Garden thread.

[Sassy]

Peter, the peppers don't stay crisp   but are wonderful for cooking - especially in the off-season when they are so expensive.

I love the smell of limes, too.  We have orange, grapefruit & lemon & kumquat trees at our house in the valley.  My dad & brother have lots of citrus trees also that I can pick fresh fruit from - but no one has any limes - don't know why we don't...  :-?  

It's great you are getting fruit off your new trees - I ate plums (4 different kinds grafted on 1 tree) for a couple months off the tree (they were a little green when I 1st started eating them) in the mtns, & had wonderful "red flame" grapes at our place in the valley for 2 months - they ripened at different stages - we also had some Thompson seedless green grapes - yummie - much better than store bought.

Now, I need some Fuji apple trees & of course, a lime tree    Our orange trees up here haven't been producing yet - I think something eats a lot of the blooms.  We did get a lot of little fruit but they dried up & fell off before they grew much on the orange trees we planted this past spring.  Oh, peach, cherry & apricot would be good, also    We have a cherry tree in the valley but I need to prune it - it's gotten so tall you can't get up to the top & it hasn't been producing as many cherries.

[glenn-k]

Somebody should invent a little lime jock strap for you two so you could just walk around with a nice lime strapped under your nose.

[benevolance]

sassy I am jealous sounds like a wonderful orchard...

Our fruit trees are only a couple years old so the fruit is not full size to what you would see in the grocery store and the trees only produce a handful of fruit each...

Sorry glenn I was like a 4 year old with a shiny flashy toy...I was just amazed with how sweet and great the fresh limes smelled

My wife and I thought we would enjoy the fruits of our labours but we had no idea we would enjoy the fruit trees this much...my wife wants to get half a dozen more fruit trees.

i was disappointed with the garden.... only tomatoes and cukes survived... my wife grew some peppers in potted planters along the side of the house... nothing else lived...

I do not have green thumbs it seems...

I am going to compost my leaves this winter and the garden will be bigger and better fertilized for next spring...I want fresh corn squash (which is my favorite..I can eat butternut squash with supper 3 nights a week and be hungry for more...and I dunno why my potatoes did not make it... they are supposed to be easier to grow than tomatoes...I want potatoes also

I need to get a book I guess and get reading...For everything else in life I usually try it and then if there is not total success I get the idiot guide for book or the nearest facsimilie to it.... and then try again

[Sassy]

Our potatoes never do very well up here for some reason so don't feel bad!  That was the 2nd year for our plum tree - the 1st year it rained & snowed on all the blooms so only ended up with about 5 plums - this year I had to keep thinning the plums - they broke just about every branch even though I put up supports for them  :'( so hopefully we still get some fruit next summer.  It takes time to learn what everything needs & some years certain things do great & others don't & then other years it will be the opposite... so you just keep planting & hopefully you'll get a harvest - it's always much better than store bought!  

How do you cook your butternut squash?  We have a whole bunch of them in our garden.  We also have lots of huge hubbard's, spaghetti squash & acorn squash.  Hopefully we'll be able to store them for a few months during the winter.  

I will probably steam quite a few & freeze them - that way, they'll be ready to fix without a lot of preparation.  I'm going to try a squash soup today - if you have any good recipes, let me know!  I'm looking a recipes on the internet.

[benevolance]

Sorry Sassy

nothing fancy with me and the squash...

Mostly I cook them in the oven... cut them in half lengthwise... place them in a cookie sheet.... spice the open side freely... and cover with foil... and let it bake....  when you can stick a fork in it with no resistance it is done... and the spices will have been absorbed into the squash somewhat...

We cook them all summer long on the barbeque... sort of the way you wrap a sweet potatoe in foil with spices and butter and throw it on the coals... I do  the same with the squash.... turning it every so often so as not to burn it...

We love the roasted taste of cooking it on the coals with spices wrapped up in foil...

not exactly gourmet I know... I am a simple man when it comes to cooking...I just try to get good food and get r done for supper.

