Zucchini Custard Pie

Here is a new zucchini recipe! You know how I am about zucchini...
An older lady from church gave me this recipe. Actually, she made this pie using zucchini I had given her, & then she called & asked for more zucchini to make another pie! She had told her sister she would save her a piece of pie, but then she got company & she served the rest of the pie to them. She told me her sister was mad at her, so she wanted to make another pie for her sister. I told her I must have this recipe! She gave it to me at church a few weeks ago.


As you can see from the picture, you put little pats of butter on the top when you put this in the oven. I don't think I'll do that again, it really doesn't need that. It was good, but I just didn't see the need of it, really. This is a wonderfully creamy, custard pie. And to be honest, you can't even taste the zucchini. So if you didn't want to tell anybody that it has a cup of zucchini pulp in it, you really don't have to. I didn't tell my family it had zucchini in it until we were nearly done eating it. *snicker*
Here's a picture of the piece I ate.


Zucchini Custard Pie
1 cup of zucchini pulp (peel & seed a zucchini. Cut it into chunks & cook in water until tender drain well. I used my hand mixer to turn it into pulp.)
1 C. sugar
1 C. evaporated milk ( like Milnot)
3 T. flour
2 eggs
pinch of salt
1 t. vanilla

Blend all ingredients in blender (I used my food processor) for 1 minute, put in pie shell. Top with cinnamon & add about 3 pieces of butter in chunks. Bake 375 for 45 minutes.


This was very tasty. It's a nice old fashioned custard. I had my pie cut into 8 pieces. I would say that my family of 4 really liked it, because there were only 2 pieces left.

And we had to split these last two pieces up the next day so we could all get another piece. :)
When we had this for dessert after supper that first evening, it was still a little warm. But I have to say that I thought it was even better really cold. Oh! it was delicious!
I want some more!

Sweet 'N Sour Beef 'N Cabbage

I know I'm a week late, but I would like to submit this to Tammy's Recipe Swap. She featured cabbage last Wednesday, & I've thought all week that I'd like to get on here & post this recipe.

I found this recipe in an old cookbook that I was getting ready to donate to the library. I went all through it first to see if there were any recipes that I wanted to copy. This recipe jumped out at me! I love cabbage & I love cabbage rolls, though I haven't had them in years. This cook book is titled, Better Homes and Gardens All-Time Favorite Hamburger & Ground Meats Recipes. It was published in 1980, so the cover photos look a bit dated. It's funny, but back in the late 70's & early 80's I don't remember things looking this dated. LOL

Sweet 'N Sour Beef 'N Cabbage
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1/2 C. chopped onion
1/2 C. chopped celery (opt.)
1/2 C. chopped green pepper
2 T. quick-cooking rolled oats
2 T. chopped parsley
2/3 t. salt
1/4 t. garlic powder
1/8 t. pepper
1 medium head of cabbage
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
1/4 C. cider vinegar
3 T. brown sugar
1/2 t. salt
dash pepper

In slillet cook ground beef, onion, celery, & green pepper till meat is browned; drain off fat. Sprinkle meat mixture with rolled oats, parsley, 3/4 t. salt, garlic powder, & 1/8 t. pepper.
Core cabbage; cut into six wedges. Place atop meat. In bowl combine tomato sauce, vinegar, brown sugar, & the 1/2 t. salt & a dash of pepper; mix well. Pour over cabbage & meat. Cover & simmer for 15-20 minutes or till cabbage is tender. Serve at once. Makes 6 servings.

This is really good. It has a wonderful sweet 'n sour flavor that is perfect with the cabbage.
I made this again a few weeks ago & my cabbage was pretty large. I cut it into more than 6 wedges, but I still had to cook it a little longer. I also go just a bit heavier on the seasonings too.

I hope you try this & enjoy it as much as we do!

