El Jardin

Cucumbers galore! We've got tons and tons and tons. Our garden is so very happy! Here are a few pictures:



Main bed: Cucumbers, onions, banana peppers, green bell peppers, cayenne peppers, and patio tomatoes


Herb garden: Valerian, sweet basil, mint, rosemary, greek oregano, lemon thyme, dill, chamomile, lemon balm and chives


The plant birthing room, currently seeding zinnias, flax, sunflowers and marigolds

Quick Caraway Bread

Sure is tasty! This morning Mom and I toured UF's Agricultural Extension Office (which just a fancy way of saying a very large garden) and I got a native blueberry plant! I look forward to eating the tasty berries next spring. Joe put a hammock in the back yard. We ripped out a bunch of poison ivy. I seeded/planted a bunch new flowers AND a new hot pepper! What a terribly productive Saturday! Since it's getting pretty toasty outside we've retired to the relative cool of our un-airconditioned house to read and try a new bread recipe:

Quick Caraway Bread (courtesy of The Friends of Prince Memorial Library Cumberland, Maine)

1 1/2 cups flour
1 TBS baking powder
1/4 cup plus 1 TBS sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
2 TBS caraway seeds
a pinch of salt


Combine first three ingredients, cut in the butter. Add additional ingredients and combine (not too much, though!) Bake at 350 for 30ish minutes. How easy is that? I'll be revisiting this recipe with some fresh dill in the future.

Yummo!


Sliced and buttered!

Reaping the benefits...

Of our wonderful garden! Tonight's dinner was 2/3 things we grew! Stuffed banana peppers, polenta with bacon and motzarella and a cucumber wasabi salad.

Look at all these banana peppers! These are just from the last two days! Holy smokes!


And a giant cucumber!


And the final products:


Stuffed Banana Peppers:
Bread crumbs
Boca (or beef, sausage, chorrizo, whatever!)
Yellow onion
Sage
Celery
Salt and pepper
Banana peppers

Finely chop and saute the suffing ingredients, carefully core your peppers and discard seeds. Stuff the peppers and bake at 450 for 15-ish minutes. Yummo!