More Garden!!

My squash and green onion plants are producing edible portions en masse, so they are getting most of the attention right now, though my tomato plants have dozens of green tomatoes, and my cabbage plant is doing lovely, but I can only harvest one or two leaves a week, and my pumpkin has 4 little baby pumpkins.  I should also give a shout out to my sugar snap pea plants that are keeping us in snack supply every couple of days!

But, this post is mostly about the squash plants. = )

A beautiful 'heartvest!'

One of the plants is slowly growing off the side, we think that maybe we planted them a little too close together.

With this 'heartvest' I made squash bread!

The consistency was very much like cornbread, but the taste was closer to a lemon poppy seed loaf.  None of us cared much for it, though Emily liked it the best.  The taste wasn't bad, I actually liked the aftertaste, but while I was chewing, the cornbread texture didn't sit well with me.

With the cabbage leaves, I've been rolling up fish to make up my main course for lunch.  Tuna was quite good, and I baked up some barramundi a few days later, which was also good, but I didn't care for it warm as much as chilled.

If you read about our farmer's market trip, you'll probably notice that Emily is having to support the bottom of the basket, but it is such a cute basket!

With the next 'heartvest' I made squash soup.

The squash soup was so good!  It can be served hot or cold, and has a lovely rich flavor from the coconut milk!  I topped it with some fresh chives.  I froze what we didn't eat the day I made it, and it received much better reviews than the squash loaf!

Once the soup was cleaned up, I was left with a half can of coconut milk.  An internet search yielded a recipe for biscuits to use up the rest. So, I made almost* vegan biscuits.  They were also quite tasty.  But then, I saw the ageing blueberries in the fridge, so I whipped up some quick blueberry jam to go with the biscuits.  Suffice to say, I spent the day in the kitchen. = )

Our 'heartvests' are now so plentiful that I am giving away squash to anyone who will take them!  We're still enjoying as much butter fried squash as we want, but it's so much squash!!!

 *I had to add butter, because we didn't have the coconut oil.

My facebook memories told me that this time last year we had a collection of large cucumbers, but our plants are just now flowering and growing baby cucumbers!  Assuming we have plenty of fair weather left, we should have a nice 'heartvest' of cucumbers too! = )

I'm sure this will not be my last post about my garden, it is just bringing our family such joy this summer!  We already have plans for next summer, here's hoping for another year of 'heartvests'!

later days

Below are the recipes that I pulled from various corners of the internet, but formatted and listed here, just in case I need to find them again next year!

Squash Soup

Ingredients

3 medium summer squash cut into half-moons
1 medium onion diced
1 medium potato peeled and diced
2 cloves garlic  (no need to chop them up)
4 fresh thyme sprigs leaves removed from stems (I used a teaspoon of powdered)
1 tablespoon coconut oil or olive oil
4 cups vegetable stock (don't sub chicken stock)
½ cup coconut milk canned
2 tablespoons lemon juice
kosher salt and pepper

Instructions

Melt oil in a stockpot over medium heat. 

Add all the vegetables and aromatics, until the onions begin to soften, about 5 minutes. 

Add the broth and bring to a boil.

Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally until all the vegetables are soft; 15-20 minutes.

Let cool slightly. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth. Be careful of the hot liquid! 

Strain through mesh strainer, and keep only thin liquid.

Return liquid to pan. Place pan over medium-low heat stir in coconut milk and lemon juice. 

Salt and pepper to taste

Serve with additional fresh thyme leaves and a drizzle of coconut milk (I used chives instead of thyme)

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Coconut Milk Biscuits

Ingredients

2 cups (270g) all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons (40g) sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 tablespoons melted coconut oil, divided (use neutral tasting coconut oil) (I used butter here)
1/2 cup (120ml) unsweetened almond milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl.

Add 2 tablespoons of the melted coconut oil to the flour mixture and whisk to distribute it evenly across the flour.

Stir together the almond milk, vinegar, and vanilla extract. Make a well in the center of the flour, and add the almond milk mixture and the remaining 3 tablespoons of melted coconut oil. 

Gently stir until the dough just comes together. Do not overmix! (If the dough is too dry, sprinkle a few drops of water over it.)

Divide the dough into 6 somewhat equal parts and drop by Spoonfuls onto a greased parchment- or silicone-lined baking sheet, 2 inches apart.  (I made smaller biscuits)

Bake for 11 to 13 minutes at 450°F until the tops of the biscuits are lightly browned and the biscuits do not give when you press down on them. (So I cooked for only 9-10 minutes)

Let cool for 5 minutes before eating. Best eaten while warm.

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Simple Blueberry Jam

Ingredients

2 heaping cups of fresh or frozen blueberries
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

Instructions

Add blueberries, sugar, and lemon juice to a medium saucepan.

Stirring frequently, cook over medium high heat until blueberry mixture comes to a rolling boil.

Reduce heat to medium and continue boiling and stirring for 10 minutes.

Towards the end of the cooking time, use the back of the spoon to gently crush some of the berries.

At the end of the 10 minutes the blueberry liquid should be slightly thickened. You can also use a thermometer to judge done-ness. When the blueberry mixture reaches 220°F, the jam is done. (I watched the clock, my jam hit 220°F at almost exactly 10 minutes.)

Transfer the blueberry jam to a storage jar and let come to room temperature.

