Wordless Wednesday

Be sure to notice the baby frog getting a piggy back ride!

Blueberry Muffins that are ***TO DIE FOR***

That's what the recipe said, it really did say they were TO DIE FOR.
It was from a recipe that I found online (cooks.com I think), but I don't need to link to it I guess, because now I can't find it, and I canged it a bit by adding vanilla & the topping. Next to the recipe that I now have in my binder I wrote, "KEEPER! This is IT. This is THE blueberry muffin recipe to use from now to evermore!" LOL
Really. They're THAT good. Please try them!
Blueberry Muffins
1 ½ C. flour
¾ C. white sugar
½ t. salt
2 t. baking powder
1/3 C. vegetable oil (I use canola)
1 egg
1/3 C. milk
1 t. vanilla
1 C. (or more!) fresh blueberries
Topping:
½ C. brown sugar
1/3 C. flour
¼ C. butter, cubed
1 ½ t. Cinnamon
Combine the flour, sugar, salt, & baking powder in medium or large bowl. In a small bowl stir together the milk, oil, egg, & vanilla. Mix this into the flour mixture stir with a spoon until just combined (don’t over stir). Fold in blueberries. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners. Fill muffins cups about ½ to 2/3 full.
For the crumb topping: mix together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, & butter with a fork or pastry cutter until crumbly. Sprinkle about 1 t. (or more!) of this mixture on each muffin. The first time I made this, I used a light hand for the topping (about 1 t.) & had lots of topping left over.
Bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. For mini-muffins, bake about 15 minutes.

Here's a picture of a batch of mini muffins I made with this recipe. I made the mistake the first time of not using muffin liners with the minis. You really have to. Blueberry muffins are just not as sturdy as banana or zucchini muffins, which I never use liners with because they pop right out of the mini muffin pan. But not blueberry muffins, they're too unstable with those big, juicy, plump, delicious blueberries in there. The first batch that I didn't use liners on, at least half of them broke when I took them out of the pan. They were still delicious, & there wasn't a single one left over, but they were very hard to get out of the pan without breaking them. So, lesson learned, I now use muffin liners.

Go make these! Bake, eat, & enjoy. You will probably moan.

Radishes, Green peppers, & Banana Peppers

First, LOOK at this giant radish! It's on a large dinner plate & is larger than my hand. And believe it or not, it was not hard or 'stalky'.
I actually didn't mean for them to get this big. LOL We picked them Wednesday evening & got this bag full. My husband weighed this bag with his digital fish scales, & it weighed 17 pounds! This was our 2nd planting of radishes.

I really did have a sinkfull! We also picked a few green peppers & some banana peppers. These banana peppers are the sweet kind, not hot at all, even with the seeds inside. I would LOVE to find a recipe to can them with just a little heat, like mild. If anyone has a good recipe of something like the Vlasic Pepper Rings (mild) I'd love to try it.

We've had just a few tomatoes turn red (oh! they are delicious!!!)! The onslaught of tomatoes should be in the next week or two.

The corn is nearly ready too. I'm guessin' another week.

There's the most recent garden update.

Oh, I forgot...we need to pick green beans again!

Friday Felicities

Welcome to Friday Felicities, a meme created by Nattie - now a resident of heaven. This meme is all about creating a list of things that make you happy and Nattie knew that when you concentrate on your blessings your sorrows are not as overwhelming. If you would like to participate please create your own blog post and go to Becky's site to link it with other Friday Felicities participants.

• Having a nice visit with my friend DANA!
• Having our first ripe tomato!
• Having a nice visit with my friend DANA!
• FRIED ZUCCHINI!!!!!
• Having a nice visit with my friend DANA!
• Having dd home from church camp.
• Having a nice visit with my friend DANA!
• More radishes!
• Having a nice visit with my friend DANA!
• FRIDAYS!!!!
• Feeding Dana & her girls homemade chocolate ice cream.
• Did I mention that I had a nice visit with my friend DANA?! LOL Well, I did. And it made me happy.

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

Awe... how relaxing, sleeping in a tent! (notice his hat, shoes, & teddy bear LOL)
I guess this was a few words Wednesday. :)

Garden Update- Tomato plants & Corn

Everything is now growing by leaps and bounds, Praise the LORD!
Here's some pictures to compare.
Here's the tomato plants at the very end of May.

I'm standing behind this tomato plant to show it's size. I'm short, 5'2 when standing my tallest, LOL, & in this picture you can barely see the top of my head.


Here's the corn at the end of May.

And here I am hiding in it yesterday. LOL

And here's the most recent picture of the herb garden. I am so pleased with it! I haven't really used any cilantro, although I want to! I've used the dill, basil, thyme, & parsley quite a bit.

The sage plant is huge! It was one little measly plant, but now it's practially a bush.

I know I'm going to have to figure out a drying system soon, so I can use these through the winter. Oh, I've also made Italian Bread a few times using quite a few of these herbs. We really like that bread! I'll post the recipe soon.

Friday Felicities

• Knowing that a friend is coming to visit NEXT WEEK!

• FRIDAYS FRIDAYS FRIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

• Obsessed by Ted Dekker.....wow, it was GOOD!

• Discovering Mitford books, I just started the first one.

• Green Beans

• And, lastly....knowing we are going to buy a new vacuum cleaner!

Canning Green Beans

We picked this wheelbarrow full of green beans on Sunday. It was our second pickin'.

