It's been awhile!!! Whew...

So it has been awhile and the gardener has been busy!

The garden seems to be doing well. But the lots and lots of rain we received was good and bad. It did flood the left back side of the garden and the Sweet Corn suffered and the Sugar Snap Peas suffered a bit too. It is hot and humid to welcome in July along with more rain. Seems like the jungle rather than WI!

Here are a few photos:

Zucchini

Sugar Snap Peas

Lettuce mix

Red Onions & Candy Onions

Acorn Squash

Beans

Potatoes

Cantaloupe

Sweet Corn

Jalapeno Peppers

Broccoli

Early Girl Tomatoes

Banana Peppers

Squash, Peppers, & Tomatoes oh MY

just a quick post tonight. Look at all my Peppers! Yum... I want to make some Jalapeno Poppers! I never made any and want to give them a whirl. Hopefully I can make them and freeze them. Perfect for Packer Games. See the bucket of Cherry tomatoes that is how many we pick at time. Crazy..... I plan on canning and cooking tomorrow. I will let you know what I make.

Butternut squash I have a total of 4. One seems to weigh about 5 lbs. 2 more cantaloupe too!

Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

How I couldn't wait for tomatoes. Well they are here in full force. We have great tomatoes in the Midwest this year. Every person I talk to has good tomatoes. No dry rot or bugs getting to them. I have been dehydrating the cherry tomatoes like crazy by cutting them in half, sprinkling with sea salt and oregano and basil. Then dehydrate and put them in freezer bags in the freezer. They are great to pop into soups and sauces to give it more of a tomato flavor. The kids think they taste like pizza sauce. I have almost 5 quart bags full.

My hubby wanted me to try to make some tomato soup to can as well. I made some today. I got 4 pints and it smelt wonderful cooking. Here is the recipe:

Roasted Garlic Tomato Soup

12 Tomatoes
2 Carrots - cut in 1" pieces
1 Large Onion -  quartered
2 whole heads of garlic-
Olive Oil
2 cups Chicken Broth- (or 3)
1/2 C chopped fresh basil or 1 T dried

Core tomatoes and cut in half. Place cut side up on foil covered cookie sheets with carrots, onion and garlic. brush with Olive Oil.  Bake at 400F for about an hour, or until vegies are roasted and a little blackened. Place in a large sauce pan with the chicken broth and basil and simmer for about 10 min. Blend with a stick blender until almost smooth.

To Can: Process in a pressure canner at 10 lbs pressure  60 min for pints and 70 min for quarts. 1" head space.

**cream may be added to taste when the soup is served**

Makes 1-1/2 to 2 quarts or around 4 pints

(i used 2  9x13 pans to roast my veggies or I would have had a mess from the tomatoes.)

enjoy!!

(recipe courtsey of gardenweb.com, recipe by Katie posted by Joannaw)

I plan on making a bigger batch soon!!! 

I'm Baaaack

Whew!!!! I am back to blogging... Yea... I have been out for about 3 weeks due to our computer malfunctioning.  I have a Mac (iMac G5) and it seemed to be acting a bit funny for about a month or so. I never performed any back up whatsoever, so when it was acting funny I started thinking hmmm, maybe I should make sure my stuff is "safe"incase anything my happen to my Mac.  My Brother Matt the wonderful techie that he is told me to get an external hard drive and back up my files. I thought ok, just like everything I'll get to Best Buy and get one and put that on my never ending "to do" list.  WELLL... you can almost feel what is coming. My hard drive blew out before I had a chance to back it up. There was some sensor in the fan that cools the HD that malfunctioned and it wasn't cooling and that is why it was acting funny. The fan would run really loud even after we checked email. I did think that was weird but then again I thought it was just doing it's job. After all our Mac is from 2005.  Well I took it in to a computer shop and it took them 2 weeks to get to it and then they couldn't recover any of my data. I am crushed. I had tons of photos of family, my hubby's taxidermy work and just documents, email addresses, basically our life was in there.  Funny only about 4 years ago it really wouldn't have mattered too much. We rely on on our wireless gadgets and non-wireless gadgets so much. How do you pay a  bill or talk to a friend without Internet or email.  Use the  postal service or use a gasp... PHONE.  It was a nice break for a couple of weeks actually to put it all back into perspective. I went for a walk in the evening with the family, instead of updating my blog or working online doing scrapbooking things. I found more time, now I need to make more time and not be glued to the computer. Don't get me wrong I am back but I will not rely on this as much since the betrayal of my trust. I will print my photos more often and back up my documents and most of all make sure I have stamps on hand... Just in case.  ha ha

ps. I put up 15 canned pints of pasta sauce on Friday from the TONS of tomatoes I am getting out of the garden. They are just beautiful. I will post pictures soon of my little red treasures.

 

Dinner Tonight

Look what we had for dinner tonight!! YUM-O

(saying courtesy of Rachael Ray) Sweet Corn from the Garden. It was very good. We had enough for about 14 cobs to eat. Nick had 3 all by himself.

See the tomatoes? Remember when I was waiting for them? They have arrived in full force. I am going to have to can tomorrow.

Lucas picked a huge zucchini, (that must have snuck by me.) I am looking for some new recipes to try.

I made some Jalapeno Strawberry Jam this week and I am looking forward to eating that. I already snuck a taste when I made it and it was SO good. The kids even ate it. Look for that recipe on Allrecipes.com.

I am off to watch the Pack play on T.V. tonight. Go Pack!