Garden Gab, Vlog Style

I am trying something new.

I Vloged my Garden Gab this week.

Vlog=Video Blog

Please pardon the grass that needs mowing.

Please pardon the wild movement.

I am Not a professional, clearly.

And…….If there was any doubt about my being a native Texan,

after this Y’all won’t have ANY doubts.

Garden Gab, Vlog

^^^^^^^^^

Click the above  link and see my Vlog.

Be gentle, I’m a Vlog-ey virgin.

Don’t forget to enter the MyBlogSpark giveaway I’m hosting it ends tonight at 9pm central time.

Garden Gab, Week 7

Is there anything better than watching things you planted blossom and grow? Well, okay watching my children grow tops watching my plants grow, but watching my plants grow is still pretty awesome.

The warmth has taken hold here in Texas. The temps are holding steady in the mid to upper 80′s. I’d prefer the 70′s, but the plants love the warmer weather.

Beans....

Peas...

Lettuce eat some lettuce
I know, I'm phunny

Lots and lots of flowering is going on.

Cucumber flowers

squash flowers

More squash flowers

Tomatoes

Watermelons

Peppers...

;

A bird's eye view, or at least a pool landing eye view

How is your garden growing?

Check out Check out Allie’s new house garden

To check out Greg and Katherine’s Arkansas garden

To visit a beautiful little Brooklyn garden

Related articles

• Garden Gab, weeks 5 and 6 (adashofdomestic.wordpress.com)
• Garden Gab, week 2, 3 and…. (adashofdomestic.wordpress.com)
• Rainy Day Garden Gab (adashofdomestic.wordpress.com)

Rainy Day Garden Gab

The wind blew away most of my seed markers.

Welcome to rain-apocalypse 2012

at least that is how the weather team on T.V. is treating it.   It’s  been raining here for a little over 12 hours.  Storming, wind howling, thunder booming, lightning flashing, big, cold drops of rain falling.

Since we just planted the garden, this is a blessing and a curse.   Water is great, a good soaking rain is great.

Puddles, not so much.

Yesterday we had high wind, crazy wind.  Crazy blowing away most of my seed markers wind.  This year the garden will be a little but of a surprise…. I can not remember where I planted everything. Ha!

Seeds are all about snorkeling, right?

Clearly we have some high and low areas....

Below the garden is a swamp....

My swamp.

These strawberries are survivors from last summer. They laugh at the water, they are already planning strawberry-topia 2

The raised bed is protected from much of the rain. The cats and birds are another story though.

There is no real update on my Grandmother, she is still hospitalized, they believe the mental confusion is due to a slight bladder infection.  She is fighting her treatment.  She keeps removing her I.V.

If you’re a prayer sort of person, I’d appreciate your prayers for her.

Garden Gab…the end is near.

The MyBlogSpark giveaway has ended. The winner was comment #18

“Good Cooks :

Your banana bread looks very yummy, Thanks Jamie, I would like to try it with oatmeal raisin cookie.”

Say hello to Samah on her blog, Good Cooks.

I will have another giveaway soon, because giveaways are fun!

Anyhoo……Happy Friday my friends. It has been a few weeks since I have updated you on my garden.

See all my earlier Garden Gab posts here.

I’m afraid my gardening is winding down. My raised garden box is sinking-sideways into the earth. The super hot, relentlessly dry summer, combined with water restrictions created large cracks in my backyard. Don’t worry, my house foundation is perfectly fine thanks to soaker hoses.

I tried to show the crazy lean in a picture. I’m not sure I did it justice.

I swear, I'm holding the camera straight. Notice the lean?

Pardon my grass, it needs to be mowed. So, hopefully you can see…my raised garden bed is sinking. My husband is working on my expanded garden space, but it won’t be ready for Fall planting so, I’m probably done gardening until the Spring.

I cut the okra down. Since my garden is sinking I have been removing the plants. The only plants left in the raised garden? The (unexpectedly) hot peppers. The royal purple bean plants. The purple hull peas. And, of course, Strawberrytopia.

The royal purple bean plants are very small still, they flower but have not produced any beans.

The mint plant is still doing well. It has not taken over the side garden. I believe the heat probably stunted its growth.

The carrots are still small-ish, I think maybe I planted them too close together?

Now for the really exciting part. The purple hull peas? Growing lovely little peas. The pea pods start out looking like strange monster claws.

