Herb Garden 2010

HELLO! I'm Back!
Well, I haven't really been away.
Just not able to be online long enough to keep things updated here.
I have been busy as usual, but hope to be able to get back to posting recipes & things about our garden.
We've been gardening for years, but this is only my third year to have an herb garden. I love having an herb garden. Love it!
So here's the first garden update of 2010, specifically an herb garden update.

Today I havested my first load of Chamomile this year. I enjoy drying the flowers & having nice chamomile tea with honey in the cold weather.

You can see that our chives have flowered. Some folks like to add these flowers to a salad. Our 7 year old son likes to eat them right off the plant. Wow, it gives him BAD BREATH! LOL

You'll be able to see that I haven't weeded yet.
Actually, I haven't done anything in the herb garden yet, except pick chamomile flowers today.
You can see, it is quite a mess. But the chamomile are flurishing & flowering. The cilantro (to the left of the chamomile) seems to grow so quickly that it goes right to flowering & then to seed. I'll probably just pull them up, because I still have tons of corriander seed. Tons! You can't see the thyme, it's right behind the camomile, & I have plenty of it. Ha Ha, yes, I have plenty of thyme, but not plenty of time. It is flowering & looks beautiful with all its little pink flowers, & smells divine. There's a sage plant back there too, & the fennel is back also. I hope it flowers & goes to seed because I use a lot of fennel seeds. I also have weeds flurishing & I hope to get those out of there soon. :) The dill is coming back, and the basil has not arrived yet. I thought it was annual so I bought new seed last year, but the basil ended up returning. So we'll see if it comes back this year.

We have also planted most of our regular garden. We have planted our rows of corn & green beans, our hills of zucchini, 24 tomato plants plus 1 yellow tomato plant & 1 cherry tomato plant. We also planted our green pepper plants, broccoli, & cabbage. I planted half a row of radishes, & will finish the row in a week or so. That way we don't get all our radishes at once. We still have some planting to do. We've just been doing a little here & a little there, & we are almost done. We need to plant our beet seeds, & find a new place to plant cucumbers. We also still need to plant our onions.

Sorry I've not been able to keep up here. I have taken lots of food pictures & hope to post some recipes soon.
Tomorrow we're going to grill chicken, & I'm make KFC cole slaw this evening to go with it.

Freezing Fog

Now that it's almost Spring, I'm finally getting around to adding my pictures of the freezing fog.
I'm running a bit behind on things on this computer.
That's an understatement.
This winter season has been a long one on a few fronts.
I've had a lot of extra babysitting kids, which is a wonderful thing.
I had to quit a set of brothers that I've been babysitting for 2 1/2 years, which was an incredibly hard thing.
We've had a hard winter weather-wise. We've has lots of snow & wind & ice, & even some freezing fog.
February was the hardest with the loss of my Mother-in-Law. I was blessed to call her Momma for almost 25 years. I'm so thankful to know that she called Jesus her Savior, so I KNOW she's in no more pain & living with Him for eternity. Praise the LORD. I miss her & the grief hurts, especially for our children.

I'm ready, oh so ready for Spring. I've seen my first robin, which always brings tears of joy to my eyes, some years even more than others. I really had to choke back the sobs this year!

So just before we shout HELLO SPRING, here's one last quick look at something wintery:
Freezing Fog

This fog hit us for 3 or 4 mornings in a row. I'm not sure I understand how this freezing fog works. We had about 10 inches of snow on the ground, & these few days the temps were staying around ZERO, & we got this fog every morning. I wouldn't want to drive in it, but it sure was beaufiful to look at what this fog left behind.





The freezing fog left this really thick layer of what looked like snow, but was actually more of a freezing mist or frost. It was really cool.









Then the sun came out & burned away the fog, & left this beautiful sight.

Books I Read in 2009

Here's my list of books that I read in 2009. I enjoyed reading almost all of these, but thankfully I have learned that I can put a book down & stop reading it if I'm really not enjoying a book that much. I used to have to finish a book I started.
My least favorite in this list was Before the Sun Goes Down by Elizabeth Metzger Howard. I just didn't like the story at all, & didn't care for the writing either. It was after reading this book that I decided that in the future I would put a book down & not go back to it if I wasn't enjoying it. I just do not have the time to put into a book I don't like.

I had a few favorites this year & can't pick just one. I would say my favorites were Chesapeake by James Michener, All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot, any books by Beth Moore, The Chronicles of Narnia books (I'm reading them out loud to our almost 7 year old son), & I also enjoy the Yada Yada Prayer Group books by Neta Jackson.



