My Herb Garden

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Far away from the hustle and bussel of the busy city, grows the little garden that I love.  This is my little herb garden and even though these plants look small now in a couple of months they will have grown  into huge mounds. 

Every year I have wrote about herbs and how wonderful they smell and taste, but I would like to say that you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't grow at least one herb in a pot or flower bed.  Poke one in some where and next year you will find that you want more. 

This is chive butter.  It is so easy to make and it taste so wonderful.  When my children are home for dinner and I make this butter we have to have two loaves of baguette bread, they love it.  The baguette bread is best with this butter.  It is one to two sticks of salted butter and a handful of chives or garlic chives and chop fine and mix into softened butter.  This bread and butter is great with soups, salads, light dinners with fish, salad and vegetables. The butter is also very good on steamed vegetables or in a baked potato.  I really like garlic chives the best but this year couldn't find them. 

As always, I thought of taking a picture when it's almost gone. 

 

Quotes!

I think most people love quotes and here are a few news ones I've found:

Host to God or a hostage to Ego!

Be nobody but yourself!
                        E. Cummings

Love completely without understanding!

A temple is not a form but a state of mind.

Just look at us, everything is backward, everything is up side down.
     Doctors destroy health
     Lawyers destroy justice
     Universities destroy knowledge
     Government destroys freedom
     The major media destroys information and
     Religion destroys spirituality.
                                          Michael Ellner

There comes a time when silence is dishonesty.
                                           Frantz Tanon
    

Seed Saving

These are those cute little cantaloupes I raised last year.  I saved the seeds from several cantaloupes last year.  Kept them in the freezer over the winter and planted the seeds about 2 weeks ago.  I was really excited to see that all went well with these little seeds and the process worked.

I saved the seeds from two cantaloupes.  When I cut open the cantaloupe I scooped out membranes, seeds and all and let it set on a plate in the kitchen.  The membranes around the seeds will start to mold and look pretty bad.  That's when you pull all of the membranes away from the seeds and wash the seeds under cool water and let them dry on a paper towel for a week.  You want to make sure the seeds are good and dry before you store them.  Then I put them in a small glass canning jar and put them in the freezer.  When I was ready to plant, I took them out of the freezer and let them set on the counter for 4 or 5 days.  The day I planted, I just covered them with water maybe 2 inches and let them set in the water for a couple of hours before I planted them. 

This year, I'm going to save my heirloom tomato seeds.  To start tomato plants from seeds is a lot of work and I'm not going to do that unless I have too.  I will continue to buy heirloom tomatoes plants but if times are hard I will have the seeds and know how to start them from seeds. On previous blogs, probably several years ago I raised tomatoes from seed and I explained how to do it.  If you are interested you can refer back to those blogs. 

This year I have a huge raised bed for these cantaloupes to grow in and we have put a huge wire panel for them to trellis up.  Last year I didn't have enough room for them and the tomato plants got so big they blocked the sun from getting to the cantaloupes.

Gardening is certainly trial and error and experimenting!

:)

Nasturtiums

The very first herb class I attended the teacher brought a big pot of nasturtiums and I love them.  They have beautiful bright red and orange flowers (although nasturtiums do come in different colors) and we got to taste the flowers.  The have a peppery, tangy flavor and you can eat the flowers and the leaves.  These plants are related to garden cress and mustard which accounts for the peppery taste.  Since that first class, I have only tried to grow them a couple of times.  Usually, I wait to long to get the seeds and they are sold out.  I hoping this year to have them for decorating food and they are such a sweet plant I will really enjoy seeing them every day.  When they bloom, I'll post a picture of the flowers.  The leaves really have a unique look also.  You could use this as a ground cover also.

At the end of summer, let them dry out and you can save their seed for next year.  In the summer, you can use the leaves and flowers to decorate a platter beautifully or put the flowers in a salad or a flower and a few leaves on top of a dip.  Lots of ways to decorate with them.

Apple Blossom Clematis

This is a Mother's Day gift.  It's a clematis called Apple Blossom and it's an evergreen which I was really excited about.  It's the only clematis that I know about that is an evergreen.  It has a whitish pink blossom with a wonderful scent.  The evergreen is what sold me.  I was originally thinking of a clematis with a red flower but when I saw that it was evergreen I decided on this one. 

This is the look I was wanting, more airy.  Last year, the morning glories over took the head board and you couldn't even see it.  I can control the growth of the clematis by pruning.  Looking forward to seeing and smelling the flowers.  :)

Our Garden

This is two beds of watermelons.  According to Baker Creek Heirloom seeds and a lady that works at Ross Feed and Seed these are supposed to be the best watermelons you have ever tasted.  I'm really excited about these watermelons and can't wait to taste them.

 This is some heirloom tomatoes and sugar snap peas.

 This is swiss chard and kale.

 Beets and lemon cucumbers.  If you have never tried lemon cucumbers, they are wonderful.

These are all heirloom tomatoes.

