Enjoying the bounty of Texas soil

Where did I go?

2009-10-26T11:26:00.000-05:00

There hve been no posts because literally, I have almost nothing to talk about. Thank god we're not trying to survive on my garden, cause we'd be hungry people.

My Sunchaser tomato has been plagued with aphids. The two large tomatoes I had that started to turn read were black on parts because of the aphids. Right now I have One LARGE sunchaser that I'm guarding like a hawk. I sprayed aphids off it twice yesterday.

New girls - I harvested 3 of these recently (that makes 4 total), and they were all good, but had blemishes on them.

Grape tomatoes - I have a handful of these on the plants, and they're just starting to turn red.

Cherries - The most productive so far. I've lost count of how many ripe ones I've picked off and eaten, but it hasnt been that many. They are tiny.

Yellow pears - I riped it out. The one yellow pear I had shrivled up.

Squash - Tore both plants out...well actually they died first. Total, we got two yellow crookneck squash out of the plants. The zucchini didnt do anything.

Cucumber - Growing like a weed. I might be able to see some mini cucumbers coming in?

Green bean - A third one is growing right now. That's it, out of 3 plants. What the heck do you do with just 3 green beans? Maybe next time I'll buy a vaccum seal thingy and freeze each bean. Eventually (maybe 3 years?) I'll have enough for a serving.

Herbs - One mint plant died. The other mint, the basil and the dill look pretty good.

Brocoli, Cabbage and Cauliflower - all doing pretty good. Just, growing...

Carrots - I planted orange and purple carrots in the beds that I tore the squash out of. Hopefully they won't wash away in the torrential downpour we are having today.

We also got a ton of rain on thursday. The cherry tomato pot flooded and wasn't draining right.

All in all I feel like the $64 tomato guy. No, I haven't read the book yet, but I get the premise of it. DF assures me that we dont have to produce a lot in the garden, the point is that its a good hobby.

We'll see.

Garden update.

2009-09-30T21:24:00.000-05:00

Munching on my tomatoes! It's very satisfying to squash him under my shoes (hey I'm protective of my tomatoes!)

The iphone doesn't know me well enough to focus on what I really care about (hint hint: not the chair). Two grape tomatoes.

New girls. I think there are 9 on the plant right now.

Cherry tomatoes! Yay! They popped up over night and now we have like 16 on this one plant!

Sun Chasers are definitely the biggest of the group.

In other news...lots of itty bitty squash, still no winners. Zucchini looks like something might be coming up soon. Pole beans are starting to produce. I've also noticed little bugs on pretty much everything, so I sprayed this weekend with an organic pesticide. I think they're aphids. I would have loved to release some ladybugs but Wabash didn't have any.

New plants: Orange Jubilee tomato, dill, cauliflower, cabbage, and cucumbers. I'll have to get the specific names down later.

Photo update & corrections!

2009-09-14T19:27:00.001-05:00

This picture was taken before our trip - on our front porch! Unfortunately, he'd hatched (?) before we'd gotten back. I'm not surprised to see him, as our neighbor has some Mexican Milkweed (I believe) in his front yard.

I misspoke in my last post. It was my Grape Tomato that got eaten up, not my Matt's Wild.

A little blurry, but you can see my Yellow Pear!

Three Sun Chaser Tomatoes poking out from behind leaves.

My first New Girl, almost ready to be picked.

Tomato tally: 1 Yellow Pear + 3 Sun Chasers + 6 New Girls = 10 Tomatoes!

Yellow squash are not doing so well. I have tons of squash, they just never get bigger then 3 inches or so and then fall off. I also noticed a snail munching earlier. Boo.

Avacado Ripening

2009-09-11T06:30:00.001-05:00

Oh, almost forgot!

http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2009/09/how_to_ripen_avocados.html

This will be important later when we get some avocados on our tree. In what, 5 years?

Garden update

2009-09-11T06:15:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've been out of town for - 5 days! So here is whats been happening:

Friday:

Very exciting day. I noticed 3 new tomatoes taking my total to four. I also had four strong yellow squash growing. They are about 3 inches long.

Then I took a closer look at my tomatoes. ACK! A Hornworm! Thankfully I knew what they were because my mom had some earlier this season. They blend in very well with the green stems and leaves of the tomato. This one was relatively small, but munching on one of my new tomatoes. So I killed it.

Over vacation:

A neighbor came over to water my veggies once a day. Not an ideal situation, but it was quick. I didn't warn him about the hornworms, I figured I was asking enough.

