Tag Archives: summer

Container Gardening- The Good, The Bad and The Squishy

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Earlier this week The Hubs and I dug in (literally) to our garbage tubs to see what we had for potatoes and onions.  Since I last shared photos, the onion greens had really shriveled up and our potato leaves had started to brown too.  Both signs that they were finished and ready to dig up.

The Good: The potatoes.  I was a little nervous about how many we would get.  We didn’t ever add the third load of dirt we were supposed to according to the directions we’d found online, and with our extra hot summer, I was afraid the browning we took for ‘finished potatoes’ was actually ‘I’m thirsty, why aren’t you watering me?’.  Thank goodness the former was true.  We didn’t quite make the 100 pounds of potatoes I was hoping for, but we have a pretty full bowl and a range of sizes.  It turned into a bit of a treasure hunt to sift through the dirt, plans and rocks at the bottom, I thought it was fun.  I’d give it another shot next year with the third load of dirt and see how much of an increase we get.

The Bad:  The onions.  More disappointing than bad really.  Almost all of them grew but I think they put more effort into the greens than the bulbs.  The entire two bins worth of onions fit nicely into a strawberry pint basket.

For your reference, this is the largest onion of the bunch.

The Squishy:  One unnerving thing we ran into a couple of times where damp, slimy, empty potato skins.  It only happened a couple of times, but still, eww.  I’m thinking about how we would change things up for the onions next year.  I’ve got some research to do but I’m not ready to give up on it yet.  I’ll just treat them as cocktail onions in the meantime!

Grandpa and Sweet Corn Ice Cream

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Hi All.  So as you may have noticed I’ve been MIA for awhile again.  Unfortunately my quick trip home for a weekend high school reunion turned into an extended stay.  My Grandpa passed away last week and I was home to be with family until about halfway through the week last week.  I spent many weekends and afternoons after school at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm house.  Without a doubt that’s where I (along with other family members) got a taste of real gardening.  They had not only one but two large vegetable gardens, the smaller of the two wouldn’t even fit in my backyard.  On top of that, they had a few berry bushes scattered throughout the back yard and always had a sweet corn patch in the field to make sure we had more than enough corn to freeze and last us through the winter.  I’m talking a 10 seater dining room table stacked with pots and pans of corn cut from the ears and ready to store.  Because of that, I’m sure Grandpa would have gobbled up what I made this weekend.

For my birthday, long time friend bought me the cookbook,The Sunset Edible Garden Cookbook: Fresh, Healthy Cooking from the Garden.  I don’t think I even had it all the way out of the bag and tissue paper before she said, “They have a recipe in there for Sweet Corn Ice Cream! you have to make that!” So, seeing as I had a grocery sack full of fresh from the field corn on the cob from Iowa, I went for it.

We tripled the recipe to make use of more of the corn we had.  The original recipe called for just 2 ears and with the various sizes I had, I ended up using 7. After the corn had been cut from the ears, I popped it in the food processor until it was really smooth.

I combined the milk, cream, and corn per their instructions and let it get to a simmer on the stove.

While that was warming up I separated 12 egg yolks and whipped that up with sugar.  When the cream mixture was simmering, I added in the egg mixture after tempering it first so we didn’t end up with scrambled eggs.

After that had time to thicken on the stove , I poured it into a large bowl and covered with cling wrap.  For anyone new to making ice cream don’t wait for it to reach a real thick consistency, it really just needs to be thick enough you could run your finger down the middle of a spoon and the cream doesn’t run back together.

I let the mix chill in the fridge overnight to make sure it was chilled all the way through.  The next morning I took the cling wrap off the top and stirred in some vanilla extract.

From there it got ladled into our ice cream maker.

I packed the surround of the bucket with layers of ice and rock salt and turned it on.  I checked the ice every 15 minutes or so to make sure the ice cream tin was covered.  We used to have a smaller machine that didn’t have as much space for ice around the outside.  I think that makes a big difference in how long it takes for the ice cream finish up.

After about an hour this is what my ice cream looked like.  Sort of like soft serve.  From there it went into the freezer to ripen for the rest of the day.

We didn’t try it until really late Saturday night but, OH MAN!  So good!  It was like taking the best creamy corn you’ve ever had in your life and then freezing it and adding a pinch of sweet.  I had more on Sunday night and tried it with just a bit of sea salt.  I thought since I like my corn on the cob with butter and salt, it would make it even better.  It was still good but I don’t think it really added anything to it.  We still have the better part of a gallon to eat, and I’m more than ok with that.

Fresh Tomato Pasta

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First thing this morning when I logged on to Pinterest, I found this beauty and knew I wanted to make it ASAP.  However, I also knew we had our first hand full of cherry tomatoes and wanted to give them a place in our dinner, so I altered a few things to make it work for us.  Also, we’re out of bread right now (getting ready for vacay = no grocery shopping this weekend) so I subbed in some parmesan for the bread crumbs.  This photo was probably the hardest part of prepping dinner tonight.

 

While pasta was boiling and cooking, I started my cherry tomatoes on the stove in some olive oil.  I like cooking them in the oil over medium heat until they start to pop and the juices from the tomato mix into the olive oil.

While they were sizzling, I chopped up some parsley I’d just picked fresh from the backyard.  By then both the pasta and the tomatoes were done so I drained the pasta and added in the tomatoes

Then the parmesan

Last, the parsley.

I gave it a good mix and salt and peppered the dish.  I used garlic salt in place of the garlic powder called for.

Then I dished it up and added another sprinkle or two of cheese and called it a day.  So easy for a Monday night!  I think next time around I’ll add some fresh garlic to the pan with the tomatoes.  I didn’t think we were getting enough garlic flavor from the salt.  I think we could sub out the tomatoes for some chopped up zucchini or squash later on this summer too.  As easy as it is to put together, it’ll be served up pretty regularly around here.

Late Summer Drink

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It’s Tuesday October 4th and we reached 80 degrees today!  Last week I was contemplating getting out tights and sweaters and today I was wanting a tank top and thought about turning the air conditioning back on (I was good and opened windows instead)  The unexpected heat had me wanting a nice cold drink to finish off the day and the ladies over at Spoon Fork Bacon have the most beautiful looking Pink Lemonade Cocktail.

Pink Lemonade from the Ladies at Spoon Fork Bacon

I’m a big fan of Jenny and Teri’s blog.   The food stylist and photographer duo are really fun to read and the food always looks so stinkin’ good!  Check them out if you haven’t already.  Stay cool!

Garden Update

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Things have really gone wild since the last time I showed you photos of our garden.  First here’s a refresher:

Looks pretty good right?  Nice and green, pretty full plants, looks about done right?  Well…..

wait for it….

wait for it….

wait for it….

BAM!

We are being taken over by tomatoes and squash!  One rouge squash vine is taking over our fence, hope the neighbor doesn’t mind.

But look at how cute the little baby butternut squash are!

We also have cherry tomatoes…

…Roma tomatoes…

….and some Big Boys

I couldn’t leave out the raspberries either.  We didn’t get a very large harvest the first time around.  I think the birds beat us to the punch.  We got some netting to cover the plants and, fingers crossed, we’ll get enough to make some jam this time.

It’s so much fun to watch this stuff grow!  We’re going to have this stuff coming out of our ears!  I’m getting ready to try some new recipes to make sure we don’t let it go to waste.

Anyone out there have favorite dishes for squash and tomatoes?