 

These are purple pole beans that are also supposed to have a wonderful taste.  I have planted regular cucumbers around the edges of this bed.  We use a lot of cucumbers juicing.The garden this year has seemed like much more or a challenge for me.  If the wind isn't ripping down the plain, the gophers are digging holes or the rabbits are eating my sunflowers.  I have to say that Gary has been so much help to me this year getting this raised bed area back into shape.  It has been a big job.  We haven't planted in this area for a long time.  The other garden area is not too hard to keep up with.  We have made paths in between those beds to walk on and every year I'm going to add fresh compost on the top and try not to step in that area.  I saw this on one of the gardening shows. 

If you don't garden much you wouldn't realize how dry it is.  The ground is like a rock.  I can water and within a day and a half it's like I never watered.  We are literally watering almost every day to try and keep things hydrated.  The soil is even starting to look funny.  It's so dry that when you put water on it, it doesn't soak in it runs across the top of the soil. 

Well, you can see what I've been doing.  But I must confess that I love it.  In a perfect world, I would be in Heaven working in my garden. 

Homeschooling, The Middle Ground

I approach this blog post with trepidation.  As a truth seeker, I always have to ask myself is there ever a middle ground, I don't think so. But in this situation, raising children, everyone has their own ideas on how it should be done and rightly so.  In the end, parents are the ones responsible for how they have raised their children and we all want to do it right.

Several months ago, I saw not one but a hand full of posts on face book regarding the Sports Illustrated Magazine being displayed on magazine racks at grocery stores and the concern by Christian homeschooling parents.  Again, several parents commented on how they turned the magazine around to keep little eyes from seeing such things.  I read all the comments by parents and was tempted to say something but chose not to. 

Twenty five years ago I was in their same shoes thinking and doing the same thing these parents are trying to do.  Protect your children!  Is that really protection?  One young mother had a lot of wisdom when she said this is a delicate dance but she chooses to let her children view these things and to discuss and answer any questions her children might have at the time.  Another young mother who had small children talked of another homeschooling mom who had older children and how this mother's older son voluntarily looked away from such things and would have nothing to do with any suggestion of immorality.  Oh, how I remember this in my homeschooling days, young men with such high standards and hoping my children would turn out that well. 

I look back on those days of homeschooling and although my desire was only for the best interest of my children, I now see myself as a controlling bitch.  I cringe when I read how mom's choose everything for their children.  They can not be affiliated with any group or organization unless it is Christian or the children are being homeschooled.  I was right there, that was me!  God said something very direct to me when we first started homeschooling.  One day I was irritated that my children was not responding to something the way I wanted them to respond.  God said, "so you think you can change their heart,"  I was not even expecting this and I thought, is that what I'm trying to do?? God said, "all you can do is teach them what you know and leave the rest up to me."  I'm so hard headed I didn't get it.  It took me a long time to understand this.  I was so full of fear, I didn't want my children to make a wrong decision or tarnish their lives in any way.  But life is full of mistakes and failures and that's how we learn and become great.  I should say, IF we learn from our mistakes.  Let your children make their mistakes while they are living in your home and you can help them.  Pry your fingers off of your children and learn to ALLOW.  You will find your children have more wisdom than you think.

I want you to know that turning the book over at the newsstand is not going to keep your son from pornography.  In our homeschooling days one young man ended up with homosexual tendencies and I heard of several other young men ended up addicted to pornography.  Let me assure you, their parents were very protective and thought they were doing all the right things.  Personally, I think when you let them see the magazine at the newsstand, it's not going to be as big a deal in their mind as you trying to hid it. 

I'm writing this from my experience.  The lesson that I learned and it was a big one, was that I washed the outside of the cup and inside was dead men's bones and that I tithed mint, dill and cumin and neglected the weighter matters of the law which is love, justice and mercy.  The biggest lesson of all was I did not love unconditionally.  Unconditional love is learned, the love that most of us live with and practice is self centered and conditional.  The sad part is we operate from that place and don't even realize it.  I did.

We have the priviledge of receiving these wonderful little beings into our lives and I guess I would just like to see parents coming from a place of love and not the law.

Chicken Manicotti

I have had manicotti shells in my pantry for some time and decided several weeks ago to use them.  I had a whole chicken in the freezer and I thawed it and decided to make up my own recipe for chicken manicotti.  Gary loved it.  He wanted red sauce instead of white but you could make up an Alfredo sauce and put over this and it would be great.

This is how I made the manicotti.  I boiled the chicken till tender, let it cool and the took the meat off the bone and diced the chicken.  I had one bunch of green onion and chopped them up and put into the meat.  Then added the following:
1 small container of cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups of grated Mozzarella
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon of basil
1 teaspoon of oregano
salt and pepper to taste
Mix all of this together well. 
Then cook the manicotti noodles according to directions.  Do not over cook them.  In fact, I don't cook them the full amount of time because the manicotti will cook when you bake the completed dish in the oven.  Run cold water over the noodles and let them cool a little before you try to handle them.  I then take the filling (chicken with cheeses) and use my hands and push (gently) the filling into each noodle until it is filled.  Lay each noodle sided by side in a greased casserole dish.  When you have filled all of the noodles and cover them with a marinara sauce.  You can make your own but I used bottled. Then put one cup of grated mozzarella cheese over that and lightly drizzle olive oil over the top of the cheese. Cover the dish with foil.
Bake at 350 for one hour and remove the foil the last 30 minutes.