Wednesday:

We're back! Hey, where'd my tomato plant go??? Ok, it wasn't that drastic. There were two LARGE hornworms on my potted Matt's Wild Cherry who had eaten a lot. There was mostly stem left, but some leaves at the bottom and some flowers at the top. And it's still green. So hopefully it will bounce back. I also found a smaller brown catepillar on some of my other tomatoes, and then a very small black catepillar on my topsy turvy Matt's Wild Cherries. All have been removed and distroyed. But, we now have 7 total tomatoes! They are all on two plants...3 are Sun Chasers, and four are New Girls, which includes the first tomato, which is getting pretty big!

The yellow squash is a bit disappointing. It doesnt look like any of the squash have grown, and one kind of looks....dried out. However, there are more squash coming in, so maybe after some better TLC they'll start to grow bigger.

The green beans are starting to develop points which look like they may grow into flowers. They're definitely more clingy to the trellis then they were before.

The zucchini is also starting to kick in, and growing leaves that are almost as big as the yellow squash leaves. Looks like we're going to start having buds soon too.

In other news....who is this WE I keep talking about...well, it WAS my wonderful boyfriend...but now he is...um....DF? (Dear Fiance?)

Yay!

2009-09-04T07:04:00.000-05:00

Finished the second trellis last night:

On the table: my basil and English mint.

My topsy-turvy. Not nearly as impressive as my other tomatoes.

Thursday Links

2009-09-03T17:46:00.000-05:00

Doing research, research, research.....

http://www.raisedbedgardeningtips.com/

http://www.carrotgardeningtips.com/

http://www.southernpost.net/what-is-project-802/
This is Jacqueline! She just built her own raised beds, and she's in Houston! I think I need a cool code name for my garden...oh wait...Suburned and Satiated...

http://vegetablegardeningideas.com/

http://www.gardengirltv.com/
Patti Moreno, the Garden Girl will be here in Houston on Oct 18th at Olive Barn. (the event is free).

Good Morning, Squash

2009-09-03T06:57:00.000-05:00

Two new Yellow Crooknecks

Black Beauty Zucchini

Seed order and fall planning

2009-09-01T18:02:00.000-05:00

It's getting to be time to plan my fall garden! I went online to Johnny's Seeds and ordered a lot of things I knew I wanted to try to grow. Here's my list so far:

Bull's Blood Beets
De Cicco Broccoli
Violet Queen Cauliflower
Javelin Parsnips
Mokum Carrots
Cosmic Purple Carrots
Mei Qing Choi Bok Choy

Now, I just need to build my beds....

Garden update

2009-09-01T07:55:00.002-05:00

I neglected to take my phone outside with me today, so no quick and easy pictures of the garden.

There are still a lot of flowers on the tomatoes. No new tomatoes yet, but the lone New Girl is still growing.

The yellow crook neck squash still has the two squash growing. One still has the bloom on it, the other's bloom fell off.

My Black Beauty Zucchini miraculously started growing like a weed the past two days. It's cooling off (a high of only 90 today!) so maybe that's helping.

Pole beans are managing ok. I have one very long one that is in the pot without the trellis...and it is growing and stretching just as hard as it can to try to find something to cling on to. The ones with the trellis have some serious leaf miners. But nothing major. I may spray them with something this week.

My topsy turvy tomato has flowers too. It's looking better, in that it's not dying anymore. It's growing and nice and green.

Hmm..the orchard. Got a picture from Dad yesterday. Two lemons that have split open. Looks like they're getting a lot of water. There's plenty of drought in Texas now, but not along the coast. It seems we got rain every day last week.

Leaving to go out of town Saturday. Not sure who is going to take care of my plants! Will try to post pictures on Friday.

2009-08-27T19:52:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure, but I think I have some squash growing!

And if you look very closely on that upper right hand flower, I think there's another tomato coming our way.

Jolie Vue Pork Cutlets with Lemon, Butter and Caper Sauce

2009-08-27T18:39:00.000-05:00

Such an original recipe name right?

Today I managed to be home for lunch, and cooked a brief meal while on the phone. As little as I was paying attention, the pork turned out delicious!

Pork Cutlets with Lemon, Butter, and Caper Sauce

2 Tbs butter, unsalted
1 lemon
4 Tbs caper (or about 10 caper berries sliced)
4 pork cutlets

Melt the butter on medium high heat in a pan large enough to hold all the pork cutlets. When the butter is completely melted, add the cutlets. Cook for about 2 minutes on one side, then flip. Squeeze the lemon out over the cooked side, and cook for 2 minutes, or until the meat is prepared to your likeness.

Remove the meat from the pan and cover in aluminum foil. Turn the heat up to a boil, and add the capers. Boil for about 7-10 minutes, stirring often. Do not let it burn. Pour over pork and serve!

I suggest serving this with rice and steamed veggies. If you are feeling decadent, add heavy cream with the capers and turn down the heat until you get a thick sauce.

