NO BLOG POST THIS WEEK, SORRY!

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I don’t have access to my computer again this week. So, I’m afraid I will not be able to post this week. However, I am hoping to be able to post again next week, although it may be a couple of days late. Please hang in there with me and check back again next week. Thanks!

LAST OF THE GARDEN ~~ PARTING SHOT

LAST OF THE GARDEN

This past week was a flurry of activity as Linda & I did our best to get the last of the garden produce put away for the winter. In the midst of doing that, I decided to dehydrate some peaches. Linda had gotten a few really big ones, so I figured they would be good ones to dehydrate. I blanched them to get the peelings off, sliced them and then put them in some lemon water. I laid the slices out on the dehydrator tray and 11 hours later we had peach chips! They were pretty good, although a bit chewy.

I still had 3 nice-sized zucchini left from the garden, so I decided to dehydrate a couple of them. I sliced them up, sprinkled with some salt & paprika, and set the dehydrator going. About 8 hours later they were done. I think these were the best zucchini chips I have made yet.

I still had a whole zucchini left, and I found another half of one in the fridge (they hide everywhere), so I decided to cook them with some butter and onions and put them in our almost-full freezer. We will certainly enjoy that in the middle of winter.

 

Since we had picked all of the peppers the previous week, I still had a lot of bell, Shishito, and banana peppers left. Linda really liked the Red Bell Pepper jelly I made her, so I made another batch, only this one was green. It came out really good, so I think she is set for jelly all winter.

We went to our local fruit stand and they had a few peaches left there, so we got a few of them. Idecided to make a peach cobbler. The only problem was that I didn’t have any milk, and the recipe called for a cup. I happened to have some Caramel Peacan flavored liquid creamer in the fridge, so I used that. The cobbler came out pretty good, although nowhere near as good as my Aunt Grace’s, the golden standard by which all cobblers are judged. However, because I used the creamer, it was a bit on the sweet side. I figure if we put vanilla ice cream on it, that it will make a nice winter treat for us some cold afternoon. Into the freezer it went.

 About the last thing we took up in the garden was the beets. Linda got out there and dug them up and we had a half bucket full. We cleaned them and boiled them, then I slid the peels off, sliced them up, and pickled them. I can attest that they were pretty doggone good!

PARTING SHOT

Summer Girl is on vacation this week, but she has agreed to let the little Hab stand in for her under the Parting Shot. The little rascal has finally TURNED RED!

ONE PERFECT ROSE ~ GARDEN UPDATE ~ RECIPE OF THE WEEK-COWBOY CANDY ~ PARTING SHOT

ONE PERFECT ROSE

When Linda and I moved out to Yakima in 2007, we brought with us some of the plants that we had at our house in Lumberton. Some of them lived and some of them didn't make it here, but the one I am most happy about is one of my mother's roses. We actually transplanted this rose from her house on 14th Street over to our house on 17th Street. It did pretty good there, so when we moved out here we brought a couple of small cuttings with us. I am happy to report that both of them lived and have been doing very well in the Yakima weather. They actually do better here than they ever did at our house in Lumberton. Below is a picture of one of the roses. I call this my "perfect" rose because whenever I look at the flowers on this plant, it reminds me of my mother.

The Mary Rose

Another plant we brought with us was a variegated Solomon's Seal. We had this plant and another native Solomon's Seal at our house, but we only brought a piece of the variegated variety. We planted it and the next spring we had one lone Solomon's Seal come up. Over the years it has multiplied, and below is a picture of the area where it finally settled in. The changing weather makes the leaves on these plants so stunning this time of year.

Change of Season Colors

GARDEN UPDATE

This week Linda and I finished taking down the garden. I did a lot of last-minute cooking of produce so I am just about done with that. I still need to dig up the zucchini and tomatillo plants, but that won't take long. We got about two buckets full of tomatoes and Linda was able to stew up another pot of those for this winter. I gave some to a friend of ours and the rest are on the card table in hopes that they will ripen up.

