sno cones and summer

Although I try to stay health conscious with my eating habits for the most part, one of my favorite summer indulgences is a sno cone. It really takes me back to childhood, when my family spent many summer evenings waiting in a rather lengthy line at The Best Sno Cone Place in town, trying new things on their extensive list of flavors (except for my dad--he always got a coconut cream pie flavored sno cone!). That stand has long been closed down, but my warm sentiments toward this cold summer treat remain.

However, this year I've had to wait patiently (okay...impatiently...I complained about it...a lot!) all summer to get one because apparently, they do not exist in Columbus! There are ice cream trucks...But no sno cone stands. And boy, do people look at you like you are nuts if you even so much as ask where all of them are, nevermind suggest that the city could use a few!

Here in Arkansas, they open up just as soon as cavities have begun to form from those chocolate Easter bunnies and close promptly at the sound of Labor Day's end-of-summer whistle. Luckily I got my trip home in just in time for an end-of-the-season sno cone. I went with my brother, James, and had half vanilla, half coconut, while he had watermelon. I suppose my visit will have to keep me satisfied until next year!

this zucchini could win a prize

We aren't growing zucchini in this year's garden, but being that it is one of my favorite summer vegetables to cook with, each week I pick up a few at the farmers' market. This week, however, there is no need, because Corey's boss gave him this enormous zucchini that is greater than or equal to the handful I normally purchase (I'm leaning towards "greater than"). It's crazy how big it is. I'm going to make a tian again today (it was just so delicious) and try for something new and zucchini-filled with the rest of it tomorrow. I'll be going out of town Thursday (to visit my home state!) so I'm not sure that I'll reach my goal of 3-4 new recipes this week, but I will be sure to have interesting things to blog about from my time away! My parents are growing a big vegetable garden this summer and I am excited to finally see it in person and photograph it. I'm sure I will also come up with some non-gardening-related things of interest.

Speaking of zucchini, the day after I return from my trip, there is a festival just outside of Columbus happening called Zucchinifest. It has me intrigued...I might check it out!

seed saving: a gesture of planning and sustainability in the garden

Planning ahead for the garden is both exciting and overwhelming. I spend hours reading seed catalogs and gardening books during the winter months. This leads to getting caught up in picking "the perfect" seed varieties and lost in tables of planting dates and row spacings. If you've ever felt a little panicked while trying to plan out your garden, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. But it gets easier, friends. I'm not an expert but I learn new things about plants and gardening every day, and after keeping a garden for a few seasons, the planning part is so much easier. Here are a few tips I have for staying on track and not letting your fears of "messing something up" get in the way of actually getting your garden in the ground:

1. Start planning several months ahead, and make a schedule for everything you need to do. We built this year's raised beds two months before the frost-free date and filled them up with planting material one month before. If you start early, you can do things at your leisure when you have a warm Saturday here and there. You'll feel proud of yourself for not procrastinating.

2. Pay attention to the planting dates specifically for your zone for each crop you want to grow. You can plant many seed varieties outdoors a certain number of weeks before the frost-free date. I never manage to stay on top of this, so a few of my crops came in late this year. My plan is to be better prepared next spring!

3. Given that you could spend years pouring over the exciting reading that is today's seed catalogs, don't get too caught up on what to plant and what seed varieties to use. Take the most important aspects of each variety into consideration, and go from there. If you have limited space, plant your favorites! Don't waste space on things you don't love. Ask gardeners in your area what their best crops are and what varieties they plant. Realize, however, that the soil you plant in has a lot to do with the success of your plants as well, so if your neighbor has the most beautiful Brandywine tomatoes and yours are doing poorly, your soil might be missing a vital nutrient. Contact your local extension service about having a soil test done. You can also buy kits to test certain things, like pH, yourself.

One aspect of planning ahead I am adding to my repertoire this summer is seed saving! There is something special about connecting your gardens to one another year after year, plus if done correctly, it can save you some money. Since this is my first year to save seeds, I'm not expecting miracles and I'm okay with the fact that I might end up having to purchase a type of seed that I attempted to save. But I'm all for the learning process and hope to have some success with these seeds next spring! I read the seed-saving section of my Rodale's organic gardening encyclopedia (a wonderful source of information) and got to work this weekend saving lettuce seeds, coriander, and peas.