[MountainDon]

I  I'm looking a recipes on the internet.

Cooks    www.cooks.com    has loads of recipes

[Sassy]

Hey, thanks, MtnDon, for the link!  Your dinners always sound so creative & yummie!  I've gotten more like Benevolance - the simpler, the better, as long as it tastes good & is, for the most part, healthy  

Was looking over the recipes for butternut squash - I think I will end up just fixing them with butter & brown sugar...  I looked at the soups - some sounded good but I don't have the ingredients on hand, some didn't sound so good - a lot of them called for squash, apples, onions & chicken broth - doesn't sound too good to me  

[benevolance]

i make sort of a mean beef stew soup... make the stew... with carrots onions and potatoes in the casserole dish and we have a serving..... after that when it is half gone I cut up the rest of the roast and then throw it into a pot with the natural gravy veggies and let it simmer and we have lazy man soup the next day....

Other than that I am not really accomplished at making soups...I would like to start though my wife and I love to eat hot soup after working outside in the yard in the winter time... And soups and a healthy sandwich is a nice light meal that will not make you feel bloated or lazy... Since can soup are all sodium we do not eat those ever....my wife has pestered me many times to start making  soups for her lunch at school... Where the school food is pure crap!

We got a crock pot from someone at our wedding...I never use it...I remember someone telling me it was great for making soups in.... perhaps I can suprise the wife with a hearty soup.... I know when I make fresh bread (have a couple loaves rising on the counter as we speak) that we love to have chili or a roast to go with the fresh bread.... Fresh soups with the bread would be good too I think

[glenn kangiser]

I like the dumplings that float around on the stew and cook too.  Even if I use Bisquick.

[benevolance]

never heard of bisquick dumplings.... share glenn please sounds like a good idea

[MountainDon]

never heard of bisquick dumplings.... share glenn please sounds like a good idea

Gotta be something here, Peter.

http://www.bettycrocker.com/Products/Bisquick

yep...     http://www.bettycrocker.com/SearchResults.aspx?searchText=dumplings

[glenn kangiser]

From the box...

2 cups Bisquick
2/3 cup milk
Stir
Drop by spoonfuls onto boiling stew, reduce heat
Cook uncovered 10 minutes, cover and cook an additional 10 minutes

They will be white steamed floating biscuits that go great with the stew.

So simple, even I can do it.

[glenn kangiser]

You beat me, Don.  Probably lots more pretty good stuff there too.

[MountainDon]

AAAW. I was just too lazy to get the box out, Glenn.  

[benevolance]

well if they are really good I guess it is not plasphemy to not make them from scratch

I am all for things that are quick and easy.... hehe that is why I married the wife...

rotflmao.... okay that was wrong.... but funny.... I will stop that now.. must be the newcastles

[glenn kangiser]

You are lucky to have found a woman who is broad minded enough to marry a guy who is quick and easy, Peter.  Good choice. They are rare indeed.

As you grow older and gain more self control you will find you are able to take things a bit slower and make it a more satisfying experience for all involved.  

...unless she gets tired of waiting.   :-?

I can see it all now.

"Peter. My patience is growing thin here..."

All of this from teaching you to make dumplings to go with your things from the garden -- what a bargain.

[benevolance]

glenn

you are forgetting something...

wedding cake man... remember it kills a womans sexual appetite!

When I get older instead of learning anything about self control I will have to send my wife a text message to tell her I care instead of look towards the bedroom or whatever

[glenn kangiser]

Sassy and I sit in chairs that are about 3 feet apart when on the computer in the evenings, so since we each have our own laptop computer, we find it convenient to e-mail each other.