Fried green tomatoes, anyone?

I know everyone is wondering about the little Hab (yeah, right). Since we had a couple of nights that went down to freezing this week, I cut it off near the bottom of the main stem and put it in a glass of water in the window in our living room so it would get some light. Believe it or not, it is starting to turn red!

The little Hab, hanging in there

After we were done with taking down the garden, I discovered why my plants produce so well. I have a green thumb, plus four fingers!

Getting my hands dirty

RECIPE OF THE WEEK - COWBOY CANDY

After I pulled up all the pepper plants, I had about a half bucket of hot peppers (jalapeno and Anaheim peppers), plus another half bucket of the mild peppers (bell, banana, and Shishito peppers). The mild peppers are going to be made into another batch of jelly for Linda. I decided to make some pickled hot peppers and also one of my favorite things, Cowboy Candy. I used this recipe here from the website Old World Garden Farms. I have used different recipes over the years for this, but this was a new one so I gave it a try. I was quite pleased with the results as they were pretty hot. Now they need to sit in the fridge and cure for a couple of weeks. Here is what the finished product looks like.

Mighty tasty!

PARTING SHOT

As we move further into fall, the weather gets increasingly colder. So, it only stands to reason that during this time, Summer Girl gets increasingly inside. At least she can sit in the window, watch the birdies, and pretend like she is still outside.

That's all for this week!

REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS ~ PEPPER SAUCE UPDATE ~ BELL PEPPER JELLY ~ ZUCCHINI BACON ~ WINTER SQUASH ~ MULTI-TASKING ~ PARTING SHOT

REFRIGERATOR MAGNETS

Our next-door neighbors went on a fishing trip to Alaska last month and brought us back a magnet as a souvenir, as well as a beautiful piece of salmon. We always ask anybody who is traveling to bring us a magnet so we can put it on our refrigerator door. We collected quite a few ourselves during our truck trip out west in 2007 before we moved. We have so many now that Linda has to rotate them ever so often. Here is a picture of our refrigerator door as it is right now. The new Alaska one is the second from the top left.

Some of our magnets

Here's a picture of two magnets from opposite ends of the US.

Alaska (top) and Key West (bottom)

Out of all the refrigerator magnets that we have, I think this one below is my absolute favorite, for obvious reasons. Linda's sister gave it to us.

Sure, why not!

PEPPER SAUCE UPDATE

On my last blog I was in the process of making some of my jalapeno hot pepper sauce. I just wanted to give you an update and let you know that it came out great, and I actually got to make another batch, too. Here is a picture of the finished product.

Yes, it's hot!

BELL PEPPER JELLY

I usually make a recipe of jalapeno jelly every summer, but this year I still had some from last year leftover in the freezer, so I'm not going to make it again. However, I decided to make some Red Pepper Jelly for Linda, since she doesn't like the hot stuff. I had to use a large red bell pepper that I had bought at the local fruit stand because none of my bell peppers turned red this year. I also used several yellow banana peppers and a few red shishito peppers. None of these are hot peppers. I followed this recipe from the Inspired by Charm website. I picked this recipe because it used a little less sugar than other recipes I found. It turned out great and Linda loves it! Jelly is always an iffy thing to make because sometimes it doesn't set right. I made some jalapeno jelly one time a few years ago that turned out to be as hard as a brick. I had to microwave the jars to even get it out of them. I don't know what went wrong that time, but I haven't had a failure like that since then. I am always secretly ecstatic when it comes out right. Here is a picture of the Red Pepper Jelly I made for Linda.

