Our Garden is In!

Thankfully! We have planted our garden! There has been so much rain here that we are behind on the planting. We could have planted earlier in the weekend, but we had something kind of big going on here.

Our daughter graduated from high school!

They had a big homeschool graduation on Saturday afternoon, & then the ladies at our church gave her a wonderful reception afterwords. It was really something special.

We started working on our garden on Memorial Day.

Here is the row of green peppers. We planted this row over by our 'not doing so well strawberries' & where we plant our cucumbers (they vine up that trellis).

Next to that we planted two rows of spinach. We have never planted spinach before. I love to try growing new things.

Here is the west end of our garden. Last year the corn was here, this year it's the tomatoes! It is three rows across the garden. And then we do have another row running longways. Boy, these tomato plants look so tiny.

Here's that big sage plant in my herb garden. I did read that you can let this thing bloom & it won't hurt anything. The blooms are very pretty & the bees love them. So once it's done blooming I'll trim it back.

Here's a picture of the herb garden. In this picture I still haven't done a thing to it
(but I did a lot to it this evening, just no pictures yet).

The thyme is also blooming. I'll do just like the sage, I'll let it bloom then trim it back.

The cilatnro is coming up all over the place! There was a lot of cilantro growing up in the middle of the regular garden....about 20 feet away from its little plot! I have already picked a bunch & have it hanging to dry. The cilantro plot is in the lower right hand corner. And in the dill. And in the camamile. And in the parsley. And in the chives. LOL

The bottom left is the parsley. I have already been picking it & using it in recipes.

The dill is on the far side & is coming up all over the place too. I love dill.

Here's another shot of just the cilantro.
Hello cilantro! I'll not let you go to seed this year before picking a bunch of you for drying. I have so much corriander seed & I don't know what to do with it. LOL

Tonight I did quite a bit of work in the herb garden.
I added a new little patch & planted oregano. This is new for me this year. I love oregano & cook with it a lot so I wanted to be sure and plant it this year.
I also added 1 fennel plant. I'll let it go to seed & harvest those. I love to add fennel seeds to pizza & to meatball sandwiches. YUM.

I also cleared all of the dill growing up in the basil spot. Basil is annual & so I have to re-plant.
Here is the dill weed-weeds that I pulled out of the basil patch.

That's a lot of dill already! I'll be using some of this fresh in the next few days & then drying the rest. I love dill in cucumber sauce. It's one of my favorite things.

I forgot to mention what we planted in the regular garden.

24 tomato plants
8 green pepper plants
4 broccoil plants
4 cabbage plants
4 cauliflower plants
1 jalapeno plant
4 chili plants (new for us)
3 rows of sweet corn
2 rows of green beans
1 row of radishes
2 small rows of spinach (new for us)
2 small rows of cucumbers
5 hills of zucchini
1/2 row onions
4 ice berg lettuce plants (new for us)

Oh, another thing, I found 8 broccoli plants coming up vonunteer! So I replanted them in the corner of the garden before my husband disced & tilled. A few got trampled by accident, but I do have 4 plants left. So I need to find a place to add those. It will be fun to see if they produce. I let one of the plants go to seed last fall & I meant to harvest the seed (I've never done that before & I'd like to learn).
I forgot & they froze, but I reckon some still fell to the ground & did what they are supposed to do!

I'll try not to stay away so long. We've just been so busy with graduation stuff, & other things that this site has suffered. I'll try to get online more! I have tons of food pictures that I have taken. I hope to get on here in the next few days & post my new hamburger buns that I've been making. Oh, they are SO GOOD!

Kitchen Tip Tuesday

My kitchen tip this week is for the many uses for ice cream buckets. Every now & then I like to buy ice cream just because I love these buckets. Well, I'll eat the ice cream if you twist my arm...
Anyway, I love these because they are a good size, usually hold 1.5 gallons or more, & they have a nice handle. Once we've eaten the ice cream, I always save these big buckets & I use them for many things.
First, I use them for homemade ice cream. We actually make homemade ice cream more than we buy ice cream. In this picture you can see that that the label says Chocolate Revel ice cream. But the contents are actually homemade vanilla. I have an old fashioned hand crank freezer that makes a gallon and a half of ice cream, so I love these big buckets to store all that ice cream in!
They also make great cleaning buckets. I use them to spot mop the kitchen or bathroom floors. I have used them to spot clean just about anything. I have 5 babysitting kids, so spot cleaning a place on the couch (or anywhere) is very common. I only use ONE bucket for cleaning. I have marked it with a Sharpie, "CLEANING ONLY" & I keep it on a shelf in the laundry room with scrub brushes in it, so it never gets used for ice cream or any other food.

Another favorite use for my ice cream bucket it for weeding in the garden. I call it my weed bucket. (Isn't that clever? LOL) I've had this weed bucket for a while. It looks like I may need to go buy another bucket of ice cream so this one can retire. I love the handle. I think I've spent many hours with this particular bucket. It has held its share of weeds & one year a lot of rocks. I keep my little shovels & my gloves in it.


