinois (southern part of the state). They grew it every year from then until at least 1997. Grandma passed away in 1995 and Grandpa’s health was so poor, that in 1997 he presented me with a bottle of seed and asked me to keep it going from him, as he couldn’t garden any more. He had forgotten that we had given the variety to them originally. While growing this “bean,” Grandpa planted about 20 feet on tripods and had so many that he absolutely couldn’t eat them all. He would put out his surplus on a picnic table in the front lawn and a sign advertising free green beans! (I still have some of the 1996/1997 seed, in the same bottle. It tested out at nearly 100% germination in 2007!)
We lost our seed sometime between 1988 and 1992, when we lived in a very high cold rain forest in the Mexican state of Puebla. Life was too unsettled to keep seed going, and most of our heirloom varieties were not suited to that climate. We got more seed from Jerreth’s grandparents in 1994, and grew it until 2000, in the Mexican state of Hidalgo, in an irrigated desert environment. It did very well in the desert. This variety likes heat and tolerates white alkali conditions.”

An older gardener who was in his 80’s that my Dad spoke with some years ago, said he though these cowpeas might be the same as Yardlong.

Any way you cut it on the history of this cowpea, I know that every year, we enjoy harvesting this impressive cowpea, and definitely enjoy eating it over the winter.

Fall harvest: just a few things.

Sweet potatoes uncovered.

One of the things I love about the fall, are the things we harvest at this time of year. My family eats a lot of sweet potatoes and we use squash and pumpkin in a sweet creamy drink called atole. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of that, but here’s the recipe:

Americanized Pumpkin Atole
*To a blender add:
1 egg
a few glugs of molasses
some sugar (brown or white)
2 cups of cooked squash
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon of ground cloves
optional – 2 or 3 tablespoons of peanut butter
*Milk (at least a pint)
*Blend this all up and taste to see if it needs more sweetening.
*Pour the mix into a pot and heat until just boiling. I normally pour this mix into a two quart pot and add some additional milk before heating it.
*Serve and enjoy!

I also found this lovely lady’s blog about atole which does have some pictures. It could be a day or two before I next make it and I just discovered that since I’m not in the habit of snapping pictures of my food, I don’t have any of that. Any way, enjoy her post on it. She gives more recipes as well for more types of atole. : http://www.lacocinadeleslie.com/2012/10/atole-de-camote-sweet-potato-atole.html

Pilloncillo cones by the way are similar to brown sugar and we found that we can substitute brown sugar instead of trying to slice or sliver those cones. (On a side note, I was a pilloncillo cone thief as a kid. My poor mama was always wondering where the cone ran off to. I’d eat the whole thing and be a bit sick, if I didn’t get caught.)

We eat sweet potatoes with brown sugar and butter, or as atole, or just as is after baking them. Some of them are sweet enough to eat just as a snack.

                      The above picture is of our sweet potato vines.