Looks like we have a red theme going on here

ZUCCHINI BACON

My zucchini plant has been an true champion this year. I went out and picked four large zucchini yesterday, and already had two on the back porch. It has produced so many zucchini that one of my major quests this summer has been to find recipes to use it all up. My favorite recipe so far has to be Zucchini Bacon. This is made by thin slicing the zucchini on a mandoline, soaking it in a marinade, and then dehydrating it. I used this recipe from the website Cooking the Deals. I mainly went with this recipe because it was posted by a lady from the Facebook dehydrating group that I belong to. It takes about 28 hours to dehydrate, but when it is done it is absolutely delicious! I have done four batches so far. I store it by wrapping several pieces at a time in a sandwich bag and then put the sandwich bags in a freezer bag, which goes into the freezer. It only takes a couple of minutes to thaw out and you have nice, tasty "bacon." Of course, this stuff doesn't taste exactly like real bacon, but it is a nice substitute. And it is crispy enough, like real bacon. Here is the process in pictures, with the final result as I used it several times this week.

These 2 large zucchini filled up my dehydrator

Zucchini bacon and tomato sandwich, on white bread with mayo - heaven!

WINTER SQUASH

Right beside my zucchini plant is my Delicata squash plant, a type of winter squash. These plants do not start producing until fall comes. However, this plant has been the exact opposite of the zucchini as far as production. In its defense, it got a late start because something ate the first plants that came up from the seed I planted. So, I had to plant more seed and wait for those to germinate, which seemed to take forever. I planted the seed in a pot so the plants wouldn't get eaten again, and after the two plants got to be a nice size, I transplanted them into the ground. They never really grew very much from that point on, and a couple of days ago we noticed that one of the plants was dead. It had a small squash on it, so I picked it and brought it in. The other plant has only one squash on it, and it is about twice the size of the one I picked. That isn't saying much, though. Here is a picture of the squash I picked, with a toothpick beside it for size comparison.

Pitiful!

I don't know if I'll be able to eat all that in one sitting...

MULTI-TASKING

It's a good thing I got a lot of training and experience in multi-tasking during my working days because I sure use it now. For instance, today before noon I made a double batch of Zucchini Bacon marinade, sliced a huge zucchini and let it marinate for an hour, placed it on the dehydrator trays and set it up in the garage. Also during that time I got my smoker going and loaded it up with five Johnsonville Hatch Chili sausages and five Beer Brat sausages. Plus, I mixed up the ingredients for a loaf of Chocolate Zucchini Bread and got that in the oven. And, I mixed up a jar of Jalapeno Vinaigrette salad dressing. I also started working on my blog while I was waiting for the zucchini bread to finish baking. All the while I was washing up dishes to make space for the next thing I was going to do. By the time lunchtime rolled around, I was pooped. While I was doing all this in the kitchen, Linda was out in the garden picking Red Cherry tomatoes and pulling up those plants. That was a big help as we need to get all the plants up before the end of next week. As her reward for being so good to me, she's going to get a nice slice of chocolate zucchini bread this afternoon. The garden is starting to look pretty sad, but despite the late start and all the hazy, smoky days that hampered production, I can be thankful for one thing. We did not have a problem with squash bugs or stink bugs this year. That was such a relief not to have to battle them every day. Here is a picture of the garden now. It looks funny with that huge bare area where the onions, potatoes, and the red cherry tomato plants were.

A sad sight

I know most of you are just wondering what happened with the little Hab (no?). Well, it is still hanging in there. It actually has four peppers on it, but sadly none of them have turned red. The biggest one still may be able to ripen but I'm not sure. At least it is in a pot so I can move it onto the back porch if we have a freeze in the next couple of weeks. Keep your fingers crossed that it will finally be able to turn red (so I will quit talking about it). Here is a picture of the biggest pepper on the little Hab. It's about the size of a ping-pong ball.

My precious little Hab

PARTING SHOT

Now for the part of the blog I know you've all been waiting for...the Summer Girl! She is still outside most of the day doing her thing, and we all know her thing is sleeping. Here is a picture that Linda took of her yesterday, after waking her up from a nice nap. I wonder what she's thinking?

"Seriously? You woke me up for a picture?"

That's all for this week, please check back next week for more happenings around this part of the Northwest!