Lettuce. When it gets too warm or lettuce has reached maturity, it will bolt, sending a long stalk up and eventually flowering. Lettuce flowers are self-pollinating, so after most of the flowers had opened, I cut off the stalk and kept it in a vase of water until the remained opened and they dried out, to prevent the dandelion-like flower remains from blowing away. When it had completely dried, I carefully picked off each white "fluff," which had about a dozen seeds attached to the end. At first I saved some of the white fluffy parts but eventually I was proficient enough to remove those and save just the seeds:

Next up, coriander, the seeds of the cilantro plant. Coriander is used as a spice, so you could save the seeds for that purpose or to plant. This is what the seeds look like on the plant before they dry out:

Once they turn brown, they are easily removed from the plant:

Finally, peas. When your pea crop is nearing the end, leave some pods on the vine to dry. When they are completely dried out (they will be brown and will not be holding any moisture), remove and shell the pods, to reveal wrinkly peas inside.

My Rodale's reading suggested saving the seeds in envelopes and keeping them in the refrigerator, since they do best in low humidity. You can also store the envelopes in a cool, dry place as an alternative.

One last thing: if your seeds are hybrid (that's different than genetically modified, just for the record--I've heard the terms confused often), you can save them, but they will not produce plants like the parent. Hybrid seeds are the combination of two specific parent plants. For example, to simplify the idea, a red flower and a white flower cross-bred to make a pink flower. If you replant the pink flower's seeds, you won't get another pink flower. I'm keeping this in mind as I re-research each tomato variety I have currently and figure out which ones to save!

panzanella - a tasty use for stale bread

I can't believe that after having lived in Florence, Italy, for almost three months, I did not know what a panzanella salad was! Apparently, it is a Florentine specialty. At any rate, I now know how to make it, thanks to Shari over at Tend. Tend is a collective blog of five ladies who love gardening. I have learned a lot from reading it regularly and I never grow tired of seeing beautiful photographs of others' gardens!

Panzanella is a lettuce-free salad which features stale bread, tomatoes, and a vinaigrette. Shari's recipe was this traditional version (some scoff at adding other ingredients--not surprising given Italian food customs, but humorous given the fact that this salad was invented before tomatoes were introduced to Italy), but I had some other veggies in the fridge to use up so I got a little inspiration from Smitten Kitchen and added bell pepper, onion, and cucumber to mine.

The results were delicious, of course! Do yourself a favor and make a panzanella with some leftover bread and fresh summer vegetables.

my new garden friend

Three days ago among the zinnias I noticed a praying mantis.

She's been there every day since.

Twenty-six zinnias and counting,

Guarded by one watchful insect.

the most wonderful time of the gardening year

My apologies to anyone reading who doesn't share my love for tomatoes...I promise I will post about something else soon! It's just so exciting that they are finally ripening.

I bought a miniature vintage postage scale for 30 cents a few months ago to weigh my produce on! I thought it would be a fun stat to make a record of. This tomato was five ounces and ended up on a pizza inspired by this Smitten Kitchen recipe.

Here is this morning's tomato harvest. We had to pick a lot of green tomatoes because we are still finding branches that were damaged in some storms we had a few weeks back. The damage on some branches remained unnoticeable until the tomatoes started weighing them down. I think we'll fry some of these, and try to let the rest ripen. I believe I was just too impatient before.

Today I'd like to use a couple of the ripe ones to make this eggplant, zucchini, and tomato tian. This recipe is layered and baked like lasagna, but the layers are slices of the vegetables + bread crumbs and parmesan (will probably use nutritional yeast) and vegetable broth.

photo shoot with the ugliest tomato

Seven tomatoes ripening in various shades of red--

Of course this one would be the first to finish,

Because I wanted to photograph the occasion

Of the first big tomato of summer.