Rawr.....monster claws

The monster claws grow longer and wider, the peas within grow and swell the pods. Then they look like this…

They grow peas that look like this…

There are not enough peas for a meal yet, but I’m very excited about the purple hull peas! They are the only reason that I have not completely gutted the garden box yet.

How is your garden growing? Are you planting this fall?

Don’t forget that Allie and I will have a new set of canning posts for you on Monday. We would LOVE IT if you would link up with us!

Have a super weekend!

Kabocha squash- an unusual suspect

Yesterday I showed you my lovely squash.  Don’t get cheeky, I’m talking about these squash.

Can Texans say cheeky and get away with it?  Here’s hoping the answer is yes!

I oven roasted the kabocha squash,

which I keep mispronouncing as kobayashi…

making me think of Mr. Kobayashi,

making me think of  The Usual Suspects,

which makes me smile…

which is why I keep mispronouncing the name.

I’m funny that way.

Anyhoooo….

Back to the kabocha squash.  My sweet bloggy friend Allie sent me a link to Tiny Urban Kitchen who had a post on roasted kabocha squash.

I followed the recipe except…no truffle oil, I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and I added pumpkin pie spice to the seasoning list.

Why did I add pumpkin pie spice?

Well,

1. I adore pumpkin pie spice, I use it as often as I can.
2. The squash looks like a green pumpkin, once you cut it open it smells sweet, sort of fruity, sort of nutty, a little like a pumpkin-ey cantaloupe.
3. And last reason, just because I can. 

Before

After

Here’s what you would need to roast a kabocha squash.

Oven Roasted Kabocha Squash
1 kabocha squash
1/4 tsp salt
pepper (to taste)
2 T vegetable oil (I used olive oil)
truffle oil (optional)
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Grab your ingredients and head on over to Tiny Urban Kitchen.

The baked squash has a velvety, buttery texture.  The skin is totally edible.  It is very tasty.  I will buy a kabocha squash again.  My daughter says it tastes like dessert.  That’s fine by me.  Dessert it is.

My three squashes and the end of summer

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  Here in the United States and Canada, today is a holiday.  It’s Labor Day.

If you’re not from the United States or Canada, here’s a little info on the holiday. This info is via Wikipedia and Answers.com

Labor Day.

The first Monday in September, observed as a holiday in the United States and Canada in honor of working people.

Traditionally, Labor Day is celebrated by most Americans as the symbolic end of the summer.

In high society, Labor Day is (or was) considered the last day of the year when it is fashionable for women to wear white.

I’m not sure if September will mark an end to the dog days of summer, but it’s supposed to be the end of summer.

 

  That also means, the end or near the end of summer squash, so Friday when I went to the Farmer’s Market I picked up a few varieties of squash.

 

The yellow/green squash are over sized 8-ball squash I think. Think zucchini squash.

The green pumpkin shaped squash is Kabocha squash.  Allie at Forgotten Beast  blogged about this squash last week.  It is a winter squash, not a summer squash.

The white squash are Pattypan squash. Funny little things aren’t they?

Here is a cool resource page for squash.

 

I hope you have a wonderful day!  I’m off to swim and enjoy the holiday!

Garden Gab weeks 22 and 23….and freezer jam

So, it’s hot…Yep a shocker I know!  Last week, instead of Garden Gab on Friday I posted a whole wheat chocolate cake recipe.  I know, the cake was lovely, but it felt strange after 21 weeks of garden posts to not have one last week.  So, to correct that and make myself feel better….This week I have pictures for you from the last two weeks.  It rained here on Thursday, just enough to wet the ground and make it nice and slick to drive on. Heh!  Oh, I’m not being nice, I am sure the rain we got helped the ground a lot, but we’ve been so parched for so long…the rain yesterday was really just a few drops in a really dry bucket.

Without further ado…. my garden pictures.

        

         

         

    

My okra is still blooming beautifully.  The carrots are still very small, but they are still growing.

The royal purple beans are beginning to grow bean pods!  They are a beautiful color, but I was unable to get a good picture of them.  The purple hulls are simply fighting to stay alive.  Poor things!

The strawberries are still in expansion mode, stretching out their little green arms for more and more space.

My poor zucchini plants are still so tiny,  but they are trying to bud.   So tiny, so cute, my little zucchini plants.  I doubt I will get anything fruit from them, but I am not opposed to allowing them to try.

Now on to the freezer jam.

Freezer jam is so easy…so easy. Seriously.  So. Very. Easy.

