Lettuce Broccoli Carrots Oh My!

Lately, my life has been a whirlwind of work, gardening, spending time with Charles and then we run out of time. Where does it all go so quickly? Especially the weekends – they are gone in the blink of an eye and then good ole Monday rolls around again.

This weekend, Charles and I worked in our garden, doing some much needed weeding and a little bit of harvesting. We had a large strawberry ready on our one strawberry plant. I should say the reason we only have one plant is that we bought it at a little country seed store here where we live and when we went back for more, they were sold out. We couldn’t find more of this same variety so we are going to be patient and hold out until next year and purchase more of this same variety so we know we love them! That one strawberry we did have was better than having a dozen so-so strawberries though. It was the best flavor and texture! Soooooo good!

We have also harvested an onion and a carrot just to see if they were ready. Lettuce and greens are ready like crazy and we’ve even shared some of our harvest with friends and family. That’s always nice when someone does that for us and now that we are gardening, we are happy to return the favor.

Back to the carrot for a sec…I had read online they are ready to harvest after 60-80 days. Realizing it had been 80 days, we harvested one which ended up being really small, so they have more time to go before they are ready. Still, we are definitely having it on our salads tonight. Here’s the carrot in the middle of our harvest:

And a close up of our Bibb Lettuce, really dark in color and so tasty:

And here’s some of the Black Seeded Simpson lettuce:

Our broccoli that we started indoors from seed is really starting to show some excitement. Check this out:

How exciting is all this? We weren’t sure how things would grow here since this is our first attempt. So far, so good. This year is sort of a work in progress and hopefully we’ll learn some things that will help us in our next garden next year

All I know is this…I love love love eating lettuce from our garden. I really want to do whatever it takes to have it year round. There are ways to grow lettuce indoors during cold months. We just have to figure out a good place as well as what we’ll need and we just might do it…

Garden Harvest

Hey Everyone! I couldn’t wait to show you a couple things!

Charles and I have been working so hard on our garden and it’s been paying off greatly. We have been harvesting lettuce for over a week now – almost daily! Not only that but we were able to share some with our next door neighbors as well as my parents who came by to visit us yesterday afternoon. It’s such a great feeling to be able to give people things we’ve grown ourselves! 

It dawned on me that I should definitely take a picture of this gorgeous salad for you to see:

That’s Charles’ salad as he loves tomatoes and I have never developed a taste for them. This is what he had instead of the what I had, which leads me to this…

Here’s a photo of the mustard greens from our garden that I ate this evening:

Charles hasn’t ever liked mustard greens and bless his heart, he tried a bite and just could not like them even though he wanted to. On the other hand, I love them because I grew up having them every gardening season. I guess it’s an acquired taste? At any rate, they were sooooo good!

I hope you are trying some gardening this year. It’s such a great feeling to be eating something you grew yourself. Not only is it healthy, but it’s also a money saver!

D-Freakin’-Licious

As Charles sleeps lots later than me on the weekends, I generally cook breakfast while he’s still sleeping and wake him when it’s ready. Sundays tend to be a larger breakfast and where I guess I’ve recouped a little from the week’s work and feel like experimenting. Today, I realized we had some frozen hashbrowns in the freezer and I really wanted to make something cheesy and tasty with them.

So, I looked up some recipes and made some changes, based on ingredients from another recipe (this one). Here goes:

• 1/3 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup condensed chicken soup
• 2 1/2 cups frozen hash browns
• 1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 1/4 tsp pepper
• 1 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 4 tablespoons bacon crumbles

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray. (I used a 2.2 quart glass pyrex dish.) In a large bowl, mix the soup and sour cream together. Add the hash browns and stir to coat them very well. Add 3/4 cup of the cheddar cheese, butter, onion, salt, pepper, and bacon. Stir well to distribute. Spoon into dish and sprinkle remaining 3/4 cup of cheddar cheese on the top of the mixture. Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the foil and cook an additional 10 minutes. Place on broil until cheese is lightly browned. Serve.

I hope you try this – it’s an ultimate comfort food, too! With the outside looking so dreary and rainy this morning, comfort food definitely hit the spot! As Charles said, this is vacation quality!

P.S. Charles gave me the title for this post – LOL!  It’s perfect!!

Bananas – Yes and No

When I was growing up, my parents owned a country grocery store. It was a larger one than most in that area and my brother and I spent many of our early years there. With vendors and delivery men coming in all the time, they would grow fond of my brother and me and would give us little cakes or candies upon their visit. How sweet of them to do that for a couple of little children.

One of the delivery men for one of the bread companies was especially sweet and would give me a little banana cake. I don’t remember seeing them anymore but they had a light layer of banana frosting over a banana cake. To this day, I don’t like bananas. I never have. But give me some banana bread or those cakes the bread man would bring and I loved it! Strange isn’t it? How you like something that contains something you don’t like. I’ve tried to like bananas and tried to eat them, but I think it’s the texture of them I don’t like. At any rate, that brings me to what I wanted to share with you…a lovely and simple personal recipe for Banana Nut Bread. This recipe makes one loaf, but you can just double it if you want to make two.

Banana Nut Bread

• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 stick butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 2 bananas
• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch salt
• 1/2 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease/spray loaf pan. Cream sugar and butter together. Add egg and vanilla. Stir well. In another bowl, mash the bananas and add flour, salt, baking powder and nuts.  Stir banana mixture with sugar mixture and pour into loaf pan. Cook for 1 hour.  

This recipe reminds me of that little cake I was given as a child. Thank you, sir, for your kindness. It has not been forgotten.

Chocolate Granola and I Won??

Ok…how yummy does that chocolate granola look??? I made that lovely concoction of coconut, almonds, oats and chocolate chips (a few other goodies) thanks to a super lady and her oh so wonderful blog called “Food Loves Writing”. Click here to see it for yourself. And, click here to go directly to the oh-so-tasty recipe for the granola you see above. Soooo good!

I entered a little contest Shannalee had on her most wonderful blog and guess what?? I won!!! I was so shocked and just wait til you see! Check it out:

There’s a great book entitled “The Ungarnished Truth” by Ellie Matthews. I can hardly wait to read it! In the prize pack was also a RuMe bag that’s so deceptive in size. While it looks tiny, it opens to be quite sizeable. Love it! And, sweetheart that she is, Shannalee also included the cutest card that I thought fit her blog and her so well. Perfection! 

Just be sure to bookmark her blog because it’s definitely worth checking out over and over. Plus with cool giveaways like this, you know you want to be “in the know!” Shannalee ROCKS!! Thanks Shannalee!