In the Garden

Getting a late start today as I had to go to Home Despot and get a new manure fork. My old one failed while digging potatoes. Anyhow I made a run to Gainesville yesterday as the daugter(minimonk) had taken my utility trailer with her on the last visit and loaded it with fresh horse manure. This is stuff right out of the pasture so no shavings mixed in...Number 1, clear quill stuff and I need to unload the trailer this morning and get it composting. I snapped a few pics in the garden yesterday...I can't help myself...and I thought a I would share since many of you can't or don't have a garden. You can live vicariously through mine!

As you probably know I experiment in the kitchen all the time and I have come up with a couple of things that have promise.

First, I posted a recipe for an Old Fashioned Fruit Cobbler the other day and the other night I was wondering if I could use something similar for squash(zucchini in this case) and so I tried it.
I subbed a mix of 50/50 flour and cornmeal for the flour and buttermilk for the milk and left out the sugar. I reduced the baking powder to 2 tsp and used a half tsp of baking soda (because of the buttermilk). Instead of fruit I used about 2 cups of shredded zucchini and a half cup or so of shredded cheddar cheese. I assembled it the same way but used a quarter cup of olive oil for the butter. It turned out pretty nice. Next time I will leave the veges in looser "clumps" instead of spreading it out and maybe the batter will bubble up between and not just the edges. A finely chopped hot pepper might be a nice addition as well. Anyhow, something different.

Last night, being overwhelmed with cherry tomatoes and small yellow pear tomatoes I reduced 2 cups of chicken stock by a half and threw in a couple of handfuls of halved cherry tomatoes. I mixed the yellow and the red. Salt and pepper and two tablespoons of fresh chopped basil. Cooked it for a few minutes until the tomatoes started collapsing and served it over Japanese style cooked rice. Very simple but surprisingly nice. The flavor of the tomatoes comes across very well. I served some sliced zucchini (1/4 inch thick the long way) sprinkled with olive oil and rolled in a mixture of 50/50 grated Parmesan and panko and baked in a hot oven(450F) for about 15 minutes until browned. Also very nice and I used another zuke!

There is my trailer full of black gold that needs to be unload.

A bush full of Serrano chiles and some Italian heirloom tomatoes promising some glorious pasta sauce in the very near future.

Out to shovel poop!