This freezer jam requires no cooking and very few ingredients.   I have made this jam with fresh strawberries and with frozen strawberries.

It works best with fresh strawberries. The last batch I made was with frozen strawberries, this batch was made with fresh strawberries.

Here’s what you need.  This recipe is adapted from a Ball canning recipe. It was found in the Ball Blue Book of Canning.

• 6 cups of mushed, smashed, crushed strawberries (fresh or frozen)

    

• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 5 TBSP of Ball instant Pectin

The instructions……

• mix the sugar and Pectin together
•  add sugar mixture to the strawberries

•  stir constantly for 3 minutes

• Fill freezer jars (I used the Ball brand plastic jars and 2 freezer safe glass jars)
•  place the lid on the jars
•  Let the jam “set” for 30 minutes on the counter top

• label and freeze         OR
• gobble it up now, pour it on ice cream, roll around in it, have toast for every meal with gobs and gobs of jelly. 
• OR…(what I did) place all but 1 in the freezer. They will “keep” in the fridge for 3 weeks (yeah, like they will last that long), they will keep in the freezer for up to a year.

Enjoy

                   

Don’t forget that Monday Allie of Forgotten Beast and I will be posting canning recipes again and we will also have a Canning Link-up!  We want you to link up your canning posts with ours! Get your canning posts ready (new or previously posted recipes) and join us Monday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Kids ~VS~ Veggies…

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We had a very nice weekend. School starts today. This is bittersweet. While I am glad to have a little time to myself to chill out, shop or clean…I will miss them. A lot. Since I’ve got kiddo on the brain, I have a kid-centric post for you today.

Do you have picky people to feed? Do you struggle to get your family to eat veggies? I do.

When my son was 5 or 6 he was so averse to eating any green vegetable he would gag, choke, and flail. He told me all green things were evil.

Fun times at dinner.

Ah. Fun times.

He’s 13 now, and while he usually no longer flails he still is not fond of many veggies. A recent gagging episode with rainbow chard reminded me of the not so good old days.

Despite the picture below, Veggies are NOT evil.

Well, except for Brussel-Sprouts. They are pure evil. Little green balls of evil.

Here are a few things I have done to get my kids to try new veggies…….

• Try to get the kids involved in the veggie choices. I have found that kids are more likely to eat something if they helped pick it out.
• Have the kids help in the cooking process. Just like allowing them to help pick the veggies, allowing them to help in the cooking process will sometimes make them more willing to eat the veggies.
• Introduce the veggies in an unexpected way. The first time my kids tried black-eyed peas was in Texas Caviar. They still are not super fond of eating black-eyed peas unless they are in Texas Caviar, but they will give it a try now. They frequently ask for Texas Caviar and will gobble it up any time I make it.
• Offer a few options, ask them to try a little of each. We have found that they are more open-minded about trying new things when there is a veggie they like on the table too.

A few things that you probably NEVER want to do…….

• Never force your child to eat an entire serving of a veggie that they do not like. It’s frustrating for you both and I have found that they are less open about new veggies if you force one on them.
• Never use a veggie as a punishment threat. Okay, this sounds funny, but I did this.

Picture this, I’m at the grocery store with two wild-things. They are running amuck. I (in the past) have been guilty of picking up a can of beets and telling them if they do not behave the beets are coming home with us. To be a main dinner feature. Yep, I did that. More than once. *sigh* So, it’s no surprise that it has been hard to get my kids to eat beets. You know, because I made them seem like a punishment.

So, don’t make veggies a punishment. Learn from my mistakes. Ha!

How do you get your kids to eat veggies?

Garden Gab, week 21….a cool down, a loss and a nursery rhyme

Mary Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row,
And pretty maids all in a row.

That’s how the nursery rhyme goes, however I was disturbed when I looked up the meaning of the rhyme. It’s about Queen Mary, torture and executions.

While torture would accurately describe the weather here in Texas the last month or so, it does not really describe gardening at all does it?

Or maybe it does.

No, No, No…..I love gardening. I love the beautiful green plants. I love planting a seed and watching it grow into a beautiful plant. I love knowing I am growing things that help to feed my family and friends.

Bugs and heat be damned, I love gardening.

Anyhoo.

My garden is doing well……..

The okra is blooming and blooming. I’ve got tons of little okra-ettes.

The new bean plants are doing very well, green and blooming and lovely.

My mint is surviving the heat.

The carrots are still growing.

I lost my green pepper plant to the extreme heat, but the Hot peppers are doing well.