My tastebuds would not discriminate, so neither would I,
And that is why I had a photo shoot with the ugliest tomato.

pickled tomatoes

There in my fridge sat a large bowl full of green tomatoes, mostly pear, a few cherry. You know, the green tomatoes I wouldn't stop talking about last week. They called out to me every time I opened the refrigerator door, leading to feelings of guilt over wasting food I had grown with my own two hands. I made two batches of green salsa and still had leftovers. Always eager to try new recipes/kitchen skills, I decided to pickle them. I wasn't completely new to pickling. Last year, we made two jars of pickled banana pepper rings (with so many surplus banana peppers from the garden, we thought the jar number was going to be closer to seven or eight, but so go pickles). Then we promptly left them in Arkansas (accidentally) before they were ready to eat (but truth be told, they were a little on the mushy side because I wasn't sure when to stop boiling them during the pickle-making process).

Pickled green tomatoes. I first tried them last October from a farm stand about half an hour from here. My mom tells me they're available back home, but I just never noticed them before. I looked up recipes and found so many varieties. One that really piqued my interest was an Italian variety flavored with mint and basil. For yesterday's batch, I decided to go with a dill variety (because I grew dill this summer specifically for the purpose of pickling!), but I think that Italian recipe is next on my list.

Back to the dill, however. The past few weeks, stepping onto my back porch means getting a whiff of pickle-scented air. It is so peculiar. Never having grown or really cooked with dill before, I could not imagine how much the pickle derives its taste from the herb. I thought the other spices and of course the vinegar had a lot to do with it. It turns out dill alone is the perfect embodiment of the pickle. And so I used this recipe. I only made one quart of tomatoes this go around, so I didn't go all the way through the canning process and am just keeping them in the fridge. I hope to properly can a few things before summer ends, though!

First, I sterilized my jar, then tossed in all the seasonings. I did not have any hot peppers, so I altered that part of the recipe and substituted red pepper flakes. I also used two cloves of garlic, a few pinches of dill, four peppercorns, and 1/4 tsp homemade pickling spice.

The thing I liked about this process is that I did not have to boil the tomatoes. Like I said before, last year that's where I messed up the banana peppers. You want your pickles to be crispy. At this point, I added my thoroughly washed tomatoes to the jar on top of the spices. At the same time, I was boiling water, vinegar (5% acidity), and salt. I could not locate any pickling salt so I used Kosher. Don't use iodized salt or you will have some ugly pickles (still edible though).

After the vinegar mixture comes to a rolling boil, I poured it over the tomatoes. My recipe suggested adding 1 tsp olive oil to each jar for added flavor, so I did so. I left half an inch of room at the top of the jar.

Then I topped off my jar with a sterilized lid and let it cool on the counter for two hours.

Voila! Now I wait two weeks, then here's hoping I have some tasty pickles.

eggplant club

In Italian, the word for eggplant, melanzana, means literally, "toxic apple." A member of the nightshade family, it was once believed to have caused insanity.

In Italy, I discovered how much I truly love eggplant. Luckily it is no longer attributed to madness. My friend Casey and I started an eggplant club. We were the only members. No one could love eggplant as much as we did, we joked. We had it at every meal!

Last year I had one Japanese eggplant in a container. It produced a single fruit late in the summer, which withered and died before reaching maturity. I questioned whether I should try again this year, but since I'm in a different zone now, I went ahead with it. I got two plants: a black beauty and a gretel, and planted them in the raised bed rather than a container. They are doing beautifully and producing eggplants, dare I say, like mad. We harvested the first one yesterday.

It was so beautiful and perfect, that I couldn't stop admiring it. It amazes me that I had so much trouble last year, and that this time around it has been so easy.

We put it on a homemade pizza, one of my favorite uses of fresh summer produce.

green tomatoes

What's a girl to do when she finds herself with a stockpile of these when all she really wants is a tomato sandwich? Because of a handful of storms over the past two weeks, we've had to prune back the tomato plants more than usual. There is still an impressive crop beginning to ripen on the vines, but a few branches were severed from the heavy wind and had to be removed, resulting in a bowl full of unripened tomatoes. I tried putting them in a brown paper sack to ripen them, but they were not mature enough when they were picked, I suppose, because after five days there was no progress.

