Lola's Victory Garden

Monday, August 31, 2009

What's For Lunch From The Garden?

I'm home alone now for the most part during the day so lunch is lazy. Yes, I said it, lazy. I'm not cooking anything, I'm not using more than 3 ingredients and I'm not Mickey D'ing it.

So lunch is from the garden.

Last week we had cucumbers, so cucumber, tuna and mayonnaise sandwiches were my thing. Slice the cucumber super thin and layer on top of toast spread with a thin layer of mayo. Add a little mayo to the tuna, spoon it on top of the cucumber slices, then layer more cucumber slices on top of the tuna and top it with a slice of toast with a little mayo. Season with salt if you like, but I skip it because salt is not my friend.

This week, :( no cucumber. What to do? BLT sounds good, but I'm not frying bacon. Too much mess and then what happens with the rest of the package? Do I fry it and save it for another day. (Hello! I have a teenage boy, if he sees bacon already cooked, he thinks delicious snack!) Do I put the package away with just 2 strips missing? No, then that means I have to use it within x number of days. (Solve for x? Not me, I don't do algebra.) Solution? Baconnaise!

Behold: The Tomato and Baconnaise Sandwich:
No lettuce? Well, we did have some, but that would be a bother to find it in the fridge because the kids have yet to learn that lettuce is a vegetable and it belongs in the Vegetable Bin. Besides, this is so good just as it is.

Home grown tomato + Baconnaise + Toast = bliss!

Disclosure: This is not a paid ad, but if the Baconnaise people would like to reward me with some bacony goodness, I would be happy to take it.

PS: Baconnaise is available at Jewel Foods in the same aisle as regular mayonnaise.

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Our Weekend Garden Harvest

These are part of our take from our garden from Friday and today. We also ate a cucumber about that size and had about 1/2 that bowl full of cherry tomatoes that we used in a wonderful salad yesterday.

All I did was slice the cucumber thin, arrange on a plate, then quarter some of those cherry tomatoes. Then sprinkle on some Feta Cheese crumbles. The sweetness of those cherry tomatoes combined with the taste of the Feta Cheese was just fantastic.

Still no zucchini (I'm betting they all come at once.) And no broccoli yet, but that should be ready soon. The tomatillos are looking good, I'm thinking the papery skin has to be...well, papery before they are ready to be picked. (At least that's the way they are in the store when I've bought them to can Tomatillo Salsa.)

Our Sunflowers are growing like crazy. I wish I had a photo for you, but I'm taking it easy today and trying to recuperate from all the crazy running around and driving I've been doing. My bad back hasn't appreciated all that and it's been letting me know, so today I'm just taking it easy. Our daughter was nice enough to go pick those veggies, she's a good helper.

I have a question for anyone who has grown sunflowers before. Are all the seeds good for eating, or does it depend on the variety? Also, do you pick them and dry them, bake them, ???? Has anyone used the seeds from the sunflowers they've grown for eating or store them for use later in their bird feeders?

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Slow But Sure

We're starting to get some tomatoes in. A few cherry tomatoes here, a few there. I can't manage a photo because they end up getting gobbled up almost immediately.

I've got several cucumbers about 4 inches long, at least 1 zucchini slightly bigger than the cucumbers. I like zucchini to be about as big as my forearm before I pick them because I use them for Fried Zucchini or cooked with tomatoes. Either way, bigger is better. (For Zucchini!)

If I can get a helper Friday I need to put up my homemade net for the cucumbers and feed their stringers through to keep the veggies off the ground. It looks kind of like a soccer net made out of garden twine. It will do the trick nicely.

We've also got 1 head of cauliflower about ready for picking. Looks like some Aloo Gobi is in our future. The whole family loves any Indian food and Aloo Gobi is a favorite.

I hope to have some garden pictures up over the weekend.

We started our garden late. I imagine many of you may be up to your eyeballs in tomatoes and zucchini.

Let us know how your garden is growing!

Lola's Victory Garden
©2009