Strawberrytopia is still expanding. I think the strawberries would be happy to take over the entire raised garden! They don’t produce many strawberries, but they sure do spread quickly.

The squash seedlings are still surviving the heat. I failed to take a picture of them though.

Speaking of heat, it got cooler Thursday. The wind blew. It felt nicer outside.

It smelled like rain.

Best. Smell. Ever.

It did not rain, but it was noticeably cooler. The 102+ degree heat we’ve been experiencing is brutal, so any coolness is exciting to me.

How is your garden growing?

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I’ll be back on Monday!

Freezer cooking on a small scale…

When I say freezer cooking…you say? Eek! No way! You’re a crazy lady! Okay, maybe not, but I’m sure you’re not giddy. Freezer cooking to some sounds like a whole day, 30 meal affair. It does not have to be…..

Don’t be scared, it’s not so bad. Freezer cooking does not have to take up your whole Saturday.

Fresh is best, but life happens……

If you know me, you know that I’m a stock up kind of girl. Ive got food for more than a month….if need be. My cupboards are full to overflowing, my pantries are stocked and my freezers are pretty full. Mostly due to thrifty coupon shopping, canning, and freezer cooking.

Need a dinner or two because you’re sick or recovering from surgery? I’m your girl. Dinner party on short notice, no biggie. I’m your girl.

Recession, depression, food shortage situation, Zombie apocalypse (as long as I’m not on the menu) I’m your girl.

Piggy flu...starts with you! No licking pigs!

I have tween/teens to take care of, and we really like to eat. The teen REALLY likes to eat, it’s shocking, but that’s for another post.

Traditional full month freezer cooking won’t work for me. I don’t have the space, and the idea of spending an entire day cooking makes my eye twitch.

I do like the idea of having a few items pre-cooked and ready to toss into dishes or into the microwave. So, I’d like to introduce you to a mini freezer cooking day.

I try to keep a few pounds of pre-cooked and frozen meat in my freezer. With it I can make a quick dinner on a busy night.

Easy Spaghetti night. Place a pot of hot salted water (for the pasta) on the stove and begin to boil it. Put a pot with pasta sauce on the stove at a medium heat, cover with lid. Take 1 lb. of pre-cooked frozen ground turkey or beef out of the freezer. Microwave on the defrost setting for about 3 min. (just long enough to make the frozen meat easy to break apart). Add pasta to boiling water. Place pre-cooked meat into the pasta sauce, sir and replace the lid, stir every few min. Once the pasta is done (mine usually takes about 8-9 min to cook), drain rinse and return to the hot-pot. At this point your meaty spaghetti sauce should be hot and bubbly. I pour the sauce over the noodles and mix it in. This meal takes me about 15(ish) min. to prepare.

Easy Crock Pot Chili.Take 1 or 2 pounds of frozen pre-cooked meat out of the freezer. Defrost long enough to be able to break the meat apart (3-4 min for me). Place meat into slow cooker. Add chili seasoning (what ever brand you prefer, or make your own *3 teaspoons chili powder, 1 teaspoon of paprika, some garlic salt and 2 teaspoon cumin should do the trick*, add canned tomatoes (undrained), frozen, dried or fresh diced onions (1 cup, less or more if you prefer) add canned Red or Pinto beans (if you want), add 1 8 oz. can of tomato sauce and 1 8 oz. can of water (or follow your chili seasoning package’s instructions.) Set on low for 8 hours and you’ll come home to hot, yummy chili.

Set aside a few hours during your week and make a few different items that you can freeze for later use. It’s a great comfort to know that if you’re sick or running late, you don’t have to rely on a take out meal. If you have a few pre-cooked frozen items on hand you can eat (healthy) homemade quick fix meals you won’t be crying over on the treadmill the next day. Goodbye Big Mac, hello homemade turkey chili.

Ground Beef, Ground Turkey both freeze well to make a quick and easy chili night, taco night or spaghetti night. Muffins freeze well, place them in single serve freezer bags and just remove them the night before you want to eat them, easy quick breakfast. I have a great Banana bread recipe and Pumpkin bread recipe on my blog. Both would work to make muffins or breads.

Making chicken stock or veggie stock? Make more than you need and freeze the rest in 2 cup or 4 cup portions.

Making beans? Make two or three times the amount that you need and freeze the rest.

Make cream of mushroom soup and freeze it for later use.

Ready? Set? Cook and Freeze!