I used green onions because I had them and wanted to use them up but you could sauté one medium onion and add it to the chicken mixture. I think fresh spinach would also be good in this.  You could put about 2 cups of chopped fresh spinach in your cheese mixture and use an Alfredo sauce and I think this would be wonderful.  I'll have to try that myself.

Sage and Peppered Cornbread

This is a recipe I've had for quite some time and have been waiting to try.  It has fresh sage in it and I thought the recipe has always sounded interesting.  Gary really liked it.  I was a little surprised but he loves dressing and with the sage in the cornbread it reminds me of dressing.

I love brown beans, fried potatoes and cornbread.  A real country meal and  last night the cornbread was extra special.  You will have to try it and see what you think.  The left over cornbread would be good as stuffing in baked garden stuffed tomatoes or in stuffed pork chops.

6 slices bacon, fried and crumbled
1 1/4 cup corn meal
3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon crushed dried red chili pepper
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1 1/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg
2 tablespoons honey or molasses
3 tablespoons freshly chopped sage
3 tablespoons green onions, chopped
3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 425.  In a 9-10 inch cast-iron skillet, fry bacon until crispy; reserve fat.  Crumble bacon.  In medium size bowl, mix the cornmeal, flour, salt, baking powder, peppers and paprika.  Blend with a fork.
In a small bowl, mix buttermilk, egg and honey.  Then mix with dry ingredients.  Add the chopped sage, onions, Parmesan and crumbled bacon.
In a skillet, heat 1/4 cup of reserved bacon fat and pour into the cornmeal mixture.  Immediately return of the hot skillet and bake in oven for 20-25 minutes.  Don't overcook.

Creamy Dill and Mustard Sauce

Last night was steamed vegetable night.  Asparagus, cauliflower, yellow squash, zucchini and new potatoes.  I was hungry and anxious to take the picture and forgot to put my new potatoes on my plate but after the picture they were there.  :)

In spite of the wind EVERYDAY, my herbs are really doing good.  I have been wanting to try this recipe and since the menu was steamed vegetables last night, I thought this rich and savory sauce  would put the icing on the cake.  Boy, did it ever.  It took a really simple meal and shot it over the moon.  With heavy cream and butter what can you expect but over the moon. :)  This sauce is wonderful and there are so many things you can do with it.  And it is very simple to make.

It tasted wonderful on all the vegetables but was especially good on the cauliflower and I'm sure it would be the same on broccoli.  Also, this would be wonderful on baked fish or chicken.

2 tablespoons freshly chopped shallots
1/2 cup dry white wine, (I used cooking wine)
1 tablespoon tarragon vinegar or white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper ( I used black)
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided into 4 pieces
2 generous tablespoons chopped fresh dill
2 teaspoons chopped chives
3-4 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
salt to taste

In a medium sauce pan, combine the shallots, wine, vinegar and pepper.  Bring to a boil, uncovered, and reduce by half.  Add the cream, and reduce again by half.  (Sauce should be slightly thickened.) Lower the heat and whisk in the butter, one piece at a time.  Quickly add the dill, chives and mustard, and salt to taste.  This is the down side of making this sauce, it separates if it is reheated.  If you make it ahead of time put it in a thermos to keep it warm.  I made ours while the veggies were steaming.  This recipe makes a little over one cup.

Peanut Butter Strawberry Banana Smoothie

This is my rendition of Jamba Juice's Peanut butter strawberry banana smoothie.  I used to run a route and deliver magazines in OKC and Jamba Juice was on my route.  It was my favorite part of the day. :) This smoothie is so delicious and very filling.  I would be very hungry and I would have this and I was good for the rest of the day, of course, until I got home. :)  This is great for breakfast, a snack during the day or even a late snack if you have had a light dinner. The smoothie is also great by it self without the sliced bananas and granola.

Here's how you make it:

1 heaping cup of plain yogurt
1 frozen banana
1 1/2 cups of frozen strawberries
1/3 cup of peanut or almond butter
1/3-1/2 cup coconut milk or almond milk

Put the above ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.  Pour into a dish and slice a banana over the top and sprinkle your favorite granola.

Henry Beston

I happened across a new author that I just love.  A man after my own heart.  His love of the country and the simple life hit a deep place in my own heart.  These are two of his most famous books, The Outermost House and Northern Farm.

These are two quotes by Henry Beston, just beautiful!

"Nature", there is my country.  The work.......to celebrate, to reveal the mystery, the beauty, and the rites of nature of the visible world.  To bind this feeling to my name.

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals.  Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves.  And therein we err, and greatly err.  For the animal shall not be measured by man.  In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear.  They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.