Homemade Ketchup

Yes, I made homemade tomato ketchup!
I have to say, that for years we've joked about it. I've heard more than just a couple people say that their moms made homemade ketchup once when they were kids. And they made a bit of an 'icky face' when they said it. LOL And, if you've ever watched the "Vacation" movies with Chevy Chase as Clark Griswold, there's the scene where they are having a picnic with Cousin Eddie & his family. Ed is fixing hamburger helper (on the grill!) without any hamburger, & Ed's daughter Vicki is stirring the cool-aid with her hands. Trying to be polite, yet showing a bit of sarcasm, Clark fixes his "hamburger" & as he dips a thick red substance from a jar he says, "Reeeal tomato ketchup Ed?" LOL!

I found a recipe & I thought I'd just try making it once. It's a small recipe (& I even halved it so it would be smaller), so I figured it wouldn't be too much work or too many tomatoes wasted if we didn't like it. But, if we did like it, well, great!
I found this recipe here.
It's a nice link that tells about canning tomatoes. It's also where I got one of my spaghetti sauce recipes, but that's for another day...or two.

Tomato Ketchup
24 pounds ripe tomatoes
3 cups chopped onions
3/4 teaspoon ground red pepper (cayenne)
3 cups cider vinegar (5 percent)
4 teaspoons whole cloves
3 sticks cinnamon, crushed
1 1/2 teaspoon whole allspice
3 Tablespoons celery seeds
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup salt

Yields 6 to 7 pints

Wash tomatoes. Dip in boiling water for 30 to 60 seconds or until skins split. Dip in cold water. Slip off skins and remove cores.
Quarter tomatoes into 4-gallon stock pot or a large kettle. Add onions and red pepper. Bring to boil and simmer 20 minutes, uncovered. Cover, turn off heat, and let stand for 20 minutes.
Combine spices in a spice bag and add to vinegar in a 2-quart saucepan. Bring to boil. Remove spice bag and combine vinegar and tomato mixture. Boil about 30 minutes. Put boiled mixture through a food mill or sieve. Return to pot. Add sugar and salt, boil gently, and stir frequently until volume is reduced by one-half or until mixture rounds up on spoon without separation. Fill pint jars, leaving 1/8-inch headspace. Adjust lids and process.

I processed mine in a hot water bath canner for 15 minutes.
Also, I really wasn't sure how I felt about using so many tomatoes for this in case we didn't like it, so I halved the recipe. My yeild was 5 pints.

Here is a picture of the juice. This is after you have cooked the tomatoes & have added the vinegar that has been seasoned & then run it through your colonder or food mill, so it's actually ketchup flavored juice.

And here it is after it has cooked down by half. It took me a few hours of simmering to get it to cook down by half & become thick enough. I couldn't get a good picture because of the steam.
My 5 pints are in my new water bath canner in this next picture. One of my very best friends sent this to me. I actually have no idea which one sent it, but I do know that it was 1 of 8 lovely ladies that have been my very best friends for years. Or maybe all of them sent it! Thank you ladies!

(There's some jars of tomato juice next to my stove that I hadn't found storage space for yet. And behind those jars sits my jars of my dried herbs. )

I forgot to take a picture of all my pints of ketchup until we had already opened one, it's the one in the middle with a different lid.

And here's a close-up. See, it does really look like real ketchup.

Oh! I forgot to mention this, & it's really important!

We really like it!

The first time our daughter tried it, she dipped a french fry into some. I watched her with intent anticipation. As she ate, I said, "Well????"

And she paused, took another bite, & then said, "It tastes like....ketchup."

To which I threw my arms above my head & yelled, "YAY!"

LOL

So, I am glad I made this ketchup. Since I halved the recipe, I only used about 12 pounds of tomatoes. It does take a lot to cook down to get 5 pints. But, it tastes good, so it was worth it.

Now while eating supper somebody just has to say, " Reeeeal tomato ketchup?"

