Making Summer Last

Summer is my favorite time of year. I need sunshine... I need warmth... I absolutely need fresh veggies growing right outside my door! Alas, this wonderful, beautiful season can't last. Even if I can't keep the sunshine and the warmth, I CAN keep the veggies -- at least in some form!

I took a few days off of the garden this week. We were traveling (surprise! When are we not?) to go send my sister off to college, in addition to all our normal busyness. Well, even though I was on break, the garden clearly was not. I went out this morning to find a frightening amount of food that needed picked now. Until today, we've had a handful here, a basket there... just enough to throw into that particular day's meals. Not so anymore.

The dehydrator is running with 3 yellow squash and a couple (ridiculously massive) zuccini. Whenever I tell people I dry zuccini, they say, "I didn't know you could do that." I'm not sure if you're supposed to... but I did it last year and am doing it again. Zuccini chips are yummy on their own with a bit of ranch dip, and they're super easy to throw into a soup at the last minute. In fact, the plan for these ones is to make dried soup mixes for my sister -- she's moving out of the dorms and into her first apartment this week!

Green beans are getting blanched then frozen. I thought about canning them since my freezer space is at such a premium, but there are 2 very good reasons not to do that:

1. I don't have a pressure canner, so it wouldn't be safe (according to various sources that may be overly cautious)
2. I HATE canned green beans. Too mushy.

So freezing is the only option! I had a good 1/2 gallon freezer bag full and there will be many, many more in the coming days. I was afraid a few days ago because my neighbor had already put up pounds and pounds of beans. He's already ripped his plants out and replanted that area while I'd only brought in a few small, sad handfuls. Mine were just a couple days behind, it seems! I worried too soon.

I'm still waiting on tomatoes. They're being pokey. Maybe next week :)

PS: Yes, that is my teapot there, matching the green beans. I don't think I could survive without tea.

Garden Mystery -- Solved!

So I posted a few days ago about a mystery in my garden: the two jalapano plants were producing very different peppers. I think I just figured out what happened.

One plant cross pollinated with the bell pepper plant right next to it!

The jalapano didn't change much in flavor, just in appearance. The bell peppers -- which I pulled the first from tonight for a pizza -- didn't fare so well. They look like bells... smell like jalapanos... and taste somewhere in between. They have some kick, let me tell you!

So, note to self, next year the pepper varieties need to be located a little bit further apart. Or else I can leave them close together -- mysteries are kind of fun!

Summer Eats

I've never been good at menu planning. I've tried -- I've read books and blogs, all excitedly touting the benefits to your health and your poketbook. I make a beautiful menu that doesn't look so beautiful by Tuesday's Lentil Casserole. I'm giving up for the summer. There's no point -- and with a lovely garden outside, there's no need!

My summer cooking routine is simple:

1. Choose protein. There's a wide variety of frozen, cooked beans and meats ready to go, as well as some quick-cook meats like ground turkey. Set selected protein on counter to sort of head towards thawing.
2. Choose starch. We love rice here and go through the 25lb bag from Sam's every 3 months of so. I set rice or brown rice up in the rice cooker (yay single button cooking!) or a pot on the stove for noodles. If I'm really lazy we just eat bread.
3. Visit the garden and pick whatever's ripe. Lately there's been nothing but squash, but today I found my first red tomato and two lovely jalapanos -- Mexican-ish it is! I can't wait for the green beans!
4. Chop veggies, stir fry or something with the protein, grab a can of sauce if desired (I've always got spaghetti sauce and italian salad dressing ready to go) or spice if you'd rather.
5. Serve the veggie mix over the protein and GO!

One caveat -- I almost always know what should be ripe in the garden, so I do think ahead a tiny bit with the protein. Like, I knew the tomato was ready today... only one, and none others even close, so it would have to be eaten alone.

Today's Garden Simple Meal

1. Black Beans (precooked and frozen in a meal size package. Never canned -- too salty)
2. Brown rice (rice cooker love. This and my crock pot are the only two appliances I couldn't live without)
3. Tomato, 2 jalapanos from the garden, plus a couple cloves of garlic from the store

Put the rice on to cook even before going to the garden. Cook the peppers and garlic, chopped, in olive oil til fragrant. While cooking, chop tomato and toss in when ready. Stir until tomato starts to break down. Break frozen chunks of black beans into the pot, stir til thawed. Hit with a little water, little salt and pepper, then let simmer. This kinda made its own gravy... yum. Put in a generous helping of rice (more for the boy, he's always hungry!) and top with the beans. It was literally heaven in a bowl.