A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

All Things Bright and Beautiful by James Herriot

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons by Lorna Landvik

Anne of Avonlea by L.M.Montgomery

Armageddon by Tim Lahaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

Before the sun Goes Down by Elizabeth Metzger Howard

Bible (NASB-started read through 5-5-08 reading 4 chapters a day, finished 2-27-09

Blue Ribbon Recipes: Country Fair Winners (published 1968)

Chesapeake by James A. Michener

Desecration by Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

Going Rogue: An American Life by Sarah Palin


In The President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect by Ronald Kessler

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

Jesus the One and Only by Beth Moore

Kingdom Come by Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

Levi's Will by W. Dale Cramer

Maggie-Now by Betty Smith

Moon River and Me by Andy Williams

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Poems of Faith by Helen Steiner Rice

Prairie Tale by Melissa Gilbert

Praying God's Word by Beth Moore

Prophet by Frank E. Peretti

Stealing Buddha's Dinner by Bich Minh Nguyen

The Case of the Runaway Corpse (A Perry Mason Mystery series) by Erle Stanley Gardner

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

The Gardens For All Book of Tomatoes by Dick and Jan Raymond

The Glorious Appearing by Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

The Remnant by Tim LaHaye & Jerry B. Jenkins

The Shack by William P. Young

The Winds of War by Herman Wouk

The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Real (book 3) by Neta Jackson

The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough (book 4) by Neta Jackson

These High, Green Hills by Jan Karon

5 Minutes for Mom Christmas Give-a-Ways

Hello!
Yes, I am still here.
There have just not been enough hours in the day for me to get on the computer very much.
I know...I'm a broken record.
My son wanted me to look something up for him, & as I was bringing up the Moose A. Moose & Zee balloon math counting game, he asked me if I remembered when I went to 5 Minutes for Mom. LOL! How did he KNOW this or REMEMBER this?! So as I laughed, I clicked on over.
And I saw that they have a big Christmas give-a-way, that ends TONIGHT, if I'm reading it correctly. They also have an Under the Tree program for needy families.
So click on over to 5 Minutes for Mom (if ya see this in time) & enter to win some cool prizes!
I have added to linked buttons on the right hand side of my page, since I can't figure out how to add it in this post. LOL
You can click on my links or the buttons!
Hope ya win something.
:)

Fully Loaded Baked Potato Soup

I got a great new comfort food soup recipe this month. I got it from the sample lady at our locally owned grocery store. This store is what used to be considered a large grocery store, but that was in the days before the gigantic super WalMart super de duper mega ultra stores.
I have to get our regular groceries at WalMart, just simply because of the prices. BUT, I will not get our meat or produce there anymore. I just simply refuse to now. This "little" grocery store just has what I need. Good food. Plus, an older lady who comes in on Saturdays to pass out samples. And it's not just product samples. It's almost always something homemade. And she has copies of the recipe for you to take along with your sample. Isn't that just really neat? One day it was chicken bbq pizza, another it was a hamburger & rice casserole. Last fall I remember trying a 3 bean chili that I really liked ( I even made it & took pics...I wander where that went to...I'll have to find that & post it!). Well a few weeks ago it was this potato soup. I took the recipe copy & after making sure I had all the ingredients, I took it home & made it that day. It was THAT good.

Fully Loaded Baked Potato Soup

Approx. 2 pounds potatoes, scrubbed & cubed fairly small (don't peel)
1/2 pound bacon, sliced into small bits
4 C. chicken stock
4 green onions, sliced
2 C. milk
1/4 C. flour
2 C. cheddar cheese, shredded
1 C. sour cream
salt & pepper

Cook bacon in a large soup pan until just crisp. Add cubed potatoes & cook on medium for about 10 minutes until they begin to cook. Add stock, green onions, & pepper. Continue to cook until potatoes are tender. Whisk together the flour & the milk until combined. Add to pan & stir while heating & thickening. Add shredded cheese & salt, & more pepper if you need it. Once all cheese is melted, add the sour cream. Server garnished with bacon bits & green onions.

This really is SO GOOD! I've never thought of a loaded baked potato as a soup before, but really, it works! And it's great on these nippy fall days. Look how much it thickens up in the frig overnight.

I just had to include this picture of the potatoes cooking with the bacon.
Nuttin' like taters & bacon cookin' in a cast iron skillet. :)

I hope you enjoy this comfy potato soup. We sure did.

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!