The pork cutlets are one of my favorite cuts of meat from Jolie Vue, which I don't get often enough. It's easy because the cutlets defrost much faster then any of our other meats.

This weekend: look out for a pork belly recipe and marrow risotto!

Chocolate banana pancakes

2009-08-27T10:08:00.001-05:00

I'm a Houston Chowhound, and one of the emails I received recently was from Ricky (http://food.drricky.net/) about what to do with over ripe bananas. He included a recipe - my kind of recipe, one with out exact measurements. I cooked it this morning, and wanted to 'spread
the word'

I actually don't like pancakes. Or waffles for that matter. And I used to not like most breakfast food. But I am a lover of banana bread, so I thought I would give this recipe a try.

Chocolate chip banana pancakes

1 banana, over ripe and mashed
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup flour
2 Tbs milk
1/2 cup chocolate chips, semi sweet

Combine all ingrediants. Heat a pan over high heat. Spoon three piles of the batter onto the greased pan. Cook until you start to see bubbles, or you can easily slip a spatula under it. Flip and cook an equal amount of time.

It make three pancakes. I ate half of them and then I was stuffed.

Houston Urban Gardeners

2009-08-26T07:17:00.000-05:00

http://www.houstonurbangardeners.org/Home.html

Exciting!

Asian Cabbage Salad

2009-08-25T21:56:00.000-05:00

I bought a green cabbage at the grocery store, knowing that I don't really know what to do with it. Cabbage has never been an enjoyable food for me. I think it falls in the relms of lettuce. I'd eat it with the right stuff.

In fact, Cheesecake Factory has a salmon firecracker roll appetizer that comes on a bed of red cabbage in this spicy sauce. I love it. The first time I dug into it infront of my mom she said:

"I thought you didn't like cabbage"
"I don't, but this sauce is so good"
"So you'd eat cardboard if that stuff was slathered on it?"

Basically, yes. So in an effort to eat more greens and expand my food horizons, I made a cabbage salad.

Asian Flavored Cabbage Salad

Sauce:
1.5 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs toasted sesame oil
1 tsp red pepper flakes
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 Tbs sugar

Greens/good stuff:
1 cup crushed pineapple
3 cups (about 1/4 of a) cabbage
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
1/2 cups crushed cashews

Put in bowl and mix! Chill for at least an hour. I have to admit, I haven't tried it yet...it's sitting in a Tupperware for me to have tomorrow.

The easy-breezy-ness of salads makes me wish I liked lettuce more. One solution I have found is spinach salads. They're more flavorful and nutritious.

Sorry I don't have pictures! And sorry I'm not posting recipes that much (since that was really what I wanted to do with this site!). I can't bring myself to putting up bad pictures, so hopefully I'll get set up with a good camera soon.

If you build it, they will grow...(hopefully)

2009-08-25T21:09:00.000-05:00

In our new house, we replaced our fence to make the backyard a safe playground for the pups. In the picture below, Jude is enjoying the yard with a stick (his favorite toy).

The fence isn't complete yet, and there's trash everywhere.

But one man's trash, turns into another man's project...

It's a little ghetto, but it'll work. Still have to build one for the second pot of green beans.

Sun Chaser flowers!

In other garden news, the yellow crookneck squash is blossoming and dropping those blooms like crazy. Still too warm for it. But the plant is getting big!

Third bloom

2009-08-21T09:49:00.001-05:00

Yellow Crookneck blooming

I guess this is a pretty nice treat for being up at 6:30 in the morning. The two in the background were the ones pictured yesterday. Very exciting!

2009-08-20T06:49:00.000-05:00

Four days of growth!

Aug 20th update

2009-08-20T06:44:00.000-05:00

Five out of 12 pole bean seeds sprouted so far and more on the way

Flowers, flowers everywhere! These are my Sun Chaser flowers. I tried to count all the flowers on all the tomatoes this morning, but there are too many.

Squash blossoms. Male, female, destined to be stuffed and fried?

My New Girl is getting bigger!

August 19th update

2009-08-19T12:01:00.000-05:00

Matt's Wild Cherry Tomatoes in the Topsy-Turvy

Kentucky Pole Beans are growing like weeds! Yikes! Need to make a trellis for them this weekend.

Blurry photo on my phone, but there are two (2!!) flowers coming in on my yellow crookneck.

In tomato row, most of the tomatoes have flowers on them now, including the grape even though it's still small. Will be fertilizing this weekend.

I have been harvesting the basil to encourage more growth. It's doing well.

One problem I have had is with leaf miners. I talked to my mom about them and she says that they will not kill the plant or harm the fruit, so it may be best just to leave them alone. I'll have to post a picture of what it looks like. I have been removing some of the leaves they get on, especially the basil plant.