LOL

Tomatoes

This is what I am doing today:

Today I'm making 2 different recipes for spaghetti sauce. I've never canned spaghetti sauce before, so this is new to me. I have enough tomatoes here that I'm sure I'll be canning some more juice today too. One recipe calls for 4 gallons of tomatoes, so that's why I have some tomatoes in that 5 gallon bucket. That was the best way I could figure to measure 4 gallons of tomatoes.
Last night I made 5 pints of ketchup. I have never done that either. I wanted to try it. We'll see how it tastes in a day or two. If it's good I'll post the recipe.
And I'll post about today's spaghetti sauce too.
The house smells AMAZING.

Sorry I haven't been on here much, I'll try to do better! :)

Baby Corn

We had a nice little harvest of baby corn along with our regular corn this year. Actually, it was the biggest amount of baby corn we've ever had.
Baby corn isn't just corn that's not ready yet. It is little bity ears of corn that grows with a larger ear of corn. Not every ear has baby corn on it. Sometimes there will just be one, usually there's two, but every now & then there's three! I picked up one ear to shuck & it had four! As soon as I started shucking it, I realized I should have taken a picture of it. It was really amazing looking. So the next ear that had three babies on it, I snapped this picture. You can see that everything about the baby ears is a miniature of the big ear. And you can see in the background to the left are the regular ears that have been shucked, & to the right is the growing pile of baby corn that has been shucked.

Also, sometimes the baby corn doesn't grow on the outside of the big ear, but on the inside, just under the first few layers of husk. So you may think you have two baby ears, & then start shucking to big one only to find one or two more on the inside!

Our baby corn filled a WalMart bag full. You can see that there's one piece in there that's not actually baby corn. It had produced a few kernals, so it was just an immature cob. Immature cobs do not taste good. It snuck into this bag, but it did get tossed out.
Here's what a nice bowl of cooked baby corn looks like. You can either boil it or steam it. Add a few tablespoons of butter & some salt & pepper when you serve them. They are pretty good. They don't taste anything like regular corn. I think you have to have a taste for them. My husband doesn't like them. I like them, & our both our kids LOVE them.

I fixed one bowl for supper that night, & then blanced the rest (boil for 6-7 minutes then submerge in ice water) & fill up some quart freezer bags. We've never had enough to freeze before. I usually just cook up all we get to be a side dish with our supper, & if it's a large batch there's enough left overs to have again the next night. But this year I got 6 freezer bags full!

To think that years ago I used to just toss these babies out when I was shucking corn!
If you get a chance to grow corn, don't throw the little babies out, steam 'em up & eat 'em.

They're delicious. That maybe didn't sound quite right. But you know what I mean. LOL

Harvesting our Indiana Sweet Corn

One of the things that I love about Indiana, is the sweet corn.
It's so sweet & delicious that you don't care if you have butter running down your chin while you are eating corn on the cob.
Actually, that's part of eating it. :)
We had 3 50 foot rows of corn this year, & we were blessed with a wonderful crop.
This wheelbarrow is full of 1 row of corn.
Here the tractor wagon is holding the other 2 rows.

It took me quite a few hours to shuck this load. We also had a lot of baby corn this year, but I'll do a seperate post on them later.
We had a lot of really nice ears.

I love to see a sink full of corn!

Here is our process for preserving the corn by freezing it.

Freezer Corn

Shuck the corn & remove all the silk.
Rince the corn in a sink full of water.
Bring large pots of water to a boil.
Place the corn in the boiling water, & when the water returns to a boil, time the corn for 5-6 minutes.
Immerse the boiled corn into a sink full of ice water.
Cut the corn off the cob.
Place into freezer bags. (I put 3 cups into quart freezer bags.)
Write the date on the bags & put them in the freezer.

To prepare the freezer corn:
Remove from freezer & thaw overnight in the frig, or pop it in the microwave for 1 minute. Add 1-2 T. butter & some salt & pepper. Cook (microwave or stovetop) until warmed through. Easy. Delicious.