I've been looking for ways to use them. Of course, they can be fried. Or pickled. Both of those sound tasty, but I wanted something a little simpler, so I decided to make a green salsa. I was worried that maybe they weren't mature enough to use for anything at all, but the salsa tastes great.


Here it is. I came up with it based on what was available in the garden and fridge. It has a tangy flavor with a hint of mint and lime in the aftertaste, sort of like a certain chutney I particularly like, but don't know the name of (I've heard it called mint chutney as well as cilantro chutney...perhaps those are two different things...I've been unable to locate the right recipe).

5 small green tomatoes
10 mint leaves (I used lime mint)
generous pinch of cilantro leaves
3-4 small chard leaves
1 slice of onion, chopped
1/2 Tbsp cumin
2 Tbsp liquid from a jar of jalapenos, + 5 jalapeno slices
1 tsp lime juice
1/2 tsp minced garlic or garlic powder

Chop the tomatoes into small pieces. Throw them along with everything else into a blender or food processor, and blend until smooth. This could be tweaked in a number of ways. Salsa is easy to adapt to your liking!

you win some, you lose some

A big part of gardening is learning to deal with failures. You hope that at least a few more things will go right than wrong. This season, that has been the case. I learned a lot last year, so that helped, but some things you can't always plan for. Here are the latest rights and wrongs from the garden (emphasis on the rights):

Success: peppers that went straight from the vine to tonight's dinner. Failure: the small pepper on the right was supposed to be red but never turned after over three weeks of waiting so we picked it anyway and it tasted like...nothing. The plant itself had stunted growth because it started flowering too early. I'm actually impressed that it produced anything at all.

Success: the gretel eggplant has about six eggplants growing from it now, and is still flowering!

Success: the purple beauty has two large, healthy eggplants almost ready to be picked. Such a step up from my Japanese eggplant last year which produced one tiny, shriveled, unedible eggplant.

Success: the brandywine currently has fourteen green tomatoes growing on it! I haven't counted any of the other varieties, but they are doing similarly well.

Failure: a storm this week completely uprooted the 0nly three sunflowers which made it all the way to the early blooming stages. I was heartbroken when I saw them. There is a problem with soil erosion in this part of the yard (it slopes down slightly) so I think that caused them to be planted at a shallower depth than originally intended. I dug holes for them and got them upright, but the roots were too damaged and they wilted later that day. The large zinnia on the left was in the same situation and it has apparently recovered after my replanting it, much to my surprise.

Success: lots of beautiful cone flowers. I love watching the bees land on them.

Success: the past few days' tomato harvests have looked a bit like this. No larger tomatoes yet, but they are on the verge of ripening. In the meantime, this makes for a delicious snack.

Failure: The storms have been doing a number on the tomatoes as well. After every storm (about one per week) we assess the damage and upright what we can, but some of the branches have to be cut off. Luckily the tomato crop is still going to be very large.

Success: fifteen zinnias and counting. I'm just waiting for a yellow or red one, though! Those are my favorites. So far, mostly pinks and oranges.

the freshest salad

Salad fresh from the garden featuring mesclun mix and sugar snap peas, topped with some sunflower seeds, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

garden updates

The white cherry tomatoes (which often take on a light yellow hue) are starting to ripen. The tomato plants are doing well in Ohio's moderate temperatures. This is exciting since last year's plants met an early death due to heat.

The gretel eggplant has two eggplants! The purple beauty is close behind it.

This one head of lettuce is growing taller and taller. It's probably around four feet tall now. It flowered yesterday, and maybe I'll be able to save some of the seeds soon. This head and three others came as seedlings from the farmers' market.

The peas are still producing. I think we'll double the pea crop for fall, we are so fond of them. I love the way they wrap around things.


The zinnias are finally in bloom! Here is one just before opening.

And when it finally revealed its color (fuchsia!), pictured here with a yellow ladybug friend.


The cone flowers are opening as well. They should stay in bloom until the first frost, which will be sometime in October.

The first round of cilantro has flowered too, and I was taken by how beautiful the tiny white flowers are.

Cilantro flowers again.