sb158's Valley Garden » Recipes and Cooking

Evil Cats, Wandering Puppies, and Grandma’s Recipe

sb158 — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:58:27 +0000

Dang, I hate those evil cats that hang around the dumpster by our place. Went out to water earlier, and one jumped right out of my side-of-the-stairs garden. It apparently parked itself in the big pot with a nicely-growing baby cosmos; needless to say, gotta replant now…
On top of that, it decided to torment the dog so much that she broke her brand-new tie-out line. We found her out on the highway dodging cars. Thankfully before she was road pizza!

I have a cookbook that used to belong to my mom’s mom; was printed in 1920-something. It’s got a lot of old-fashioned recipes, and sometimes I find just what I’m looking for. Wanted to use some navy beans and leftover ham tonight, so went recipe hunting. Finally looked in Grandma’s cookbook. Imagine my surprise when I found a baked bean recipe that had been quantity-adjusted in Grandma’s handwriting. Made me tear up a minute, then I smiled. And used the recipe…

Had to go hunting for a good cornbread recipe to go with the beans; none of the ones I have turned out especially good. Found one on About.com that sounded good. It has to be the best cornbread I have ever made. I used 2 Tablespoons of honey, and it was still very sweet. If you don’t like sweet cornbread, adjust the amount, or leave it out altogether. But it came out moist and light; not at all dry or heavy like cornbread can be.

The beans were good, too; least, I thought so…

Honey Buttermilk Cornbread

Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:

* 2 cups stone ground cornmeal
* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 3/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 large eggs
* 3/4 cup buttermilk
* 3/4 cup milk
* 3 tablespoons honey
* 1/4 cup melted butter, cooled

Preparation:
Heat oven to 400°. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan or spray with nonstick baking spray.

In a medium bowl, combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, soda, and salt.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, milk, honey, and melted butter.

Stir the liquid mixture into the dry mixture until blended. Spread in the prepared baking pan.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until the top is golden brown.

In garden news, yesterday the beans I planted with the repotted mums weren’t sprouting yet. Today they are starting to sprout. Got dill and cilantro sprouting, too. Probably already to hot to get much out of either, but the flowers will attract beneficials, so it’s all good. All the cukes and watermelons still looking good, so I really have to thin pretty soon.

Not much else new in the garden; just trying to keep up with the watering due to the hot wind…as usual…Supposed to get a cool front some time tonight with possible showers. Surely do hope so.

Hmphf. Stupid Wordpress.

sb158 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 23:34:22 +0000

Was just gonna stick a pic of my rolls in the comments to the previous post, but apparently you can’t post pics in comments. So here are my rolls. They were good!

OK, done for today…

Bread-making, Blue & White, and Babies

sb158 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:55:05 +0000

A while ago, I read Annie’s Granny’s post about her beautiful buns and decided to try the recipe one of these days. Today turned out to be that day. I used a cup each of whole wheat, bread, and all-purpose flour and threw it all in the bread machine on the dough cycle. Lookin’ good so far. Going to make 4 sandwich rolls and some rolls for dinner, to go with the chicken I’ll throw in the roaster shortly. I’ll let you know how they come out.

On the garden front, I’m happy to report that all the baby cukes and watermelon I planted out the other day are thriving. This is good, but it means I have to murder 6 helpless little baby plants in very short order…I hate doing that. Sigh… The mums and gazania I did that day are looking great, too. No beans sprouting yet, though.

All my annual seeds I’ve been sticking in my containers are sprouting and growing like gangbusters so far. Looking forward to purty flowers, barring any of Mother Nature’s nasty tricks.

In my side-of-the stairs container garden, still have lots of alyssum, while the convolvulus and salvia are blooming nicely, too. Sat on the stairs for a minute, and noticed what a pretty picture the blue & white made. What do you think?

Mouseover to see bigger pic.

Blue and white

Also forgot to post this pic of my baby tomato the other day. Grown since then, but you get the idea…

Golf-ball sized and growing

That’s about it for now. I’ll let you know how the rolls came out…

Hallelujah and Thank You

sb158 — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:57:47 +0000

We’re finally getting some rain and (slightly) cooler temperatures! Not nearly as much as we need, but, at this point, I’m thankful for whatever we get. I expect my plants will grow a foot overnight!

Here are some pics I took about a week ago that show how much the garden had grown while I was in Colorado. Compare them to these pics.

Pics within

The raised bed with tomatoes, peppers, cukes, and basil

The arbor thingy with tomatoes, cantaloupe, zucchini, watermelon, and pole beans

Heatwave and Silvery Fir Tree Tomatoes

Heatwave tomatoes living up their name, setting lots of fruit even in this heat

Hubby’s picnic table, WIP

Hubby’s picnic table, another angle

As I said, these pics are about a week old. In a couple days, after it stops raining, I’ll take some more, just to see how they grew after the rain. You can water all you want, but even a little bit of rain does so much more…

Monster Mud, Rosemary, and Jasmine

sb158 — Tue, 05 May 2009 04:40:38 +0000

Much better day today, since the guy fixed the AC first thing this morning. Good thing, too, cuz hubby bought this gadget that collects weather information. The gadget said the high today was 101. Felt that hot, for sure.

So I finished my two Monster Pots, as I mentioned. Here’s a pic of the jasmine pot:

Yes, I know, the poor thing looks sad. It was so root-bound I had to prune the roots, then prune the foliage to balance the root reduction. I planted a Moonlight nasturtium, one of my clearance creeping sedums, a dichondra, and two teeny baby verbena in the container with it. Hope it does okay.

The other Monster Pot is for my rosemary. Here’s a pic of the finished pot and the rosemary for which I made it:

Big pot for a not-so-big rosemary, I know. Just like kids, it will grow, though. Until it grows into the pot, I put some broken styrofoam pieces that were in the new coffeepot box into the bottom. I filled it to about an inch or so below the plant level, then covered it with landscape fabric to keep the dirt from sifting down into the styrofoam. That way, the plant will have some room to stretch it’s roots and grow, but not too much. If all goes well, I’ll probably have to repot again in fall or spring, but all I have to do is remove some Styrofoam and we’ll be good to go. It was getting dark by the time I finished transplanting the rosemary, or I would have added a pic of that, too.

Here’s a pic of the baby peppers and basils sitting in their eventual garden homes, getting used to the sun. It took about an hour and a half, again, before they started looking wilty and I moved them back.

Didn’t get the SWC’s made, as I had other stuff to do today. And I seem to have an infestation of leaf miners, so I guess it’s Google time to get rid of them. Couple minor holes in the bush bean leaves, too, could be slugs or snails, or any number of other unsavory critters. At least the rabbits and birds haven’t managed to get through the bean cage yet…knock on wood.