Category: Garden

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Corn Salad – Lessons From a Lifetime of Cooking #5

I have never made nor eaten corn salad. Until today. Time to make a short story long.

The Two Tiny Tornadoes and Their Mom came to the house this past weekend. Along with the toys, stuffies and other assorted things Tiny Humans pack on trips our favorite Okie DIL brought a bag full of fresh cucumbers from her parents’ backyard garden. So what do you do with a bunch of fresh cucumbers?

The Boss was reading The Oklahoman and came across a recipe for corn salad by blogger Chula King in an article in the Tallahassee Democrat. I couldn’t find a link to the article in my local digital newspaper so I went to the source.

https://pudgefactor.com/easy-fresh-corn-salad-summer-in-a-bowl/#recipe

This salad is so super simple and tasty we have immediately decided to include it in our regular summer salad rotation.

Check it out. We added feta cheese and used organic frozen corn instead of fresh. Otherwise we followed the recipe to a T.

And that’s how you eat up a bunch of fresh cucumbers.

(this is not an actual picture of the salad I made but an AI generated picture)

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Trouble in Paradise – June 2023

So far, it’s been a pleasant summer. We have had temps in the 80’s until recently.

What happens in the summer when it starts getting hot?

BEER happens. Willpower gone. There’s beer in the house.

I’ve been holding steady at 172 for a few months. But the arrival of beer weather does concern me.

The Boss has been working tirelessly in the yard and it looks the best it has in years. New shrubs, flowers, perennials and rose bushes were added this year. As for me, I try to find plants that I can’t kill. Meet Pepper Plant #4.

Readers with sharp eyes will note this tiny thing already has two peppers. Yeah, I cheated and bought a plant that already had fruit. I still remember the horrors of my last Pepper Plant 08.02.18. So I cheated. Pepper Plants #3 and #2 are in a pot and about twice the size of #4. No fruits yet, but I remain hopeful.

There’s basil on the patio too. I taught myself how to prune basil properly and hopefully I’ve learned something from watching hours of basil pruning videos on YouTube. Upon careful inspection today the plant needs to be pruned. So tonight’s meal will be Pasta with Vegetables, Olive oil, and Garlic. I don’t think I’ve ever written this recipe down but One Rotisserie Chicken, 50 Meals – #6 Pasta with Chicken, Vegetables, Oiive Oil and Garlic is close enough. No chicken or squash tonight. I’m heading down the broccoli route with lots of fresh basil and garlic. Go 4 cloves. Or more.

The basil is healthy and my new pepper plant has peppers. Hopefully this summer will be better than The Tomato Plant – 2014 Final Update. My basil didn’t’ do well that year either.

Time for a beer and to give thanks for not living in Texas anymore.

Update –

I used about a half cup of fresh basil.

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Remember Doug? Well, Doug is Not a Potato

At 17 Pounds, ‘Doug’ the Ugly Potato Could Be the World’s Biggest Spud — Latest articles | smithsonianmag.com

“sadly the specimen is not a potato and is in fact the tuber of a type of gourd. For this reason we do unfortunately have to disqualify the application.”

Giant New Zealand potato is not in fact a potato, Guinness World Records rules https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/16/giant-new-zealand-potato-is-not-in-fact-a-potato-guinness-world-records-rules

Now what?

According to Doug’s owner Colin Craig-Brown “He is the world’s biggest not-a-potato.”

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25 Vegan Soup Recipes – the First Mess

The Digital Devil told me I had dipped below 173 and I’m resisting the urge to overthink this. I can’t explain this bizarre behavior. It’s just part of my makeup, a tiny piece of me that tends to repeat over and over and over again. If the number goes up I’ll try to figure out why. If the number goes down my mind does the same thing. Why? Why is my weight going down? Is this merely a random fluctuation or can I pinpoint a reason for my successful weight loss/maintenance? As I wandered the internet I found a website post that had the answer I had been searching for.

Soup. I’ve eating more soup.

Laura Wright is a vegan cookbook author and blogger based in the Niagara region of southern Ontario, Canada. Her most recent post is 25 Vegan Soup Recipes and can be accessed at https://thefirstmess.com/. To be clear I haven’t tried any of these recipes yet but I needed a reminder to do so. Thus this post and link.

It’s like a giant Sticky Note that says “Hey, try these recipes. Also don’t forget you already bought her cookbook and it’s sitting on your eCookbook shelf.”

I actually forgot I bought Laura’s cookbook.

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Eat More Carrots – VRG Scientific Update

Researchers began studying close to 50,000 women in 1984 when their average age was 48 years old. They collected information about the women’s diets over the next 22 years. The women’s cognitive function was assessed at 28 or 30 years after the start of the study. At that point, 41% had good cognitive function, 47% had moderate function, and 12% had poor function. Women who had the highest long-term intake of total carotenoids were 33% less likely to have poor cognitive function and 14% less likely to have moderate cognitive function than those who had the lowest intake. The same results occurred when the researchers examined individual carotenoids.

VRG > Vegetarian Journal > 2020 Issue 4 > Scientific Update — https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2020issue4/2020_issue4_scientific_update.php

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Pepper Plant 08.20.18

I lost another pepper.  Note the pepper on the left which I was hoping to vine ripen has split and rotted.  This is the second pepper I’ve lost to rot.  Fully one third of my summer crop has rotted away.  But if the remaining four fruit survive this will be my most successful attempt at growing fruits in pots.  A few summers ago my tomato plant produced two tomatoes.  Then I tried cucumbers.  Only got one.  This pepper plant is actually growing peppers!

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Pepper Plant 2018

Every summer I try to grow something.  A few years ago I started a tomato plant that produced two tomatoes.  Then there was the cucumber plant that produced one cucumber.

This year’s confirmation of my Brown Thumb is a Gypsy Pepper plant.

It sure doesn’t look like the Gypsy Pepper plant pictures on Google Images.

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