Rantings & Ravings

Today was soup weather as the morning started off with rain and hail, accompanied by an occasional flourish of lightning and thunder. We welcomed the storm with a pot of 15 bean soup, made in the Instant Pot. Jim had brought us a bag of mixed beans, and Justin shared his favorite IP recipe (thanks guys!). We enjoyed the soup while watching college football as the storm passed.
… and yes, I counted and there were 15…

https://www.blessthismessplease.com/hearty-15-bean-soup-in-the-instant-pot/

Hail melting on the sidewalk…. (approx 1/4 inch)

National Deviled Egg Day is a good excuse to enjoy some of these tasty treats. Cooking the eggs in the Instant Pot makes them super easy to peel.

Instant Pot hard boiled eggs:
1/2 C water in pot, eggs on rack.
6 min LP, 6 min NR, cool in cold water.

We were treated to a visit from The Great Pumpkin Courtesy of ESPD!

We used the last of the ginormous zucchini in a zucchini quiche. It’s a kind of “impossible pie” made with bisquick. The recipe came from Helen (aka grower of ginormous zucchinis)

Zucchini gets grated, then I whipped up some homemade Bisquick in the food processor.
Other ingredients get gathered (including parsley and chives from the garden). It all gets mixed together and poured into a buttered pie pan.

35 minutes later it’s ready! We enjoyed it with sautéed radish greens from the garden.

That one zucchini fed us for several meals: sautéed as a side dish, zucchini bread (enough to share), zucchini casserole, and zucchini quiche! And we still have some leftovers to enjoy.

We’re still enjoying the ginormous zucchini we got from Helen… today’s dish was zucchini casserole. It starts with ground beef, onion, and zucchini sautéed together. A little flour is sprinkled on to act as a thickener. Then canned tomatoes/sauce are added, along with Italian seasoning. The casserole is topped with grated cheddar cheese and baked ‘til bubbly and delicious. Yum!

Helen shared a ginormous zucchini from her garden (Thank you Helen!)… it weighed in at over 4-1/2 pounds!
Such a bounty screamed for zucchini bread!

Even after having some zuke for lunch and grating 2 cups for zucchini bread, there’s still a lot left to enjoy.

We were gifted some sourdough starter (Thanks Eliza!) and after feeding it for a few weeks it was time to try baking something. With basil, a few small peppers, and Roma tomatoes growing in the garden, pizza seemed like a perfect choice.

The flour, salt, sugar, and water get added to the starter and the shaggy dough gets kneaded and then gets tucked in the fridge overnight. In the morning the dough has risen a bit.

While we picked fresh basil, the dough came to room temperature and rose a LOT more. Pizzas got assembled - one margherita and one veggie.

15 minutes later we enjoyed hot, fresh pizza. The pizza was very tasty!

To celebrate National White Chocolate Day, we enjoyed Oatmeal Everything Cookies.

Used Mom’s traditional oatmeal cookie recipe, and added both semisweet and white chocolate chips.

Can’t decide between crunchy or soft cookies? Bake one tray a little longer than the other and enjoy both!

The basil plants in the garden (Cinnamon, Thai, Sweet, and Lettuce Leaf) needed a trim, so we ended up with a lot of basil to use. No problem…

We already had homemade homegrown tomato sauce in the freezer, added a bunch of the basil and some of the last of the fresh cherry tomatoes and enjoyed it for lunch over spaghetti. The rest of the basil went into a pesto that we’ll tuck into the freezer for later.
Yum!

We grew a new-to-us kind of radish in the garden: Watermelon Radish. It really does look like a watermelon when you slice it! Both the radish and the greens are very tasty.

Our Early Girl tomato plant gave up, but there were a lot of not yet ripe tomatoes still on it. We let them ripen a bit off the vine, and then cooked them down into almost 4 cups of flavorful tomato sauce. We enjoyed it over pasta with meatballs.

The first of the radishes are coming in! We’ve got assorted small radishes (Crimson Giant, French Breakfast, Watermelon, Easter Egg), as well as Daikon. The radishes are crisp and tasty, and we’re trying out eating the greens too - they’re very “green” tasting and a little bit sharp. It’s fun having enough of them to share too! The cherry tomatoes are still going strong too, although the plants are getting rather scraggly.

Our friend Helen used some of the daikon greens in her green smoothies

Critters were sampling the tomatoes, so we picked a bunch that were oh-so-close to fully ripe.

A bunch for us to enjoy, and some to share with friends (which is one of the most fun things about gardening)

There’s a critter in the garden helping himself to our tomatoes. Forensic evidence of tomato-napper. Much bigger bite marks than I was thinking - yikes! Same tomato with full top/bottom tooth impressions. That critter can open his mouth wide!

Sigh

Hummingbirds in our Garden

Our Kitchen Scrap Garden is really taking off. The celery, potatoes, and romaine are putting out flowers, and ginger is getting another leaf. If Farmer Google is right, potato flowers should mean that the plants are making potatoes under all that soil, to be harvested after flowers and most of plant have died off. We’ll see….

Monarch in the Herb Garden

We see the first glimpse of red on the tomatoes. The eggplant is going full force, even after a sneak attack of little green caterpillars (who have been summarily evicted). A couple of bell peppers are ripe. We had to stake up the jalapeño plant, it fell over from the weight of the peppers.

We’re enjoying snack plates that include some of the first veggies out of our garden: a small Indigo Rose tomato, a couple of Sweet Million cherry tomatoes, and a Better Belle bell pepper. Veggies always taste better from the garden!

Starting a batch of Limoncello for Christmas.

When buying potatoes at a $0.69/each price, you select the largest ones.
This beauty weighed in at 2 lb 13 oz.