I also have two other uses for these buckets, but I'll spare you the pictures.
We have one marked as the "Puke Bucket". It stays hidden, but it is brought out whenever anyone is sick. Well, if you know someone is sick, they can have this bucket sitting on the bed table, ready to be used if needed.
It does help keep some of the mess down. It can be easily emptied & then washed out (& sanitized) & re-used... only as a puke bucket. It's NEVER used for anything else. We have a specific spot for it in the linen closet, & everyone knows what it's for & that it is never to be used for anything else. Ever.

The other use is to hold the plunger. You don't have to use a plunger very often (hopefully), but when you do have to use it, after you've finished, you don't have to set it on the floor. Just keep your plunger standing in one of these buckets (clearly marked that it's for use for the plunger ONLY). We keep ours stored in a far corner in the laundry room. But it's not on the floor, it's in this bucket.

I know my uses for these buckets are not just for the kitchen, but for many areas of the home.
Getting back to the kitchen, I've used these buckets for many strawberry pickins'. Back when our strawberry patch was really producing TONS of strawberries, I filled these buckets many times.
When I was picking dandelions the other day for fried dandelions, I used one of these buckets.
I bet I'll think of more ways I use these buckets after I finish writing this.
They have a handy little handle & they are a handy size.
They are handy buckets.
You just have to eat the ice cream out of them first.
It's a sacrifice, but someone has to do it.



You can read more Kitchen Tips over at Tammy's Recipes.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

Fried Dandelion Flowers

Yes, I said DANDELIONS!

We have heard many times that fried dandelions taste just like fried morels.
Since we don't have a super secret morel hunting ground, I thought we'd give this a try.
We were all a little leary.
But we tried them.
And you know what?
They were Ok. Actually, they were pretty good!
Good enough that our daughter has asked for them often.
I have to admit, that they do not taste "just like fried morels". They do taste awfully close to morels, just not exactly like them.
Here's what a few of ours looked like. I guess I should tell you that you can't actually tell that these are fried dandelions. The first time I made them, I just made a few & I dipped each flower in egg batter & flour seperately. After deciding that we liked them & that we'd like to have them again, only more of them, I now use my "batter pro" gizmo to flour them. This makes some of them stick together, which is actually a good thing because it makes bigger sizes. I hope I explained that alright. I just mean that when a few flowers stick together, you have a bigger piece to fry.

Fried Dandelion Flowers
Pick dandelions that are fresh (not starting to close) & pick them close to the bottom. Dont use any of the stem. (that would be yuk)
eggs
milk
salt
pepper
garlic powder
onion salt

First, I soak mine in salt water for a little while to get rid of any bugs that might be hiding in there. We soak morels for at least 24 hours, but you can't soak dandelions that long, or they'll close up. If some of them close up it's ok though.
Fry these like you would fry anyting. I dip mine in an egg batter (eggs & milk) & then dip in flour that has your seasonings in it.
Now fry them in canola oil until crispy & brown.

As much as I would LOVE to fry up a big platter of fried morels...we just don't have any. :( If we did have some, I would just flour them up & fry them. Here's a good site that has recipes for morels. If you don't have access to any morals, my advise is to go there at your own risk. It made my mouth water, & I may have wimpered a few times.

If you are like us & you don't have any morels, you should try these dandelions sometime. They are really good, & they're FREE! And around here they grow in abundance! LOL Unlike morels....

Homemade Dog Treats

Today I have a recipe for man's best friends...DOGS. :)
Our dogs are a huge part of our lives. They felt so special the day my husband & son made these homemade dog bones for them. Our 'boys' knew that Dad & Son were baking these for them. And they watched & waited the whole time!
I found this recipe quite a while ago over at the Left Over Food Queen's site. The original link with recipe can be found here.

In this first picture, you can see my husband & son working together.

I thought I should take a picture from further away so you could see our boys watching. They were very excited. They knew.

Here they are waiting & watching some more. Their names are Louis (6 years old, he's the sable one) & Otto (4 years old, black & 'red').

Otto has decided to be a little more patient. He laid down to watch.

While Otto rested, Louis decided that maybe the treats would be done sooner if he gave my husband & son the stare.

Finally, Louis got tired & decided to lay down too.

And while Louis laid down, Otto took on gaurd duty. He's got a pretty good stare too:

So, the cookies (bones) get rolled out on the table. We don't have a dog bone shaped cookie cutter, so our son picked out the candy cane cookie cutter. We thought that was about the same size as the dog bones we usually buy for them. There are 2 on the cookie sheet that I shaped into dog bone shape.

Here are the treats after they were finished. There are a few 'candy canes' & a few free hand dog bone shapes. Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of our dogs actually eating these treats. You'll just have to take my word for it that they LOVED them.
These homemade dog treats are very healthy & it was nice knowing the exact ingredients that were in them. Unlike store bought bones, I can pronounce each & every ingredient. :) They were not expensive to make either. Compared to store bought, they were very cheap! I had all of the ingredients except for the wheat bran. I picked some up at the grocery store & found it in the flour aisle.

