Recent food and beverage

Some tepary beans mixed in those refried beans! The hot sauce is Chimayó pepper mostly. 01/25/2024.
Homemade pasta with homemade pesto. 01/24/2024.
I finally roasted the yaupon holly leaves instead of just having it dehydrated. It’s actually a nice tea now! I did 300 F for somewhere over 1.5 hrs on a cookie sheet. 01/22/2024.

10/29/2023 first freeze forecast tonight

Piles of vegetable greenery on a concrete front poor with a black double door in the background
So, in spite of rain all day and temperatures in the 30s F, I went out and cut all the plants. That’s the giant pile of cut basil on an overflowing Rubbermaid tub and assorted cut off pepper plants nearby. The rest of the day was getting basil leaves off the stems.
An inch thick basil stem cut off, with my hand nearby for scale.
The basil stems were so big I had to use the loppers to cut them at the base.
A blue-gray rubber made plastic tub almost full of bright green basil leaves
3608 grams of basil leaves. This is 7.95 pounds. Yes, we did tare the tub weight. Yes, it is a lot of basil. No, I don’t even know what’s going to happen.

09/27/2023 Thai larb

A half empty bowl of steamed rice awaits lettuce and laab, piled on nearby dishes.
Paula and The Chef collaborated on tonight’s dinner. Larb (or laab) is a meat salad. We used the lettuce leaves as little scoops/wraps and put rice with each scoop. Very tasty. From the garden, the larb contained Chimayó peppers and mint. It was delicious.

09/02/2023 behind on peppers

A peeling white enameled metal colander full of red, orange, brown, and yellow peppers of various shapes and sizes.
I got very behind on the garden and the blog the last few weeks with my household humans on a trip. The cats said they needed feeding and it just kept happening! The long skinny peppers in the colander are Corbaci peppers. The upper left conical red one is an Apple Pepper (I assume it’s named for the shape). The lower left orange one was California Wonder bell. The lower right brown one is a Chocolate Bell.
Peppers seeds and a wrinkly whole red apple pepper in a white bowl with black stripes bordering the rim.
Some peppers, like these apple peppers, were at a stage where I’ve just extracted their seeds to save.
Tomato sauced bow tie pasta is heaped with veggies and feta cheese, with a side of buttered sourdough bread on a white plate with stripe and square black border.
Mom made a delicious dish of veggies, pasta, and beans for dinner during her and Dad’s visit! From the garden, it had apple peppers and California Wonder peppers (both sweet bell-ish types) in it, as well as fresh basil and oregano.