fried Zucchini

summers days are numbered...

Busy as usual!
Had a lovely weekend, checked out the Farmers market at crystal springs Farm ! what a wonderful market.  I bought lots of tomatoes!  I'll be planting more next year!  So, on Monday i canned diced tomatoes.

Paste Tomatoes from the market.

Preparing the water bath for peeling

All the steps.  1. coring, boiling for 30 seconds, cooling, peeling.

Preparing to jar.

Ready to be boiled.  See my wonderful new tongs!!

Fully processed.

I also made and froze approx 4 dozen Meatballs made with organic grass fed beef from Little Alaska Farm

Eating it up!

I've been thinking allot about putting the garden to bed even though its not just time collecting leaves and compost and getting some Llama poo from down the road to make next year even better.  Making notes in my book on what to grow and where in my garden next year.  Very exciting.  today i pulled the basil out and picked the pumpkin.  the pumpkin isn't quiet done but its been so wet the last few weeks that where it was sitting just wasn't getting good and dry and I don't want it to rot!

So i pulled the basil and made some pesto. I don't use a recipe anymore just fill the food processor up with fresh basil throw in a handful or so of whatever nuts are in the cupboard, I did have pine nuts today, pour in Parmesan cheese and oil.  I adjust the oil and cheese by taste at the end and consistency and then freeze in ice cube trays.  I cant find my ice cube trays though.  :(

 Then i moved on to zucchini cake!  It came out a bit dry but its still super Yummy !  It will be a good snack for Haylee and tony for work and school this week.

We had fresh tomatoes with supper tonight, the big ones are still green and I'm watching them and the weather closely.  We ate the last cucumber as well.  Not nearly enough of those from the garden this summer.  Hopefully I'll make it to the market this weekend of next week and stuck up on some stuff!

 Then for dinner with some chicken wee had a pesto cream sauce which i just whipped up from what was in my cupboards so it wasn't exactly what i wanted but it turned out pretty good, canned cream of chicken soup and milk, parm cheese and 1/4 cup of pesto added to it.

Where did the summer go?

So I have been cooking again, and crazy busy as usual. Looking forward to the breather school should bring tomorrow.
Hurricane/tropical storm Irene came our way and didn't cause us much harm thankfully. We lost power for approx 46 hours and it kindly rejoined us today. The garden survived the totential rains and the wind stayed above us thanks to a hill and some sturdy trees. We both took rides with haylee during and after the storm check out the The photo blogg
We've been busy dreaming of next years garden making of a list and standing in the garden space discussing our pallet fence and pallet arbor and a our pallet planters hopefully its not too overboard. now I've got got to keep those temps in the 70's and ripened those green tomatoes. I'm game to try fried greens ones but....
So here is some food. Next week there wont be much as I'm working three nights of the week gotta plan some crock pt stuff i guess. Used it last week for strogonoff.
The first zucchini!

And dinner made with it!

Haylee checking out Irene.

Its august already!

Last week we picked blueberries and made Jam and I'd say it came out good. I feel like I'm from maine so I'm suposed to love blueberries but I'm not a huge fan unless it's homemade blueberry jam!

The garden is growing well and we've got beans comign and the summer sqaushes and tons of tomatos. I'm dreaming about next years garden already i need more beds and i want to grow pole beans and have enough to can. I want more herbs and i saw a great design for growing those upright at the botanical garden another use for pallets. I forgot to plant nasturtiums this year too and i miss them!



.

maybe not as good as i'd like but....

I baked something and took pictures of it the other night!
I wouldn't really call this weeks cooking cooking. spaghetti and sausage and hot dogs and mac n cheese and beans. yummy and easy but.... Tony made excellent steak and cheese calzones on Sunday though! However i don't know how to blog pics from my phone.
I made no bake cookies cookies the other night because Haylee really wanted to bake. :)

Haylee stirring the pot.

New bucket of peanut butter = YUM!

And the garden is doing well i need to fertilize it before i go to work today.

still not cooking

Though i threw together a great pasta salad last week using a rotisserie chicken, marinated motz balls, and tomato. The garden is growing and we've been munching sweat peas.

So here are some shots of the garden.

The giant pumpkin.

I planted too many tomatoes but they are happy.

The beans which i planted late and some cucs also planted later then the rest.