Well, many of you might remember that this was our first year planting our own vegetable garden. There were a couple of bad hail storms in June and we had thought that we lost our garden. I decided to keep watering to see what would happen. Weeks and months later, we had a significant harvest of squash, jalapenos, cucumbers, poblano peppers, green peppers, cilantro, cantaloupes, tomatoes, and a little bit of corn. The red peppers and watermelon didn't make it but we were pretty proud that anything made it!
Here are some of the plants while they were growing:
Our tomato plans grew all summer but we didn't see any fruit until the middle of August when things finally started to cool down. I decided to make some spaghetti sauce from scratch. So delicious!
I cut the tomatoes in half and placed them flat down in a baking dish that I had previously drizzled some olive oil over. I then sliced some garlic and added a pasta spice mix from Penzey's. (If you don't know about Penzey's, you need to! See http://www.penzeys.com/ . My mom introduced me to their spices and they definitely taste much better than the stuff you buy at the store and it doesn't cost much more than the name brand spices.) I cooked the tomatoes at 300 degrees for about two hours. I let the tomatoes cool a bit and then I squeezed the meat of the tomato out of the skin into a blender. Here is the result from one pan. (I used two pans of tomatoes for a full recipe of sauce)
In a large pan, I sauteed an onion and added some ground hamburger and browned the meat. I then added the blended tomatoes.
And since I had some green peppers from the garden, I cut up a green pepper and added that to the sauce. I like to add peppers later to soups and sauces so they still have a little crunch.
And dinner!
This is a great snack or lunch item that my mom taught me to make. Peel a cucumber and place it in a solution of 1/3 c. vinegar, 1/3 c. water, and 1/3 c. sugar. You should try to refrigerate the cucumbers in vinegar for an hour or two so they soak up the flavor. Then butter a piece of bread and place the cucumbers on top. You can eat it as an open face or closed face sandwich. So yummy!
Well, this is just cantaloupe, which is always a delicious snack. Our cantaloupes were fabulous! Because we could wait to pick them until they were ripe, they were always the perfect texture and flavor!
So, here I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product! Nevertheless, it is pretty easy to make even without the picture. If you like pinto beans, and you would like to spice them up, cut up a tomato, a jalapeno or two, 1/4-1/3 onion and saute them in a little bit of oil. Once the veggies soften, add canned or home cooked pinto beans with juices. Once the beans have heated up, add cilantro.
This was the very first harvest, some cucumbers, zucchini, and squash. If you want to grow something, plant squash. It seriously grows like a weed. We ate a ton of squash! I made zucchini bread, sauteed squash, grilled squash, soup. You name it, we ate it. Next year I probably won't plant so much. It was a hassle just trying to find people to help eat it!
Here is one last recipe that I made with garden vegetables. I got this recipe from my mother-in-law's friend. You remove the seeds and cut up poblano peppers and saute them in 1/2 stick of butter until tender. In a blender, combine the peppers with 1 clove garlic, 1/2 medium onion, 4 slices cheddar cheese, 2 cans nestle crema (or 2 cups half-n-half), and 2 chicken bouillon cubes. Once blended, add salsa to 1/2 stick melted butter in sauce pan. Place cooked (al dente) spaghetti in a baking dish and poor sauce over spaghetti. Top with Panela cheese. Place in oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. This is a spicy, creamy pasta dish. Yum!
Well, having a garden was a lot of work but we definitely ate well! Looking back, sometimes I wonder if it was worth all the work. I will tell you that the cantaloupe, tomatoes, and corn are definitely a better quality. The peppers and squash taste about the same but I guess they don't have pesticides so that is a plus. I hope that we will get better at gardening and I think that will make the pay off a little better.
I cannot wait to have a yard so we can plant a garden. Glad your garden weathered the storms. Meals are always so much better when you get to use home grown produce! Your meals looks delicious!
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