Category: Cooking

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06/19/2023 garden flavors

Notes from the Chef: “a cream and wine sauce with basil leaves to cover the onion, zucchini, squash, and sausage mix.” Claire’s note: onion and basil from the garden. “The potatoes were cooked with pecan oil, salt, and garden sage. When they started to crisp on the bottom, I added a cup of chicken stock and white wine with garden lemon balm leaves stirred in to steam.” The pecan oil was a gift from Mom and Dad. Walking onions are the garnish.
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06/13/2023 around the yard

Paula’s Escobaria vivipara cactus continues to bloom beautifully in the daytime. It was cloudy. I’m not sure if that matters for it to bloom.
A very frilly summer iris begins… I think this one is from Judy?
The standing cypress is really going now with multiple plants in full bloom!
The Chef made a delicious pizza with fresh basil and oregano from the yard.
I believe this is a safflower that sprouted from the bird seed.
I believe these are our two different sunflowers species. The one on the left has narrower and wavy edged leaves; we think/hope it’s Helianthus petiolaris (both Mom and another friend have given us seeds). The one on the right has big broad leaves and I think is an offspring of the Helianthus annuus that volunteered last year.
Ironweed is starting to bud.
Greeneyes is about to bloom!
The blackberries are starting to ripen! These are wild volunteers dug from Mom and Dad’s house.
Last but definitely not least, on Tuesday morning I woke up and emerged to find Gram happily snuggling the Doggie. Briar seemed to understand she could not move as is the cat rule. She was not unhappy though. Eventually he got up to look out the newly opened window so she was released so she could scratch an itch haha.
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05/15/2023 garden garlic use

Paula peeled the giant garlic from a few days ago!
The giant garlic had beautiful cloves and little garlics!
Spicy peanut sauce on noodles. Containing the giant garlic as well as garden cilantro and walking onions.
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04/30/2023 garlic scapes and feral hog fire-cooked ribs

Garlic scapes are the flower buds before they open. Here they are yesterday before I harvested them this morning. Harvesting them is supposed to make the garlic cloves turn out better as the energy doesn’t go all into the flowers. Last year we left the flowers.
The Chef had a hankering to cook over fire. Here he adjusts a makeshift grill over the flames. An aluminum foil packet of potatoes is near his feet. Later he did the feral hog ribs over the fire too but finished a few of them off in the oven to ensure more even temperature for safety and convenience.
The meal. The Chef topped his ribs with head country barbecue sauce. Potatoes (lower part of plate) came out perfect in spite of the packet seeming to catch on fire at some point. The garlic scapes were sautéed with onions and already cooked beans (upper left). I think we all agreed potatoes were good, scapes need something different, and ribs should have been slow cooked instead to be less tough.