I didn’t have time this morning for my scrambled eggs and swiss chard (like I was planning) so…. I had it for dinner tonight!  Everyone else in the family ate various items and leftovers so I decided that I would cook my planned “breakfast” for dinner tonight.  I added a piece of garlic toast and BAM!!!!! I had an awesome dinner :-)   Take a look:

I love cooking quick and easy meals…. and this one was both.  I scrambled the eggs in this same bowl and then poured them into a small pan to cook.  Then I washed the bowl in the sink, dried it and placed the cook scrambled eggs back in.  I then sauted the swiss chard in the same small pan I cooked the eggs in,  and when the chard was cooked, I placed it on top of the scrambled eggs.   While the eggs and swiss chard were cooking, I toasted this garlic bread in the toaster oven.  Now this is a healthy meal!  Hardly any clean up either :-)  That even better!

With the daylight hours dwindling, the  chickens are not laying as many eggs as they were in the summer.  So today we only got 3 eggs.  But one of these should be counted as 2 eggs LOL  It’s one of those huge double yolkers I’m sure:

Looks like it is going to be another dreary, rainy day.  We have an increasing percentage of rain for the forecast….. just looking at the radar tells me that we have a storm coming from the southwest….

Hopefully, today sometime, we will have yet another blog on Ft2Garden.com….. it will be a blog about HONEYBEES!  My sister in Mississippi and her son will update the blog periodically.  This is their first year with a honeybee hive.   The first post will be the hive setup that we did earlier in the Spring (in April).  Pretty soon she will be ready to make a 2nd harvest of honey and will have a blog post (and hopefully video) on that as well.

I’ve been pretty busy this morning working on the blog as well as putting up some more banana peppers.  This time, instead of just slicing and preserving them in vinegar, I decided that I would use the “dill pickling” recipe that I had found this past summer online at allrecipes.com   Instead of making the entire amount, I halfed the recipe since I didn’t have 8 jars of peppers (I had 3 jars).  Here’s the link if you are interested in trying it:  http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Dill-Pickles/Detail.aspx?prop31=1  You can also pickle cucumbers (of course LOL), green beans, okra, and garlic.  Now we just have to wait for 8 weeks before they will be ready

I love reading gardening blogs and I have quite a few that I have links for on the right side of my blog.  There are still more links that I am in the process of adding.  But, as I’m going through and getting the links set back up, I’m going over to each blog and reading what I’ve missed in the last month.  The opportunity to learn from what others have posted is just tremendous!  Everyday that I learn something new!  Well, I’ve got to share something with you that you’ll love, especially if you compost.  This blog entry is from Gamine’s Garden — it’s about a compost screen that her husband built for her.  It fits perfectly over her wheelbarrow (because that’s the way her husband built it) and doesn’t shift around.  It makes her job of screening the compost so much easier.  Here’s the link to her blog post:   

http://gaminesgarden.blogspot.com/2009/09/compost.html

and here’s a pic of her compost screen:

Tonight I will post a link to the new HONEYBEE blog :-)  So check back for it!

WOW - just an update on the weather:  the storm that is heading our way is moving pretty quickly…. it will be here very soon now.  Lots of rain for the garden which I desperately need!  This will help with the fall planting!

Ah, the garden has been doing wonderful!  We were picking every other day and now it’s changed to everyday!  The beans, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, yellow squash and even some tomatoes are coming on now.  It’s just so nice to be able to walk out to the garden and pick something, bring it inside and have it for dinner. 

 Here’s the harvest from May 31 (last Friday).  The beans are doing so well!  This is pole beans along with several other varieities of bush snap beans.   Everyday I harvest 3 to 4 (or more) pods of okra.  The cucumbers are amazing!  They are growing like fire LOL.  We’re getting 1 to 3 or 4 yellow squash each day too…..  And, the Ichiban eggplant is producing.  Finally, I have some tomatoes that are getting ripe — I’m so excited!

There have been several other harvests since last Friday (I haven’t taken any pics).  One complete harvest I gave to my Mom & Dad.  They came over and visited and wanted to see the garden.  My Mom was amazed (and I was surprised she liked it!)  I think she had a pre-conceived mental picture of a “row garden” — you know, something not very “pretty”.   But when she saw how beautiful everything was, it just blew her away.    She is very much enjoying the 2 SWC (self-watering containers) I’ve given to her and we’ve planted with tomatoes and cucumbers.   She took 2 more SWC’s home with her along with some okra and yellow squash seedlings — she’s going to give them a try in the SWC’s too.   So, I think I’ve converted someone to give gardening a try again.   My younger sister and her husband (I gave them a SWC and 2 tomato plants) have built a couple more SWC’s and are now growing more veggies.  I think I might have them hooked too LOL

Here’s today’s harvest — lots of cucumbers!!!  We’re having cucumbers every day now — lunch and dinner LOL!  I only picked one yellow squash today but there are plenty more blooming so they are still going strong.  The pole beans and producing so well….. the bush beans are kinda playing out now so I’ll need to get some other things started to take their place.  And I consistently get 3, 4, 5 or even 6 pods of okra per day.   Tomorrow, I should have some more tomatoes ready to pick.  I have a ton of them beginning to turn yellowish (next they will turn orange-ish and finally turn red).  I can’t wait!  The tomatoes I’ve harvested so far have had the most wonderful taste! 

OH SOMETHING I WANT TO SHARE!  You know that I’ve been making Patti’s PESTO, right?  It is awesome!  I absolutely love it!  Well, I think I could just eat it on everything — honestly!  It is so good!  I need to take a pic of the basil I harvest next and a pic of the pesto….  Well, as you know we’ve been eating alot of salads (having to buy the organic lettuce — too hot to grow here now) with our cucumbers and tomatoes (and occasionally a yellow squash is great in a salad!).  Well, I got this cool idea to mix a heaping tablespoon of Patti’s pesto with 1 quarter cup of Italian dressing (the zesty kind).  Oh man!  It is unbelievable on a green salad!  You’ve got to try it!!  Check out Patti’s Pesto video on her website: http://gardengirltv.com/cooking.php#sauce   While you are there, take a look around — Patti’s website is awesome and full of lots of great videos!

Since I received the sourdough starter, I’ve been making this sourdough bread and my family loves it!  I make it in the bread maker as a loaf and sometimes, after the dough has mixed and been kneaded, I’ll put it into one of my Pampered Chef stonewares and let it rise and bake it in that. 

I’ve never made pesto before — never.  I’ve had it before at restaurants and that’s been about it.  I had no idea how to even begin to try.  Well I watched Patti’s “Homemade Pesto” video and thought that I would give it a try.  It sure looked good in her video and she made it look SO easy.  And it was!  Yesterday afternoon I clipped some basel in the garden and brought it inside to cook with.  We had the best dinner I’ve cooked in such a long time.  We had the pesto with noodles, sea scallops seasoned and seared, a sweet potato that was candied with some cinnamon, and some baby filet green beans (drizzled with some 4 cheese sauce).  Oh, and I quartered 3 Campari tomatoes and seared them a bit to put on top of the green pesto.  The colors on the plate were amazing!   There was green, red, white (cheese sauce), and orange.   Everyone went back for 2nds on the pesto and noodles too — I ended up making more than what I thought I was going to make (thank goodness LOL). 

I can’t wait to try more of Patti’s recipes!  Not only is she an amazing gardener, she’s a great cook too!  Check out her cooking videos on her website on this page:

http://www.gardengirltv.com/cooking.php