We've lately also had squash with tomato sauce and noodles, zuccini and spinach soup, Thai chicken (theres a recipe I've got to share!), and all sorts of salads. Garden dinners are never boring and never preplanned, so we can eat what we want each evening. And, I'm pretty sure we've doubled our veggie diet! I love summer :)

Garden Mysteries

I absolutely love having a garden. If you were around last year, you probably laughed while I experimented with growing for the first time. I used Rubbermaids on the balcony. It was fabulous, but I knew there was more.

This year we have ground of our own and I have been living it up! The garden lines one side of our house. It's only 3 feet wide, but 2 bedrooms long (so exact, I know). I love staring out my window at the flowers on the squash and tomatoes... I feel more connected with the "real" world even while I'm tapping away at my computer.

This basket is my new centerpiece for the kitchen table during the growing season. Today's selection: lettuce, spinach, and a crookneck squah. Some days the selection is still store-bought, but every day there's more home grown and less hothouse!

But I have a mystery to run past you all: Do you know why 2 plants, exactly the same, purchased together on the same day, planted side by side... would turn out two completely different peppers? They taste the same -- they're both clearly jalepanos. But they look so different! One plan it putting out the rounded-end, shiny peppers. The one next to it is producing matt green peppers that are long and pointy. I repeat -- they taste the same. I'm just curious to see if anyone has any input, as I'm new to this green thumb thing!

Sprouted Lentil Soup

There's something alive in my kitchen. I grew them myself. And boy... do they taste good!

I've been reading lately about the health benefits of bean sprouts. Aparently, if you sprout a bean, it gets even healthier than the humble bean originally started out as. Vitamins A, B, and C continue to improve until you actually eat the sprouts because they're alive. They also have high levels of iron and calcium. And, they retain the protien from the original bean! It's like heaven in a little plant.

These are sprouted lentils. It was easy to do; you can follow one of the many sites that have good directions. I was shocked at how easy these grew. It was just a handful out of the $1 bag I picked up a shop n save months ago. I was even more shocked when I tasted one: once they sprout, they get a kind of heat to them. Kind of like spice, but deeper. I can't hardly find words for it. You'll have to trust me on it being amazing, at least until you try it yourself. I got so excited I think we ate these a few days early; you can take them up to the firm bean sprouts like you see in Asian stir frys. This was 3 days after soaking the lentils.

Then I started cooking. My hubby, who was previously a little afraid of my jar of green sitting in the corner of the kitchen, bravely took a small first bite of this soup. Then he scarfed all of his down, turned to me and asked if there was any more (there wasn't), and asked me if I'd be finishing my bowl (I sure was!). I've put the recipe below for if you decide to be brave!

It looks a little boring, but that's just because you haven't tried it!

Sprouted Lentil Soup

• 1 cup rice
• 1/2 onion
• about 1 tbsp butter
• 1 to 2 cloves garlic
• 1 cup or more sprouted lentils
• approx. 2 cups water or broth
• Salt, pepper, and oregano to taste

At least half an hour before you want to eat, start 1 cup white or brown rice in your rice cooker or a pot on the stove. I prefer brown rice because it was a little chewy and gave a nice texture contrast.

Saute 1/2 of one onion in a little bit of butter. Add 1 to 2 cloves garlic crushed or chopped into big pieces (the smaller the pieces, the bigger the flavor). Once the onions are lovely translucent, add 1 cup or even more sprouted lentils. Saute these around for just a minute or so, then add about 2 cups water or broth (I threw in a chicken bullion cube). Add a sprinkle of salt, pepper, and oregano (adjust for your preference). Let simmer for ~15 to 20 minutes. Pour into blender and blend until smooth (or use your immersion blender if you're lucky enough to have one... that's so at the top of my Christmas list). Ladle into a bowl with a generous scoop of your rice and garnish with a few whole sprouts to look pretty.

Do let me know if you try sprouts, or if you already cook with them! I'd love to hear more ideas to experiment with!

A Bountiful Harvest

We've been super busy this past week! Although we don't have a garden ourselves, we've been picking at my in-laws house and pulled in almost more than I have time to deal with.

So far we've made 2 quarts give or take of sun-dried roma tomatoes. That doesn't sound like much, but it started as three plastic shopping bags filled to the brim. The bushes are still producing, too, so there may be more to come.

My father-in-law also had more jalapano peppers than he knew what to do with. That provided hours of fun, especially when we kept finding little patches of the oil on our skin throughout the day! My husband got some in his eye; I got lucky enough to avoid that. Next time I think we'll have to get gloves. We froze 3 quarts so far and will probably pick up some more next weekend.

Then, today, we wanted to celebrate Labor Day by, what else, laboring! But this was the fun kind of work. We went to a small country apple farm where they run the tractor out to the orchards and let you pick your own apples. We got just under 25 lb of apples today: 20 (2 pecks) of jonathons and 5 (1/2 peck) ozark gold. Which led us to our next fun experiments...