For our 'boys', this is a KEEPER recipe. :)

Dog Bone Cookies
2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1/2 cup non-fat dry milk powder
1/2 t. salt

6 T. butter

1 egg

1 cup water

3 t. wheat bran

3 T. Peanut Butter
Preheat oven to 350 F. Put butter and egg in food processor (or mixer) and process until smooth. In a seperate bowl mix the flour, milk powder, salt and wheat bran together. Add flour mixture, peanut butter and water alternately to butter and egg mixture and pulse processor until the dough has come together into a nice ball (you may not need to use all the water).
Roll the dough out onto a floured surface and roll to about 1/2 inch thickness. If you have a cookie cutter, cut the shapes out. If not, you can shape them by hand. Cut small (about 2 inch long) rectangles in the dough with a knife.
Fold piece in half lengthwise. Squish the middle of each end towards the center to make the 2 rounded knobs at each end. Flip over to smooth side and place on a cookie sheet (don't worry about spacing, they aren't going to grow).
Bake for about 15 minutes, flip and then bake another 3-4 minutes. Place on cookie racks to cool and keep out overnight to harden.
Makes about 60-70 cookies

It's Garden Time!

We haven't planted yet, but that will be coming soon! I'm looking so forward to the garden of 2009.
Here's our main garden, just brimming with potential...and our 6 year old son's construction spot. He calls it his "soft dirt" & he plans construction stuff with it all summer. As you can see, he has already started on this year's work.The spearmint that I planted last year under the propane tank is already growing. I dried some of it last fall & I've really enjoyed having some in my tea. I had heard that peppermint was harder to go, & sure enough, the peppermint that I planted last year in a pot didn't return. That's ok, I really do like the spearmint too.

And here is my herb garden. Now keep in mind that I haven't done anything to it yet. No weeding, no nothin'. Last year was my first year having an herb garden. I really enjoyed it, & I really enjoyed cooking with some of my own dried herbs over the winter. Everything is coming back up on it's own, except the basil, & I'm pretty sure that's the only annual I planted.

Here's the flat leaf parsley. Wow, it's really coming up in thick bunches. I wonder if I can seperate it at all, so I can spread it out better. I don't know if it would handle that or not. Well, I might try it.

And my oh my look at the cilantro! Not only is it coming up well in it's little square plot, it is also in the walkway, I spotted one in the parsley, & some where the camomile goes! Cilantro is the only one that I didn't dry last fall & I hated it that I missed my window of opportunity to do that. It went to seed (corriander) before I realized it was time to do it. I still have a large jar of corriander seed. I need to find some kind of recipe to use it. This year I will dry some cilantro so we can enjoy it all year.

Here's my big sage plant. Because I'm new at this, I didn't know what to do with it over the winter. I bet I was supposed to cut it back. I thought it dried out over the winter. But now that it is warmer weather, the leaves are green again & appear to be normal.

You can see in this next picture that the stems are pretty "woody". Inside new leaves & stems are growing. I bet I'm supposed to cut this back so the new growth can grow. What do you think? My hand smelled like sage after taking this picture.
Here is the thyme & it has the same story as the sage. I didn't cut it back at the end of the year. I dried a ton of it, but still left so much to just stay in the garden over the winter. It seemed like the leaves all dried out in the winter, but like the sage, all the thyme is green again. This is the thyme left over from last year. Like the sage, there is new growth coming up under it, so I may need to trim these back too.

Just look at all the thyme I have! ( I wish I had as much TIME as I have thyme. LOL)

Here is the camomile coming back too. I have enjoyed my camomile tea over the winter. I just had some the other night. I like it with some sugar & a bit of honey....it's soooo good. There's also some cilantro coming up in camomile. I hate to say this, but there will be quite a bit of cilantro that will be pulled like weeds! LOL
Of course the chives are up & growing too! I've already been snipping some & adding it to salads & to sour cream on baked potatoes.

You can't tell what this is yet, but it is the dill. One of my favorite things to use dill is the cucumber sauce. Love that. I also made a dill bread that had cottage cheese in it. I never got around to posting that recipe, maybe I'll do that soon. About the only thing recognizable in this picture is the dandilion, LOL, but I can vouch that there really is a lot of dill there.

Here is the cucumber fence my husband made last year. We are really looking forwad to seeing cucumbers vine their way up this fence!
I really liked everything I planted in the herb garden last year. The only thing that didn't come up was the lavender. I think this year I would like to add oregano, & maybe fennel. I've never used fresh fennel, but I do use fennel seeds on pizza & in meatballs. I'll have to see about that though.

Well, there is my first garden post of the year.

Hopefully I can get back to the computer more often than I have lately.

Questions:

Do any of you know about the sage & thyme? Do you think I should cut it back so the fresh leaves can grow?