Brian's annual chocolate/peanut butter extravaganza

#vscocam from Joy the Baker's Homemade Decadence, pg. 190.

Summer Garden Roundup

Now that freezing temperatures have finally ended my the run of my summer garden, here's the results:

Yellow Plum Tomatoes (2 plants): 1400 tomatoes or more (this is a guess as I stopped counting at 1296).

White potatoes: 10 potatoes

Red Potatoes : 15 potatoes

Celebrity Tomatoes (1 plant): 54 tomatoes

Husky Cherry (1 plant): 121 tomatoes

Cherry Sweet 100 (1 plant): 185 tomatoes

Fairy Tale Eggplant (2 plants): 46 eggplants (I left some, so I could have had more)

Cucumber (2 rows from seed in a strip): 248 cucumbers (would have had more but gave up when it got too unruly with my walking boot)

Banana pepper (2 plants): about 100

Bell Pepper (4 plants): 75 peppers

Zucchini (3 plants from seed): 2 zucchini. They were perfect, but this was a lesson that I must help the pollination. As many butterflies I had out there, they didn't do the trick.

Garden: 1015 Onions

1015Y Onions

January 29, 2012 February 10, 2012 March 23, 2012 April 7, 2012 (with drip irrigation installed) April 26, 2012 May 2, 2012 (tops starting to fall over indicating almost ready to harvest) May 4 2012 May 9, 2012 Pulled them out of the ground and left them out to dry a bit in the sun Set them on a plant stand on the back porch to let them cure for longer storage Fully cured onions (what's left that we had not used) Lessons learned: When the trees filled out around my house I realized the side the onions were planted on only received about 4.5 hours of full sun during the day. Next year I will plant them on the other side of the garden and maybe they will get bigger. They are still delicious!

Building a Garden

Many thanks to my parents for helping me in so many ways!
1. Roped off area (10x20') and used The Dirt Doctor's Organic Herbicide (smells like salad dressing) to kill off the weeds/grass in the area. 2. Tilled and tried to scrape up as much of the Bermuda grass and weeds as possible 3. Placed blocks around the perimeter and then amended the soil mixing in compost (shown below), Vermiculite, and black kow 4. Tilled it all together 5. Made rows - ready to be planted

Garden Fresh Eggplant Pizza

I took the picture with my tablet, so not great color or resolution.

My first harvest from the garden was two banana peppers. They went into a Greek-style salad, and it was delicious.

This pizza is the first thing I've made with multiple items from the garden: eggplant, bell pepper, and another banana pepper.
I added store-bought mozzarella, sundried tomatoes, pesto, onion, red pepper and goat cheese.
I started by making the dough. Then I grilled the onions, eggplant and peppers. I let them cool, chopped them, mixed them with a little balsamic, olive oil, crushed red pepper, and sundried tomatoes. I rolled the dough, smeared it with pesto, topped with mozzarella, spread the veggie mix, top with goat cheese. Bake on 450 until brown and bubbly. Allow to cool and top with fresh oregano (from the garden). Gardening success!

Potato Salad

One year for a family holiday gathering, I was asked to make the potato salad. I had never made a potato salad before, my grandmother always did. I sent an email out to my mother and my aunts about my grandmother's recipe. All three responded, but they all gave me a different answer! 2 said to use Miracle Whip one said Hellman's only, one said no mustard, others said a tiny squirt. They potato to egg ratios were all different. They only agreed on 2 things:
1. Grandma didn't have a recipe.
2. She used pickle juice instead of vinegar.

So basically for 2 people, I take two large Idaho baking potato, 2 eggs, add about 1/3 cup of mayo (Hellman's please), a Tablespoon or so glob of relish or finely chopped pickles, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup chopped onion (depending on how spicy the onion, or how oniony you want it), a couple teaspoons pickle juice, a squirt of mustard (spicy brown), salt and pepper. Mix, Mix, Mix. Chill for an hour or so until cold.

Oh, and if you like a relative's recipe for something, ask for it. You never know when they won't be there to ask.

salad with sugar and spice pecans and bourbon vinaigrette

Dinner tonight was awesome! Field green salad with strawberries, blackberries, onion, blue cheese, sugar and spice pecans, and bourbon vinaigrette.

Pecans
Vinaigrette