Shaune elected himself to be in charge of apple pie filling. He manned this cool contraption here, which did all the work for him:

That there is my mom's Apple Peeler-Corer-Slicer from Pampered Chef. It is such a fun toy. I had to stop Shaune or else he'd do all 25 lbs of just that! It makes like a giant apple yo-yo that is excellent to play with. We sliced the yo-yo in half, dumped them into a large freezer bag, and added the spices. We've now got 5 pies worth of filling ready to whip out and bake whenever we need it.

I decided to make apple butter. This is my first experience canning and although it was a little rocky, all 10 jars sealed correctly on the first try! I love apple butter. This stuff started as a full pot of apple pieces and cooked down to 10 cups worth of cinnamony, sweet, perfect goo. We couldn't help taking a spoon and eating a good bit while cooking. I think I'm going to save it and give it away for Christmas presents.

I still have about 12 lb of apples to deal with. I know what we'll be eating for breakfast, lunch, and dinner all week. I'd like to can more but with the pot I have, I can only do 1/2 pint (8 oz) jars right now. Unless I can borrow a bigger pot, I think it would be too expensive to buy enough jars for the rest of the apples. Not to mention the time. So for now, they're going to hang out in the cooler and be fresh treats, at least until I can come up with a better idea.

Any suggestions?

Success!

I just wanted to let you know, that today for lunch I ate a fresh salad that I grew on my porch! I've never had anything tastier! Store-bought spinach and spring-greens simply cannot compare. Yay! My rubber-maid boxes of dirt are working after all!

The end is near

Sorry for my online silence, things have just been going crazy here! It's my last week of Preclinical work before student teaching, which means formal evaluations, journals, papers, interviews... I've hardly slept, much less seen my husband or been online.

My little Rubbermaid garden (see last post) is taking off like crazy! The squash and cucumbers are all about 6 inches high. The lettuce is going all over the place. The tomatoes are almost ready to move from the seedling tray to their pot. The mint and flowers aren't too far behind, but it'll be at least another few weeks before transplanting. I'm hoping that our freak 6" of snow last weekend was a one-time-thing and I can move the containers outside soon. They're taking up precious space in my living room. My inlaws gave me the funniest little garden knome for my birthday last weekend that I'm going to hide in the mint. He sighs and complains about how bored he is every time you walk past (it's a sensor thing). He's too, too cute. Kind of strange, but cute.

Other than that, I'm just trying to keep my head above water! I hate this extreme busyness... I can't wait for a rhythm of life to settle in. Oh, and hopefully I'll have an announcement to make soon about a new special project over the summer!

My not-very-green thumb

I have always wanted a garden. When I was young, my parents let me experiment in the back yard from time to time, but I never harvested anything more than a rotten pumpkin and three ears of buggy corn. Ever since I heard about self-sufficiency, tho, my interest has been peaked. I wanted to try a garden --for real -- this year.





Now, a few realities of my situation: I live in an apartment, on the second floor, with only a small balcony. I have no idea of the difference between a weed and a seedling. My father-in-law offered to "coach" me if I'll come spend some time this summer in his large garden, and the Internet is a literal cornucopia of information. After taking a deep breath and getting my husband to laughingly hand me the check book, I've set out on this adventure.





Any of you experienced gardeners, feel free to laugh heartily at what I next say. I horribly over-seeded and over-watered my little peat pellet greenhouse tray thing I got for $6 at Wal-mart. It molded *gasp*. After clearing out as much of the yuck as I could, I still had a good amount of seedlings. The next challenge is in the growing of them. Pots are EXPENSIVE! So I wandered around a little while and hit upon a wonderful discovery....

A Rubbermaid sale! So my little garden will be grown in big plastic tubs filled with dirt. My husband was once again entertained. He laughed as he exclaimed, "Well, if you fail, at least we'll have more storage boxes!" My little green friends are hanging out by the balcony door until it gets a little warmer out. I'm amazed how much they've grown already -- it's only been a week and a half! This is the "salad" box, I've got a few others scattered at other sunny windows.

Here's my list of attempted veggies. My goal is to have fresh salad at least once or twice this summer ;-) :

1. Cucumbers (4in super sweets)
2. Summer Squash (a mini variety, 3 - 5")
3. Mixed lettuce
4. Spinach
5. Cherry tomatoes
6. Spearmint (for tea)
7. Chamomile (also for tea)
8. and Impatiens to fill a pretty flower pot I got as a wedding gift

This certainly is an adventure. I'm not sure what I've gotten myself into, and I'm scared to death of killing everything before it even sees the great outdoors (of an inner city balcony). Maybe God will laugh, too, and allow me to harvest an abundant crop.