Fun in the Kitchen, and Garden Update!

Hi there, sorry I didn’t get on here yesterday and post pictures, it was one of those days that just seemed to fly by. One minute it was 10am and we were heading out to return books to the library, then get some groceries in, and the next minute I look at the clock and it was after 4pm!  But I’m here now with a lovely long post all about the garden and what we’ve been up to in the kitchen!

First off – is it or isn’t it?  RIPE that is! We picked this big watermelon the other day not knowing if it would be ripe or not. There’s really no way of telling, although Jason was surfing the net to see if he could find some information on it.  We decided the only way to tell was to pick one and cut in to it (we have about 5 other large ones out there so if it’s not ripe we’ll leave them for another week or so). . . .

Alas, it wasn’t quite ready :-( I did taste it and it was ok, but not very juicy or sweet yet.

 

Things were looking ok in the garden last week, despite the triple digits we’ve had every day for about 10 days now! We kept finding zucchini that we hadn’t seen before – when you don’t pick them at a ‘normal size’ they get HUGE like the two in the picture below. I also picked some small ‘fairytale’ eggplant. I wasn’t sure what I would do with them, but I roasted them last night with the squash and they were ok – not to Jason’s liking at all!

As you can see (above) we got more potatoes out of the ground, these were the last ones, so I made potato salad to take to Cheryl’s for her ‘Father’s Day’ BBQ on Saturday.

This was a big hit, I did a mustard and mayo dressing and even put in hard boiled eggs from Patty’s Chickens (Cheryl’s sister).  We’ll definitely be planting lots more taters in the fall ;-)

    We picked more corn too – I love this picture, the corn looks perfect and it tasted delicious, but most of them had been eaten at the top by worms (which actually look more like a green caterpillar).  We got about 6 big ears of corn that day and then Jason decided he’d pull the rest of the corn out, the ears left were quite small and a lot that we pulled hadn’t developed the kernels very well either.  Still, I’d call our corn growing a success this year too and we’ll be planting more for sure when the weather cools down.

Here’s Jason pulling out the first stalk!

So on Saturday (while I was making the potato salad, you can see the pan boiling there on the stove), Jason decided he wanted to cook something with his zucchini – zucchini corn fritters to be exact!  He looked for a recipe but in the end decided to just make his own. He used a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix and added shredded zucchini then fried them in the cast iron skillet (which he loves to use when he can).  The first few came out kinda like fritters because there was more oil in the pan. They were pretty tasty. The others he did afterwards were more like pancakes . . .

  So, we drizzled maple syrup on them, and they were even more tasty!

I tried making chocolate zucchini muffins but they weren’t good. Not very sweet at all (I won’t be using that recipe again!). I think I’d rather stick with zucchini bread. The recipe I have comes out great every time. I’m planning on making more today.

As for other garden news, things are starting to look a bit ‘sad’ out there, may be a combination of the heat and, well we seem to have ‘borers’ in the squash. You can click on the link HERE to see what they’re like. We’ve pulled a few squash plants out and thrown them away.

The grapes though have finally started turning color. Problem is they are filled with pips and hardly any flesh. I think actually my grapes are for making wine, not eating. Jason bought me a concord grape this year which is more to eat once it’s ripe. Hopefully we’ll get something off that next year. These ones now seem to be just feeding the birds! Still, nice to look at. I’d like a nice gazebo out the back filled with these, wouldn’t that look pretty!

     

The summer squash may be just about finished but we’re now starting to get spaghetti squash and butternut squash :-) I made my favorite butternut squash soup yesterday. . . I’ll be having it again for lunch today – LOVE it!

This is a bowl I made last year! I use the same Paula Deen recipe every time. It’s just squash, carrots and onions boiled in chicken broth then blended. Of course she adds butter and cream at the end which I never do. It really doesn’t need it, and I save 100’s calories! I’m guessing a cup of my soup is no more than 50 calories.

And finally, apples :-)  We had a ton of them last year and I made apple sauce which Kristen loved. They won’t be ready for a good few months, but they’re coming along nicely.

So, that’s it for today. Hope it wasn’t too long a post for you! I’ve got to get back to chores. . . . there’s nothing like a friend telling you she’s coming to visit to make you get up off your butt and clean house ;-)  Ha ha, MORE about that next time!!

Oh, and I’m a few days behind (again) on the 30 Day Photo Fun, so that will be coming next too!