[benevolance]

wow.. too much info glenn

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Benevolance,  try making a soup stock from leftover chicken next time you have chicken, and then freeze the stock in small enough batches for one meal.  I freeze soup stock in leftover yogurt (qt. size) containers, and then can pull them out and make a soup or stew that tastes like it's been simmering on the stove all day in a matter of minutes.  Just cover the chicken bones with water and add a few stalks of celery, an onion (skin and all), a couple of carrots, and a bay leaf or two.  It's nice if you have leftover meat to put in, too.  I mix roast and chicken, and the leftovers of a Thanksgiving turkey can make a LOT of soup stock.  Anyway, let it cook all day, and if you're too busy to deal with it, all night.  When you get around to it, pick any good meat off the bones and strain the broth into freezer containers.  I always mash the veggies into the strainer a little bit.  I don't care if it does make the stock thicker and/or cloudier because it tastes better.  Then, when we want soup, I just get a quart or two of stock out and add vegetables and spices.  It's good, hot, and filling, and so much better than soup made with canned broth or boullion.  Sometimes I salt the stock and sometimes I don't, but I always try to label them so I'll know which ones have salt and if they have any meat or not (sometimes I'm just left with stock and no real meat to throw in.)  Anyway, it makes you a soup expert right away if you start with a good hearty stock.

[glenn-k]

Sounds really good, Homegrown.  With our two freezers now, we can do more of that stuff.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

There ya go, Glenn... freeze you a few batches of it and then next time you're hungry for some of your bisquick dumplings, you just pull some out and heat it up and there you go.  I like to put roasted/baked meat in because it tastes better to me... ie. have baked chicken for dinner and then put whatever is leftover (bones and all) into the stock pot.  Sometimes I roast oxtails and soup bones and onions first, and then make the stock from that and leftover potroast.  We don't waste anything around here.  By the time the chicken bones have simmered for a day and a night, they're so soft that I don't worry about letting the dog eat them, though I usually do pick out the onions because they don't agree with his stomach.  He loves the chicken bones and the carrots and celery that are all mashed together.  I usually try to get a little meat in the stock at least, but don't always have enough to go around.  When I get to the containers of meatless stock, I use those to make kimchee chigae (Korean cabbage soup) and I add a can of tuna.  The traditional one is made with beef or pork, but we recently discovered that the hot and spicy (and sour) flavor goes really well with tuna, too.  

I think it was Sassy saying earlier that she wasn't sure about those recipes calling for squash, apples, onions, and chicken broth... I kind of feel the same way.  They're OK to me, but not great.  I think the curried squash ones are a little better, myself, and then the apples don't taste out of place with them. I did learn a fun trick a few years back though-- hollow the squash (or pumpkin) out and then cook your stew in the oven inside the squash/pumpkin.  I made curry for Thanksgiving year before last this way... chicken curry with all kinds of veggies, including some sweet squash.  You put a little olive oil on the outside of the pumpkin before you stick it in the oven and it comes out all shiny and dark glossy orange.  (Bake it with the "lid" on top of the pumpkin to keep it from bubbling all over the oven.  When you serve the soup, scrape out the inside of the pumpkin with it... it's really yummy this way, and it looks really neat for a  special dinner.  I cooked the stew meat before putting it in the pumpkin and then added all the veggies and spices when I put it in the pumpkin and baked it for about an hour.  I think there are pictures  of the pumpkins on our website in the Thanksgiving album, but I'm not sure... they were in the Thanksgiving spread one of those years.  

[glenn-k]

Get the most out of your chicken -- sounds like you use everything but the Cackle.

[Homegrown_Tomatoes]

Pretty much... never have quite been able to bring myself to eat the chicken feet like they serve in some Chinese dim sum restaurants.  And I had a friend from Malaysia who swore trout eyeballs were delicious, but I usually left the trout's head intact.  (Would've made fish stock with the head, though...)  You ever wonder about the first person to decide to eat some stuff?  Like squid... who looked at THAT and thought it looked like something to stick in your mouth??  I had a roommate in college from Zimbabwe and she was thoroughly grossed out that anyone would eat lobsters and shrimp, yet she used to rave about the flavor of roasted field mice and corn porridge.  My great-grandma loved pickled pigs feet, but that's one of those things I've yet to try, too (at least, knowingly.)  

[glenn-k]

Sassy just went out to the garden and picked some nice carrots and tomatoes to take to the other house and work with her.