....and the Garden Grew

So, on the surface, it looks like these are back-to-back garden posts, but I'm making them approximately 3 weeks apart, so there has been tremendous growth and serval 'harvests.' = )

A harvest of sugar snap peas, we get this many, from 5 plants, every 3-4 days!

No before picture, because I couldn't wait any longer to enjoy our first cooked squash of the year!!!

This was the second squash harvest, the big one was intentional, the smaller one was not.  I was attempting to adjust the smaller one so that I could grow more easily, but it popped right off as I was adjusting it.  Grace was disappointed that there was not more to be had after we cooked them up! 

Yesterday's heartvest*, before the kids ate all of the sugar snap peas!  We probably had double the amount here, but they are so tasty!!!

The tomato plants are massive!!!  There are dozens of tomatoes on each one, but none of them are red yet!

I scored a freebie Cabbage plant at a rummage sale, and i think it's transplanted well, but not growing super fast.  The sugar snap peas do block a little of the sunlight, so that may also be affecting its growth?

The sugar snap peas have all outgrown their supports!  They seem to still be making new flowers and plenty of peas though. = )

It turns out that we did not give our squash plants enough space, because they are all crowded, but producing squash at a fantastic rate! = )

The green onion plants are huge and gave us a few shoots for our fried squash today.  yum!!

At that same rummage sale, I also got another tomato plant, but it doesn't seem to have transplanted very well. = (

One of our (5) cucumber plants has a flower!!!!! 

One of the pumpkin plants has taken over the garden, and the smaller one is trying to stake it's claim.  The smallest of the pumpkin plants hasn't really taken off yet, so I'm not sure if it will.

The tomato plant we had last year produced more tomatoes than we could even pick, and from one of the fallen tomatoes, a plant has grown!!!  It's having to fight for it's place in the garden, but I think it might have it's niche! = )

We already have a laundry list of what we want to grow next year, and I'm sure we will not have enough space!  

later days

*sarah coined it, and Emily loved it!

Collection of Other Recent Activities

 I don't know if the preparation and return from our Great Wolf Lodge trip just took over, but I feel like September was a crazy busy month.  October has not slowed down much, but at least enough that I finally have time to blog about it! 

William was selected to test for his next karate belt.  So, Emily and Juliet made up a sign for us to sport at his belt test.

Ready to go!  That is his Sensi in the background.

Testing.  They test in groups with others at their level.  They start with the lowest rank and move up, so Billy missed him actually testing (right at 5,) but surprised him when he came over wearing his new belt.

Success!  Sporting his new 11 Kyu belt!

Grace and Juliet unpacking a gift box from Zoey.

The Saturday after our trip, we headed down to Eaton Rapids to play some board games with the Cornishes.  We were there most of the day, and played 3 different games (at least 2 times each.)

What the other room looked like, with 10 kids:

And, because we were feeling wild, we drove back down early the next morning to drop off our crew, and made an adult only trip to the Renaissance Festival!  

It was a really fun time.  I don't know that I'd seen the shows in years, since we always had so many small ones of which to attend.   That said, this is the only picture that I took.  

The lines were wildly long when we arrived, and got longer and longer throughout the day.  They were running out of some of the more popular foods (like turkey legs.)   I'm sure there are many reasons it was so packed: they weren't open last year, it was a beautiful day, it was next to last weekend.  Even so, the sheer number of people was astonishing, and I'm so happy the kids were tucked safely away.  Unsurprisingly, but hopefully not terribly biasedly, I think that the Texas Ren Faire does it so much better, or did, the last time we were there, many years ago, but coronavirus has changed so much, it could be just as bad there.

On October first, we went out delivering Boo Bowls!  Filled with treats for our friends, we dropped off what we hope was a pleasant surprise.

When we went down to Eaton Rapids to deliver one for the Cornishes, we saw signs for a rummage sale at a nearby church!  So, I sent my friend a message letting her know that my car was parked in fron of her house because of our fun delivery, but that we were going to the sale.

They had massive quantities of goodies, and all of my crew found something!  William found a foam dart gun, and he liked it so much that he wanted to take pictures of it with my phone.

Juliet helped him set up his target cans.

When we were at the farmer's market in Cadillac, I saw some tasty looking cabbages.  I'd been in the mood for some of my Grandmother's New England boiled dinner, but didn't want to cart the cabbage home, along with all of our vacation things.

Last week, at our local farmer's market, I found a beautiful cabbage, but this thing was a beast!

I only used about a third of it, and it made an entire crock pot full, plus a bowl full.  The bowlful I tossed in a bag and stuck in the freezer for another time. It came out very tasty, though I seemed to be the only one who liked it.

In the Kroger, freebie, catalog that they sent out last month, they had half a dozen pintrest worthy ideas for spooky treats!  Since I've not been on pintrest in a while, this was a delightful surprise.  

As it turns out, I've set out to make all of these this season, apparently.

The little mummy oranges are so cute! The kids tried to eat them first, despite having a stash of unwrapped ones!

On the same day I bought the cabbage, I also bought a pie pumpkin.  Alice helped me cook it up so that we could make some pies.  It was so big that it made 2 pies, 4 crustless pies, 20 pumpkin chocolate chip cookie/muffins, and enough for a pumpkin juice recipe (that was not a big hit.)

The kids are all really excited about the ghost fruit kabobs, so I guess we'll be making those next.

later days