Eating Our Yard

Yum! It's that time of year! Garden fresh veggies. We've lived in this house almost seven years and the garden has grown and grown, although I'll have to get the dimensions from Darryl. We're far from Dervaes status yet, but working on it! Truth be told, the past three years living on this property has been up in the air with the new county jail being built. Now that it's started we've thrown caution to the wind and let our back yard be mainly garden. We spend the majority of the time there - but that is another blog for another day. Currently we have (still!) kale, cucumbers, squash, beets, carrots, tomatoes*, potatoes, green peppers, cabbage, jalapenos, onions, and a variety of herbs in season! Soon we'll have blueberries, figs, and even later apples, grapes, sweet potatoes and blue pumpkins! We compacted the garden to have such a full variety and it's been working out quite nicely. We hope to have more room for more in the future so we can store and share and have more crops like corn and peaches. It's so nice to just go out in the back yard and pick wonderfully organic produce and bring it in to prepare for lunch or dinner! I'd like to have a goat and a couple chickens (as pets while we live in town *wink wink*) so we can have eggs and dairy. Eventually....


The kids love helping Daddy and Mama in the garden. Jordan enjoys the conversation more so than the labor, Zeke enjoys the manly labor, and Haddie enjoys the dirt. We all enjoy the end result. We're currently eating a lot of squash casserole and cucumber salad. I've included the simple recipes below for your cooking pleasure. 


On a side note: if you live near by and you have an abundance of produce from your own garden that you don't want to go to waste - donate it to BOLO! We have plenty of families who would love to have fresh garden produce. 


*The tomatoes are just beginning to ripen.


Squash Casserole
8 yellow squash, sliced
1 onion, sliced
8oz sour cream
1 can cream of chicken soup
Pepperidge Farm stuffing
butter
salt and pepper to taste


Boil the squash and onion until tender. Drain and squeeze out excess moisture. Mix with sour cream and cream of chicken soup with salt and pepper to taste. Put in casserole dish and cover with stuffing. Cut butter on top of stuffing. Bake on 350 until stuffing is golden brown. 


Cucumber Salad
cucumbers, peeled and sliced
tomatoes, sliced
onion, sliced
white vinegar
water
sour cream
dill
salt and pepper


Note: This recipe you got to wing a bit because I don't really measure it. I used to work at a bagel bakery as the prep cook and so I know how to eyeball this recipe but have scaled it down so don't have exact measurements. I base it on how many cucumbers I use. Also I like to peel the cucumbers with a little peel still on for color. 
Add cucumbers, tomatoes and onion to bowl. Pour 1:3 water. Add a big dollop of sour cream, salt and pepper and some fresh (or dried) dill. Mix and chill before serving. Great for cookouts!


XOXOX