It made 46 quarts!

I got to bed Sunday night, I mean Monday morning at 3:40!
But having these beans canned was sure worth it. :)
The next thing to be ready will be the corn.

Cooked Cabbage

I love cooked cabbage SO MUCH. I had 2 heads of cabbage from the garden in the frig and I need to get busy & finish making freezer slaw. But today I decided to cook one head of it.

Cooked Cabbage
1 head of cabbage
3 slices of bacon, chopped
1/2 c. onion, diced
2 cups chicken stock
salt & pepper to taste

Fry the bacon until almost done. Add onions & cook for a few more minutes. Add chicken stock & stir well. Bring up to a boil & add the cabbage that you've cut up into small wedges & stir. Cover & simmer for 15 minutes or until tender. Add salt & pepper to taste.

Not everyone likes cooked cabbage, but I have to say, it's near the top of the list for me!

BEET GREENS

I've never cooked beet greens before. This year I decided to try it. Everyone in my family LOVES spinach, except for me. I think it tastes like dirt, & it is one of very few things that I don't care for. I'm not picky at all. I just don't like spinach. The rest of my family love it so much they even eat it cold, straight out of the can. Yuck! LOL
I found this recipe for beet greens over at Simply Recipes. The recipe can be found here.

Beet Greens

1 pound beet greens
1 strip of thick cut bacon, chopped
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 large garlic clove, minced
3/4 cup of water
1 Tbsp granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/6 cup of cider vinegar
Wash the greens in a sink filled with cold water. Drain greens and wash a second time. Drain greens and remove any heavy stems. Tear leaves into bite-sized pieces. Set aside.
In a 3 qt saucepan, cook bacon until lightly browned. Add onions, cook over medium heat 5 to 7 minutes, stirring occassionally, until onions soften and start to brown. Stir in garlic. Add water to the hot pan, stirring to loosen any particles from bottom of pan. Stir in sugar and red pepper. Continue cooking until mixture boils. Add greens, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes (up to 30 minutes for kale or collard greens). Stir in vinegar. (For kale or collard greens continue cooking additional 20 to 25 minutes or until desired tenderness.)

First I have to show you this picture. The chopped bacon had been cooking until slightly browned & then I added the onions. Bacon & onions fryin' in a pan. Oh my.
The smell was as you can imagine!

Not all of my family cared for beet greens. Only half of us liked it. I am the spinach hater, & I really really liked this! My spinach lovin' husband & 17 year old daughter took one bite & wrinkled their nose & said they'd pass. LOL But our 5 year old son & I LOVED it.
I thought I'd incude a picture of this snack plate I had. Everything here came from the garden. I had some beet greens, pickled beets, & copy cat KFC cole slaw. YUM!

Thanks to the lady at Simply Recipes, I now know that I really like beet greens!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

We liked to think of this as our own personal flyover on July 4th! It went right over our house, twice!

Camomile

My Camomile is starting to bloom!
These are the flowers I picked last evening. I was suprised that they really do have an apple scent. I was going to dry them & start a jar of dried camomile for tea. But I read online that you use 1 teaspoon of dried camomile or 1 Tablespoon of fresh flowers for a cup of tea. You can't tell from the picture because it's such a close up, but it was about a tablespoon of flowers. Well, my throat has been hurting & I'm starting a cold, so instead of drying them, I put on the teakettle & had a cup of tea! It was really pretty good! I added a little sugar & even a bit of honey. It was very good.

Canning Green Beans & Pickled Beets

I started canning last week.
Here are the beens that we picked last Tuesday (July 1)

And here's the beets we pulled the following day. I thought they were ready, but they weren't quite ready yet. They're pretty small.

But they're already pulled so I fixed them like I usually do. Here they are after being boiled till tender so the skins will slip off. I would have loved to have taken a fork & a salt shaker to this bowl, but I did go ahead & can them. It only made 3 quarts. But, beets are fast growin', so we'll plant another row & do this again in about 4-6 weeks.

Here's 11 quarts of green beans & 3 quarts of pickled beets. That jar of green beans in the middle that looks discolored? It's because it's in the older fashoned blue jars. I love those blue jars!

Garden Pita

This is one of my favorite things to have for lunch in the summer.
First I head out to the garden & pick some radishes & green onions.
I wash & slice & add them to pita bread with either ranch dressing or my favorite cucumber sauce. This time I also added mild pepper rings from the frig. These peppers are store bought, but we do grow banana peppers & I'd love to find a recipe & can our own.

Shortly after taking this next picture, I folded it & ate it! YUM!

Now that the herb garden is really producing, it might be good to add some chopped parsley or cilantro, or maybe even some basil or dill. Oh, dill would be good with that cucumber sauce!

Have a happy 4th of July!!!

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

BROCCOLI and CABBAGE

We are so happy to have fresh food from the garden!
Here's a broccoli plant a few days before I cut the broccoli out of the plant.
After you cut the broccoli out, new broccoli heads will form & keep producing for a while.

And here it is in my little steamer pot. We love fresh steamed broccoli so much!


Here's a head of cabbage just days before I cut the head out.


And here it is in the kitchen! I'm going to make copy cat KFC cole slaw with it tonight or in the morning, so we'll have slaw during the 4th of July to go with whatever we will be grilling.

YUM!
Thank you again, LORD, for a bountiful harvest!