Garden Recipes

With all the things we've been harvesting from the garden, I've been researching new recipes to try and use them up. I didn't have to look much further than the Food Network website.

First, I made this delicious Sausage-Cauliflower Spaghetti. I had made this once before, but this time I got to use my very own homegrown cauliflower so it was even better. This is a kid friendly dish in my house because the kids love spaghetti and sausage so I'm only throwing in one ingredient they might not love. I just cut the cauliflower nice and tiny and hope some ends up in their mouth. D has recently decided that he does like cauliflower but I'm still working on Cali.

My next challenge was to figure out what to do with my surplus of radishes, especially since the one person who eats the most radishes had been out of town. I really don't like them much at all, but I do like growing them because they are so easy! Plus I found some really pretty mixed color ones (pictured here). The kids eat some radishes, but still we had a surplus. I thought it would be fun to try these Quick Pickled Radishes by Bobby Flay.

Here is my version of his recipe, his called for an entire quart of vinegar & 4 bunches of radishes... I didn't want that many pickled radishes.

Pickled Radishes

3/4 cup salad vinegar
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 tbsp pickling spice
1 clove smashed garlic per jar
Sliced red onion (optional)

Clean radishes and cut to desired size. Combine ingredients of pickling liquid in a sauce pot and bring to a boil. Arrange radishes, garlic and onion in jars. Pour boiling liquid over radishes and put on lids. Allow to cool to room temperature before refrigerating.*

*This is what I did, but as I re-read the recipe I see that Bobby says to pour off the liquid and serve when it is cooled. Maybe that is why mine were SO powerful by dinnertime. Funny enough, I made everyone else try them first (since I don't even like radishes) and they said "Whoa these are strong!" Well I happen to LOVE vinegar so I actually did like them! Also, the original recipe called for Champagne vinegar which I didn't find, maybe it isn't as strong as what I used.

Finally, I found a delicious new use for cabbage! I do like coleslaw, but figured by the time I bought carrots and purple cabbage to mix with my own cabbage that would defeat the purpose of using what I have available. I found a recipe for Grilled Cabbage in a Taste of Home magazine.

Here is my version...

Grilled Cabbage

2 small cabbages, washed and cut into wedges
5 strips center cut bacon
1 tbsp butter, softened
Sliced red onion, to taste
Pepper, to taste

Start cooking bacon and preheat grill. As bacon cooks, arrange cabbage wedges and sliced onion on a large sheet of foil, spread with butter, sprinkle with pepper to taste. When bacon is done place on top of cabbage and drizzle bacon grease on top. Wrap tightly in foil and place on the grill. Grill, covered, over medium heat for 20 minutes or until tender. Open foil carefully to allow steam to escape.

Dave and I really enjoyed this recipe and ate a great big helping of it. I left out the salt and reduced the butter since I added bacon. The kids nibbled the bacon but said they didn't like "cooked lettuce." Cali said she would eat cabbage if I didn't cook it next time.

Pickin Peas...

and cabbage, and cauliflower, and so many radishes!

The kids look forward to picking peas every day now, sometimes before breakfast. I haven't even worried about putting a veggie on their dinner plate lately because they are always picking their own peas and eating them straight from the pods. Cali never touched peas before 2 weeks ago. We've also picked a handful of raspberries which she thought she didn't like until this week. I'm so happy the garden has inspired both of them to try new things!

We always refer to this cute book we found at the library quite awhile ago, the song is still stuck in our heads... "Pickin' peas, land on my knees..."

My rainbow of radishes, these were called Easter Egg radishes.

I was starting to doubt these were even going to form heads. It's not huge but it was starting to open so I had to pick it.

One of my favorite little garden helpers.

Garden Grown

Sorry to leave you hanging... I got overwhelmed with the photo updates when I thought about how many photos I had from December. Not to mention, life just plain gets busy. Spring also happens to be my very favorite season and I spend every minute possible outside enjoying it... despite the fact I have really awful seasonal allergies. I did spend a solid week in complete hayfever misery before heading back to the doctor to up my allergy meds. The problem is, I do love Spring and the great outdoors so much that I just can't help myself and refuse to stay indoors hiding from the pollen. On the contrary I was outside with my hands in the dirt and my nose and eyes fully exposed to the yellow clouds of misery.

My parents were always gardeners, and I spent many an Alaskan summer day pulling weeds or picking peas... even if it was my birthday. Although I also have fond memories of being allowed to go across the street from the community gardens to the empty fields (where a mobile home park used to be) to chase baby grasshoppers and eat wild strawberries to my heart's content. Well, thanks to that upbringing and David's Dad also being a gardener, we just couldn't help ourselves. Even in our very first, newlywed, one bedroom apartment we grew some plants in pots on a workbench in our garage.

