Welcome to my Blog

Hi, my name is Suanne and I am writing this blog to share some of the tips and recipes I have learned or created with our backyard garden. The garden itself is actually my husband John's but we have had a garden for over 25 years so I have picked up some garden knowledge along the way. We live in Austin, Texas so we are blessed with a year long growing season. We always have something to eat from the garden and this pretty much dictates what we eat. All of our meals are planned around what happens to be growing at the time. One of the biggest challenges is what I like to call crop maintenance. What to do with all of the vegetables? Beyond sharing with the neighbors and friends I am always trying creative approaches to preparing the bounty. So the blog seemed like a good way to both keep track of and share my recipes.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Garden pictures August 2013 -  Average High  temp right now is 100 so we are limited in what we can grow. We finally pulled the tomatoes and cucumbers over the weekend.  This is what we are left with.
a bunch of pepper

black-eyed peas

butternut squash

Okra

Eggplant

Sweet Pepper
Arugula


Roasted Beet, Arugula and Quinoa Salad


We had a few beets leftovr so I decided to roast them up and toss them with some rd quinoa and some fresh Arugula just picked from the garden.  I sed a red quinoa here.  Yummy.

2 cups cooked quinoa (1 cups of dried quinoa cooked per directions)
4-5 beets peeled cut into 1/2 inch diced pieces
1 bunch arugula chopped rough
2 oz of goat cheese
2-3 scallions chopped
Citrus Vinegarette

Coat the beets with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.Roast the beets for 20 minutes at 375.  Cool
When Quinao is room temperature add the rest of the ingredients and toss.

Citrus Vinegarette

1 tsp grated orange peel
Juice of 1 orange
2 oz Grapefruit or white balsamic vinegar
1/2 tsp of salt
2 oz of good quality olive oil.

Combine all ingredients in a jar, cover with lid and shake.  

Peppers

IT is now August which makes it pepper season.  We have really been enjoying the Shishito Peppers.  We are amazed at the output.  We get 1-2 good sized batches a week.  These are the perfect appetizer.

Grilled Shishitos


Pick the Shishitos -  sprinkle with olive oil and salt.  Grill on a grill pan in a hot grill for about 3-5 minutes until they are just starting to brown.  Eat with a sauce of mayo and Sriracha.

The sweet pepper plant this year is producing more peppers than we know what to do with.  I decided to stuff them to recreate a dish we had in Upstate NY last summer.

NY style grilled and stuffed peppers.

8 oz links of Italian Sausage
4 oz of cream cheese

Brown Sausage  until cooked -  cool slightly
Mix cream cheese and sausage.  Remove tops of peppers and remove membranes and seeds.  Stuff peppers with mixture.  Bale or grill at 375 about 15-20 minutes until peppers are soft and starting to brown.

More Shrubs and Juicing

So we took advantage of some of the summer fruit and mades some more shrubs.  Watermelon, Cucumber and Peach.

We have been making some tasty cocktails with these shrubs.  The strawberry in the center is best just added to sparkling water.
Watermelon, mint and white balsamic
Cucumber, lavender and aged white wine vinegar
Peach, ginger and white balamic
Here is the process:

Slice and cut into small piece 2 cups of leftover fruit (strawberries, peaches, berries, cucumbers, beets, tomatoes... you get the drift whatever you have an abundance of)  add equal amounts of sugars in a ceramic bowl.  Add any aromatics.  Cover and leave on the counter for 1-2 days.  The mixture will become very syrupy.  Then add 1 1/2 to 2 cups of vinegar (any kind except  distilled white viengar -  balsamics, apple cider, red or white wine will all work) .  At this point I usually put the whole bowl in the refrigerator because I have one, but in the old days I would assume they would have kept in in a cool place.  Let it sit for 3-7 days,  strain out the solids and stored in a jar.  Since it is a vinegar you can store in the pantry but I usually keep mine in the refrigerator.

Peach and Bourbon cooler


1 oz of peach shrub
2 oz of bourbon
juice of 1/2 lime
ice
sparkling water

mix first 4 in a shaker pour over ice and top off with sparking water to taste.

The shrub on the left was made from an orange watermelon.  We find this one goes best with vodka.

Watermelon Cooler


1 oz watermelon Shrub
2 oz vodka
1/2 oz St Germaine
juice of 1 lime
sparkling water
mix first 4 in a shaker pour over ice and top off with sparking water to taste.

I finally broke down and bought a juicer this year.  Mostly because of the tremendous amount of carrots, but I have also been juicing my cucumbers.   I like Gin and Tonics with the cucumber juice so I froze it in ice trays and stored the cubes in a ziploc in the freezer,  I can have G&T's with cucumber juice even when I don't have cucumbers to juice.

The Best G and T Ever

1 Oz cucumber juice 
1/2 oz CucumberShrub
2 oz gin
1/2 oz Kings Ginger Liquor
juice of 1 lime
2 drops lavender bitters
tonic water
mix first 6 in a shaker pour over ice and top off with tonic water to taste.