It really is easy. It's not near as tedious as green beans. After canning green beans I always look forward to doing the corn!
One 'trick' that I use is that I have a 'system' using my double sinks. If you've got a LOT of corn, you can set it up as sort of an assembly line. The corn can be stacked on the counter to the left of the sinks. The corn getting rinsed sits in the left sink. The corn that is done, that has been boiled for 5 or 6 minutes sits in the right sink. You wont get them mixed up, because the corn that has already been blanced is a deeper color than the un-blanced corn.

As far as cutting the corn off the cob, my husband likes to use a nice sharp knife. After you cut the corn off the cob, be sure to use the back of your knife & go over the cob again to get all the 'corn juice'. I like to use what I call a 'corn cutter'. I know that's not the name of it. It's not one of those plier looking things, it looks more like a slicer. I really like it. I can cut corn really fast with it. I've never cut myself with it, but it wouldn't be pretty if that ever happened. I have used this 'corn cutter' for at least 15 years. My M-i-L gave it too me, & I think she got it at a garage sale. You can also use an electric knife. That's what my dad always used.

Here is our table full of corn! You can see my corn cutter on the left side of the table. My husband & I work together & it makes it go faster. We each have a spot at the table with a pan of corn ready to be cut, our cutting areas (LOOK at those two mountains of corn!), & we also have a bag for the cobs but I moved it for the picture. When we've cut a bit of corn, I stop cutting & get it all bagged up. I put 3 cups per quart freezer bag. Then I rinse the bags (they get sticky) & set them on a towel to dry & go back to cutting. When I go to bag the next load I date the load I did earlier & put it in the freezer.

This year I didn't get a picture of all the bags when we were done, because we had so much I needed to put them away in the freezer as we worked.
Our total this year was 54 quart bags.
It's so great to fill the freezer back up with corn.
Thank you LORD our Provider for a wonderful harvest.

Wordless Wednesday on Saturday--TOMATOES!

Deep Fried Zucchini Sticks

This is one of my favorite ways to eat zucchini.

Deep Fried Zucchini Sticks

Zucchini, peeled, cut into sticks, or wedges like big oven fries
eggs
milk
Italian style bread crumbs OR flour
salt
pepper
and any spices you'd like to add...I usually add garlic & onion powder. Somtimes I add seasoned salt.

In a large bowl, stir together eggs, milk, salt & pepper.
In another pan (I usually use a pie pan, it's a good size for this) place the bread crumbs. OR you can use flour that you've add some seasoning too, like salt, pepper, & garlic & onion powders.

Drop each stick into a deep fryer with the oil set to 375 (you can use a big pan with oil in it on the stove, oil temp at 375). Fry for 3-4 minutes. Drain well, blot with paper towl, sprinkle with salt.
Let it cool a little (this is hard for me!), eat, & enjoy!

Here is a picture of the deep fried zucchini sticks made with store bought Italian bread crumbs:

And here they are dipped in flour:

I love them both.

:)

Adventures in Green Beans

We had our first pickin' of green beans last weekend.
Our dogs, Louie & Otto, wanted to help us. Actually they wanted to sneak green beans & eat them. Here's Louie, pretending he's just relaxing & keeping watch while we're picking. He would get up & sneak a bean out of our boxes, & then go hide behind the onions (right behind him in this picture) to eat his bean. He thought we couldn't see him behind those onions! LOL

After 3 hours, here's what we picked.

My husband lit up our burn pile ( just various limbs & stuff that we burn every once in a great while) & we sat around a campfire for many hours, just breakin' beans & eating s'mores.
In this picture, you can see that Louie is gaurding the boxes of beans. He's pretending that he's just relaxing with his ball, but everytime I looked over at him, he had moved just a little closer to the beans. He was just waiting for us to not look at him so he could sneak another bean. LOL
And here are both of our gaurd dogs (bean gaurd dogs! LOL) on duty. Otto's snout looks funny in this picture...that's because he's eating a green bean!

I started canning late, WAY too late in the day for this big mess 'o beans. I put the first load in the canner about 3:00pm.
This is the first canning load of the season!

