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.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Super Bowl crudites


We had tons of stuff in the garden so I decided to make snacks out of what we had. This is definetly good for those watching their weight. I sliced daikon radishes and carrots. Then I roasted sliced beets at 325 for about 30 minutes - I sliced them thins and lighted coated with oil oil and salt. They ended up nice and crispy. Then I made a spinach yogurt dip. Healthy and good.

Spinach Yogurt dip

4 cups spinach
1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt
2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp corinder
1/2 tsp garam masala
salt and pepper to taste
white balsamic vinegar

Put it all in a food processor and puree until smooth.
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Cauliflower recipes

I made a great roasted cauliflower dish - that I will now make over and over.

Roasted Cauliflower

5 cups cauliflower pieces
1 can garbanzo beans
20 green olives sliced (I used jalapeno stuffed ones because that is what I had)
1 cup sliced mushrooms
6 cloves of garlic chopped
salt
red pepper flakes
3-6 tablespoons olive oil.

Combine all ingredients in a roasting pan. Just add enough oil until it is lightly coated. Roast at 450 degress for about 22 minutes stirring it halfway through.
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January and February 2011 - freeze

Ok - I know it has been a long time since I put in a post. But we just had a VERY hard 3 day in the teens and 20's and I wanted to document how the garden did. We did not cover the garden.

The radishes did not do well - for long freezes pull them or cover them.

Spinach survived very well.
Beets also did well - although the greens dies off but they appear to be regrowing.
Carrots, PArsnips - the same as the beets although the parnips greens did better.
Lettuce and Arugula - not too great, some lettuce survived and the arugula seems to be growing back. we will probably replant it.
Cabbage - the green cabbage didn't like the first freeze so we picked it, the red cabbage survived just fine.
Broccoli - survived just fine.
Cauliflower - jury is still out - it definitely froze but it may be ok for soups - next time we will pick it.
Kolrabi - just fine.
Swiss Chard - one plant of 4 survived.
Kale - it survived but it didn't like it.
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