Cream Cheese Pumpkin Pie

Combine and mix:  1-8oz. pkg. softened cream cheese, 1/4 c. sugar; 1/2 tsp. vanilla; 1 egg. Pour onto bottom of unbaked 9 in. pastry shell.

Combine and mix well; pour carefully over cream cheese layer:
2 eggs, beaten well; 1/2 C. sugar; 1 1/4 C. canned pumpkin; (1 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice or)
1 tsp. cinnamon; 1/4/ tsp. nutmeg; 1/4 tsp. ginger; 1 C. evaporated milk; dash salt.

Bake at 350 degrees for 65-70 mins.

Zucchini and Stuffing Casserole

Servings:  6-8

5 cups zucchini, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 C. corn bread or other dry stuffing
1/2 cup sour cream
1 (10 1/2 ounce) can cream of chicken or mushroom soup
3/4 c. canned french fried onion rings
salt, pepper if desired
Directions:

Boil zucchini and onion for 5 minutes, drain. Stir in sour cream, cream soup, 1/2 C. french fried onion rings, seasonings and stuffing until well mixed. Top with remaining onions.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, uncovered. Simple yet satisfying!

Our Bounty

Our Bounty with One Lone Carrot
It survived the mid-summer beagle plague...

...but it could not survive this.

Not the Problem I'd Thought I'd Have

When I wrote my last post about gardening at the end of May, I was astonished at how fast things were growing and also wondering if I should not be getting so excited since that might have been as good as it got. Well, apparently rainy and cool weather paired with a little tomato food, peat moss, and cow manure does a garden well. I don't think I even hand-watered my garden once in the month of June, because we had so much rain.

Now I'm starting to wonder if I over-planted. I had to invest in some bamboo stakes and sturdy stretch tie to rein in the zucchini, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Someone with much more gardening wisdom than I told me that corn should be knee-high by the Fourth of July. Even if I'm standing on the same level, that's more like shoulder-high.

July 14, 2013

Here are some monsters that we pulled out today. Good thing I decided to water today or I might not have seen them.

The Three Amigos

Among all of the gazillions of green tomatoes, Caden spotted an orange one.

Which one of these is not like the other ones?

Again, really not the problem I thought I'd have in my rookie year. Three lessons I've learned for next year:

1. Stake the tomatoes at time of planting (apparently this is common knowledge among the more experienced). I had no idea that bush variety tomatoes would grow this tall. 
2. A "bush" variety is not the same as a "dwarf" variety.
3. Apparently a zucchini plant -- even just one -- needs more than 4 squares. I had to cage it up, because it was shading my peppers and reaching into the corn. Perhaps it warrants its own special container. Same for the cukes.

Sweet Corn Tomalito

This is one of my faves. I take it as a potluck item and get rave reviews. I just wanted to add it to the blog for easy access.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/sweet-corn-tomalito/detail.aspx

I did not have luck with the steaming, as I don't have a double boiler, so I use this highly recommended microwave cooking shortcut: Cook the tomalito, covered, for 7 min. at 30% power and then 4 min. at full power. (Obviously you'll want your dish to be microwave safe and forgo the aluminum foil).

Cake Boss - Little Einsteins Rocket

When I asked Caden what kind of cake he wanted for his 3rd birthday, I was pretty sure I knew the answer. And it was in fact "a rocket." But not just any rocket that I could buy a cake mold for. It had to be the Little Einsteins rocket. So I did some research, and there were some ridiculously elaborate cakes complete with fondant sculptures of the kids. I knew that was a bit beyond my talents. But I did find a few more reasonable ideas.

I used this blog as my primary guide: http://andreasrecipes.com/little-einsteins-rocket-birthday-cake/. The hardest part of this project was definitely the engines constructed of ice cream cones cut with an X-acto knife (which I had to prop up with toothpicks. If I had to do it over, I'd have turned rocket 90 degrees). I didn't buy the oval cake pans because they were a tad expensive (not to mention that I would have to have had them shipped, and I just didn't get around to ordering them in time). Instead I used my pyrex oblong chafing dishes and trimmed the cakes into more oval-ish shapes. I also added a sheet cake base, so I had more cake and a nice grassy area for rocket and the LEs to rest upon.

I combed eBay for weeks trying to find figurines to use as cake toppers. But the last episode of the LEs was made in 2009, so the toys are now collectors items and selling for ridiculous amounts of money, so I settled upon some card stock cut-outs that I found here: http://a.dolimg.com/en-US/disneyjunior/media/pdf/coloring_and_create/djr_col_lte_characters.pdf.

Here is my final result:


And then we ate it.

Novice Intro to Square Foot Gardening

I do realize this is a recipe blog, and this post is not a recipe per se, but I do hope that my gardening efforts will yield some produce that I can subsequently turn into recipes. So it's not an entirely irrelevant post.

After many years of shunning gardening, due to unpleasant childhood memories of weeding in the sweltering heat whilst being eaten alive by mosquitoes (it may well have only happened once or twice, but I recall it with horror), I decided to give it another go. After all, it wasn't all bad. I had taken for granted that we had garden fresh salads nearly every night during the summer, which I quite enjoyed. I probably didn't realize at the time how much better it tasted than had we bought it at the store. And at the time, I probably didn't care that it was much more nutrient rich.

Thus far, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. Since planting on Mother's day, my bedding plants have grown significantly larger, my corn and carrot seeds have begun to sprout, and I found a tiny tasty poblano pepper yesterday! I don't know why this amazes me. I grew a human being in my body, yet I'm more in awe of the fact that a seed would actually germinate in my garden. Perhaps this stems (pun intended) from the fact that I've never been successful at keeping a houseplant alive, and I've killed at least two basil plants in recent history.

May 12, 2013

May 30, 2013

Tiny Tasty Poblano Pepper

1st Herb Harvest

Today I did my first harvest of the season, which included leaf lettuce and herbs. Now in fairness, the herbs were more or less ready when I transplanted them, but there was a point when I thought the lettuce would not make it. It was looking quite sad after being trounced by a beagle, and who knows what else. But in the last couple weeks we got some nice warm weather and a significant amount of rain, and the lettuce rallied! We enjoyed it in a salad tonight! (Well at least Caden and I did. Larry merely ate his salad).


I would like to insert a disclaimer that I in no way claim to be an expert on square foot gardening, or any variety of garden, for that matter. Most of what I gleaned about this craft was done via Google a couple of nights before venturing to the nursery. But I must say, that so far I'm very impressed with this method. It's highly space-efficient, so you don't need much room. And it's contained, which makes that whole maintenance (i.e. weeding) thing much easier--haven't had to pluck one yet! So here are those sites that have inspired and guided me thus far:

• My Square Foot Garden - Square Foot Gardening Basics
• Plant Spacing
• The Vegetable Garden - Companion Plants: What Grows Well Together

Ask me again in a month if I feel the same way.You know, after the bugs and the hail, and the potential fruitless efforts. But for now, I'm sold on SFG!