This was a beautiful sight... but by the early morning hours, quite frankly, I was getting a bit tired of it! LOL
We had so many beans, that for the first time in my life, I didn't finish canning them. I couldn't go on. At 5:50AM I took my last load off the burner. I drained the sink full that I still had in the sink, put them in big pans, put them in the frig, hoped for the best & went to bed. I had canned 70 quarts of beans.
Bless my dear husband's heart, I woke up at 10:30am (hey, I got 4 1/2 hours of sleep!) & he was finishing up canning the last of the beans! He canned 20 quarts, so our grand total for this pickin' was 90 quarts!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Here they are, all ready to be stored for the winter.

I had to find storage place for them quickly...to make room for my zucchini. LOL
You can see just some of those hiding behind the beans.
To be honest, we should have picked the weekend before, but we were just so busy with things that we couldn't do it. Then we weren't able to do it through the week, so it fell to last weekend. The unseasonably cool weather saved us on this one, because if it were as hot as it usually is here in Indiana in August, those beans would have been spongy if they'd been left on the vine too long. Normally, we would have had our first pickin' over a week ago & canned 40-50 quarts. Then picked again last weekend & got another 40-50 quarts. So really, this 90 quarts was 2 pickins' done at one time. LOL

Whew. It's a lot of work.
But it is very worth it.
I have been thanking God all week for this green bean harvest.

Now, I was hoping the corn would be ready this weekend, but it may be a few more days. And the tomatoes are coming on slowly, we get a few a day, but as soon as we have a few 90 degree days, we're going to have LOTS of them.

Radish Sandwiches & My Dad

This is one of my all time favorite sandwiches. Our radishes are producing abundantly & I fixed my first radish sandwich of the year yesterday. As I cut the radishes & buttered my bread I thought about my dad. He taught me how to make this sandwich when I was just a kid. We'd butter our bread, add the radishes, shake on some salt, & dig in.

I had some cantaloupe already cut up in the frig, so I added that to my plate. Then I grabbed the quart of pickled beets that I had chillin' in the frig. My mouth watered as I filled my plate, & then I smiled because this was a plate my dad would LOVE. I can still see his eyes light up when I'd bring him out a few quarts of pickled beets. He loved them as much as me. He loved cantaloupe & radish sandwiches were his favorite too.
So as I prepared my plate, I thought about my dad & how many things he taught me besides how to make a radish sandwich (or an onion sandwich, or a tomato sandwich...LOL). On my first day of school in 1st grade, he let me have a piece of gum. I look back at this a wonder, because we hardly ever had gum when we were little kids. Anyway, he gave me this little piece of Trident & told me that they might not allow gum at school. I told him that if they didn't, I'd go right to the trash can & spit it out. (it makes me giggle to remember this) He said, "Oh no. Don't spit it out, that's not very lady-like. Little ladies don't spit their gum out, they take their gum out of their mouths with their fingers, & then throw it away." I can see him kneeling down one one knee & telling me this. It was probably 1971, & he had a crew cut & his hair was already snow white. When on rare occasions I do chew gum (hardly ever) when I go to spit it out I always remember that & I laugh. It's just a silly thing, but it's something I remember from when I was really little, & my dad wasn't just my dad, it was when he was my daddy....& that was so long ago.

I realized yesterday as I was fixing my fun lunch & thinking of my dad, that the next day (today) is the anniversary of his going home to Jesus. He's been gone 3 years now. I hadn't planned on having a radish sandwich & having it turn into a tribute lunch for my dad, but that's exactly what happened. So I looked around for my camera, & set some things next to my plate that Dad would really get a kick out of. I put the big container of radishes near, & my quart of chilled pickled beets, & of course some salt.
If he were here, he would have loved this lunch & thoroughly enjoyed it as much as I did!

Here's to you, Dad!
I am so thankful that God blessed me with you for my DAD.
I sure miss you.
I love you.

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!

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?