Sunday, August 14, 2011

Sunday Cooking

I thought I'd show you the finished product for my Peach Butter.  It is excellent.  The blend of spices was perfect for the white peaches and made a lovely butter.  I've had it on bread and an English muffin so far.  It definitely is a repeat recipe.
My deck container garden is coming along nicely.  A ripe Hot Lemon Pepper is above, and below are a few of the Habanero Peppers, not quite ripe yet, but some are starting to turn a nice orange.
Below are my Big Boy tomatoes.  I wouldn't say I got the biggest crop off of the plant, but it is rewarding to eat something I've actually grown.
I've since harvested those tomatoes and have a few more growing.  It's not enough to even make 1 pint of tomatoes, but it's enough to add to a meal or salad.
I used the last of my garbanzo beans a couple of weeks ago.  Last week, I resorted to buying one can of garbanzo beans so I could have some in my salad.  Today, I cooked 3 cups of dry beans, making 6 to 7 cups of cooked beans.  As you can see, I spread them out in a single layer on a jelly roll pan and freeze them for 45 minutes before transferring them to a ziplock bag.  I love the flavor of freshly cooked garbanzo beans.  I use no seasonings in the pressure cooker when cooking them.  That gives me a lot of room for using them in different dishes.
Here is the last of Thursday's CSA box.  I still have to cook the gold beets, but that will be later in the week. I will fix the corn for tonight's supper. I found a recipe for Kohlrabi and Carrots fixed in a similar fashion to mashed potatoes.  I'm going to try that tonight as well.  And, I'll be making BBQ Tofu.  I found both recipes on VegWeb.com and they look very good.
I roasted a (huge) bag of cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots (it took 2 pans to roast it all).  I added a red onion and half dozen or so of garlic cloves.  I'm making a creamy roasted soup.  I've made the soup before with cauliflower and sweet potatoes.
I cut 4 or 5 sprigs of fresh thyme from the plant on my deck, added a bay leaf, a quart of organic mushroom broth, 1 no-chicken bouillon cube, 2 1/4 cup water, and 3/4 cup of sauvignon blanc wine.  I let it simmer for 20 minutes or so, then I used an immersion blender on it to make it smooth and added 1 cup of unsweetened almond milk (at a mere 40 calories per cup).
I did a taste test.  Nope, the soup wasn't doing it for me.  It was missing something.  It was savory, but not quite the right flavor. Sooooo ... I added about a teaspoon of mild curry powder, maybe a tad more.  VOILA!  That was the flavor I was looking for.  I'm a curry lover and this soup will now become one of my favorites.  The only thing missing is some big toasted croutons or a slice of crusty bread to dunk in it.

It's been a heavy cooking day.  I started the day by making my son pancakes for breakfast. :)  But, Sunday is a good day to cook and make a few things that I can eat during the week.
Jordan on the stairs looking for trouble out of the front door.
The weather is beautiful today.  The sun is out and it's a very comfortable 73º outside.  The windows are open and the entire family is enjoying the day.  Kobe begged me to stay outside in the backyard with her for a bit today.  So, I weeded around my flowers and hosta plants while Kobe chilled.
Kobe chilling in the back yard.
This is what Summer is all about.

5 comments:

  1. The preserves look amazing!! And you have tomatoes!! Ours are still struggling.

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  2. Thanks! Only one of the tomato plants produced fruit. The Big Boy has given me 6 or 7 tomatoes. The Mr. Stripey Heirloom tomato plant has not produced one tomato despite having a ton of blooms. All of my hot pepper plants did well. :)

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  3. Hi, Lori! Wow, you and I are having such different summer experiences! Our garden was a flop (we have a few poblano peppers, and some very wee butternut squashes whose success remain to be seen, but our zucchini is an epic fail! I didn't even know zucchini COULD fail! Huge plants, tons of great looking blossoms, but the tiniest, wimpiest, most stunted zucchini you ever saw, most of which are just shriveling on the vine. I don't get it! My friend Robyn, who has a garden in town, didn't plant zucchini this year but said her cukes did the exact same thing. Too cool and wet a spring, maybe? *sigh* And I had great plans for that zucchini!

    You're soup sounds fabulous, I'm glad you found the one thing it was missing. But it's your peach preserves I covet most - oh, man, those jars of it look so pretty and I'll bet it's just delicious!

    As you'll see on my latest post, I avoid the kitchen as much as possible in the summer, so I admire your enjoyment of cooking no matter the season. Your temps sound perfect today - we've been having some nice cool days (and nippy nights), but the the weekend and today have been hot-hot-hot. Some thunderstorms this afternoon are predicted to clear that out and drop us down to something more like your temps again.

    Glad to know that Jordan's keeping an eye on things while Kobe's chillin', and that you're enjoying an abundant summer!

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  4. That peach butter sounds (and looks) delicious! Your garden really came through for you - so many beautiful vegetables! Ours was a wash this year. What did try to grow, the deer decided to eat.

    What a bounty! And happy dogs.. you're right, this is how summer should be!

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  5. Hi,Laloofah! I've had some success in my container garden this year (last year was dismal). I owe my garden success this year to my 22 y.o. son who has been watering the plants faithfully everyday. He is going to harvest some habanero peppers this week. He's become quite the gardener this year.

    Tami! Good to see you. The peach butter is sinful. I will definitely use it again. My canning adventures this year have been successful so far. The bread and butter jalapenos would be wonderful on your Fork and Knife Reubens. In fact, I'm going to have to try that. (I LOVE those reubens!)

    The squirrels bothered my pepper plants briefly. Basically, the squirrels just pulled them up by the roots a week after I planted them, but I was able to replant the uprooted plants and they have produced wonderfully. No deer around me. The closest deer are about a mile away and never venture this far from the forest preserve.

    Hope you are both having a lovely summer!

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