Thanks to Dave's handiwork we now have our biggest garden yet, consisting of 4 large raised beds, two rain barrels, a compost bin, and a gated fence to keep Huey out. When people ask "What do you have planted?" I just say "everything."

Technically though, since March we have planted: radishes, carrots, lettuce, spinach, onions, shallots, potatoes, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, soybeans, green beans, cabbage, cucumber, watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin, yellow squash, zuchinni, tomatoes, jalapeno, purple tomatillos, strawberries, several herbs.. that might be all... wait, today we planted corn.

Putting worms in the garden, shortly after the initial planting at the beginning of March.

She's got a wiggly one!

More recent garden pics, notice the hidden eggs?

Broccoli, that has all been eaten by now. You can see it newly planted in the worm pics above.

Bunches of pea pods have grown since this pic. Cali checks daily for ones that are ready. She never liked cooked peas but has now declared that these fresh ones taste like candy!!

Caterpillars v. Broccoli

Despite all the leaf damage from the hundreds of little green caterpillars, our broccoli and cauliflower are all doing pretty well. D went ahead and tried the broccoli and approved. We'll let the cauliflower probably grow a little more.

Fall Garden Update

We finally got some much needed rain after a long, hot summer. Remember the same plants from just one week ago?


And, I finally got over to the local nursery today and picked up plants for the 3rd bed: broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.

Fall Garden

Started on my fall garden several weeks ago. Vanessa & I attended a gardening workshop at our local library put on by Master Gardeners from our area and I learned quite a few things. First of all, I needed to amend my soil. So I got in with my shovel, pitchfork and hoe and worked in some perlite (to hold moisture) and compost to add nutrients (among other benefits). This was the first batch of compost out of our new bin and I was pleasantly surprised how it turned out. For now I have two beds all worked up so I planted gourds, yard-long beans, peas, carrots, spinach, lettuce, red onions, and yellow onions. I still need to work up the third bed and plant at least some broccoli & cauliflower.. not sure what else.

Cucumbers

Among other things, we are getting loads of cucumbers from our garden this year. In the past we've grown some that were too bitter to eat but these are really tasty and really plentiful. If you have any good cucumber recipes send them my way!


And just because I'm always curious... especially when its a veggie the kids are happy to eat.. I looked up what it is that makes Cucumbers "good for you":

Cucumbers are a very good source of the vitamins C and the mineral molybdenum. They are also a good source of vitamin A, potassium, manganese, folate, dietary fiber and magnesium and contain the important mineral silica.

Taken from World's Healthiest Foods website where you can learn everything else you ever wanted to know about cucumbers. Check it out, there's a lot more to them than you might have thought!

Garden Update

Dave & I both grew up with parent's who garden and we must've inherited their green thumbs because we've had our own little garden of some sort in every home we've owned together. This is our biggest so far because we've lived here the longest. It started as one bed then every couple months it seemed he was eager to add on another. It is a joint effort but he keeps up with a lot of it when he's home and is always asking me how the garden is when he's away. Thankfully, he reminds me to water it too!

After running around all day yesterday and a serious thunderstorm last night I hadn't checked on the garden in at least two days so I was pretty surprised how huge the squash and tomato plants looked all of a sudden.

Then, after I noticed one of the potato plants was dead I looked down and saw potatoes lying right there near the top of the soil! These plants all came from one icky potato that was sprouting roots in my pantry. I figured I'd just cut it up, throw it in the soil and see what would happen. I had no idea if potatoes grew well in TX or not. Turns out they do and here is our whole bumper crop... we ate them for dinner sliced thin and sauteed in Meyer Lemon Infused Oil.


This last picture is of the first garden bed he built for us here. Its kind of the rogue garden, full of herbs I planted 3 years ago, Moonflower vines & Morning Glories that come back from seed, and my experiments like the above-mentioned potatoes and a few thriving tomato plants that came from a handful of moldy grocery-store cherry tomatoes I buried out there rather than throw in the trash. You can often find Cali in one corner of this garden munching on chives.

For more info on growing new plants from kitchen scraps (like my icky potato or moldy tomatoes) check out the book Don't Throw It, Grow It! You'll never look at your produce bin the same way again. Just to clarify, I don't own this book but I did glance through it at the store and it had tons of cool (although sometimes complicated & time-consuming) ideas.