Do you see what I see?

2009-08-16T17:34:00.004-05:00

New Girl tomato growing

First Orchard Harvest!

2009-08-13T22:27:00.000-05:00

On Friday when I went to check on the orchard, I noticed that the mango had fallen on the ground. So I picked it up and took it home with me, putting it in a paper bag to ripen. Last night I decided it was ripe enough (ok maybe it was a little over ripe, but now I had the time to eat it).

Small, mostly yellow.

Look at that color!

Served over Coconut Sticky rice leftovers, thanks to Lisa

Tomato update

2009-08-12T22:12:00.001-05:00

On Saturday I went to Buchanan's and bought more tomatoes!

Tomato Row

The 3 I had planted before...

Yellow Pear (with blooms!)

Sun Chaser

New Girl (more flowers!)

The new ones...

Matt's Wild Cherry (I planted a new one since my Topsy-Turvy is failing miserably)

Grape Tomatoes

Garden update

2009-08-12T22:11:00.002-05:00

Last night I got out and did some much needed work in the garden.

Kentucky Pole Beans

First I planted Kentucky Pole Bean seeds in two rectangular terracotta pots. I started with a layer of newspaper, to keep the soil in the container. There are two holes at the bottom for drainage. I piled organic dirt that I bought at Wabash in, making a trench. In each trench I spread a handful of Microlife (fertilizer). In each trench I planted 6 seeds, evenly spaced. These will need to be thinned out later. THen I covered them with dirt and watered. I expect them to sprout in about 10 days (per the packet). Which means in about 2 weeks I'll need to have a trellise going for both the pots. I'm not sure where the permanent location of these pots will be, but for now they are in full morning/early afternoon sun and late afternoon shade.

Yellow Crook-neck Squash

This is the yellow crookneck I planted not too long ago. You can see it in the top of some of the tomato pictures. It has taken off! Very exciting! It got a handful of microlife last Thursday. It is in morning sun as well.

Armenian Cucumber

Also bought at Wabash on Sunday, planted last night. Lined with newspaper, and added Microlife to the dirt. The trellis is one that the previous owner of our house left behind...I think it will be too small. Right now, it has full morning sun.

Basil!

Who doesn't love basil? This one is above the tomatoes in full morning sun.

Black Beauty Zucchini

This was bought at Wabash on Sunday and planted Monday. It's near the yellow crookneck, and gets plenty of full sun for most of the day.

Fruit to do list (part two)

2009-08-12T11:50:00.001-05:00

Fruit to do list (part one)

2009-08-12T11:47:00.001-05:00

A little note to myself that I need to research some stuff for the
fruit trees...

Starting the fall garden

2009-07-28T21:34:00.000-05:00

On Sunday I started my fall garden with some simple container tomatoes. My mom actually went to Wabash (to buy her tomatoes) and bought me mine.

This one is a Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato in a Topsy-Turvy tomato planter

This one is a Yellow Pear.

This one is a Sun Chaser, a regular sized tomato.

Last but not least is the New Girl, also a regular tomato.

Here's all three! You can see the summer yellow crookneck squash on the table above them.

Unfortunately when I bought the squash I brought it home, and I thought it would be ok just chilling out in the car. Not so much. It knocked over and broke both the stems. I figured I would plant them anyway and see what happens. I'll get a picture up soon.

Easy-peasy Meatloaf

2009-07-14T21:24:00.001-05:00

My mom and I are both members of the Jolie Vue Farms meat delivery program. Once a month we get frozen, local, and natural beef delivered right to our door. We get quite a variety, but it's a lot of unusual meats, that I wasn't familiar with what to do.

One thing we get a lot of is ground beef! I've made hamburgers, lasagna, tacos, and after a while you kinda start to wonder what else you could be doing with it.

I think I'll start the recipes off with an easy one. Meatloaf is a favorite of my BF, and I had 3 packages of defrosted ground beef, and I needed to do something. I enjoy listening to NPR and a recent article had me thinking about the meatloaf. I've seen so many recipes where it's just beef, but in actuality, meatloaf should be made with veal in it because of the natural gelatin. I choose not to use veal, mostly because I use what I already have. However, I know that our Jolie Vue beef is very lean, and therefore needs to be bulked up with a fatty meat - like our pan sausage. I made this recipe so big due to the sizes of our packages of meat.

Jolie Vue Meatloaf

adopted from My Recipes' Classic Meatloaf

2 pounds ground beef or ground brisket
1 pound pan sausage or ground pork
1/2 white onion, chopped
2 slices honey wheat bread (or any sliced bread)
1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup ketchup + topping
2 Tbs dried Parsley
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, chopped
2 Tbs Dijon Mustard
4 eggs
Cooking Spray

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Process the bread into crumbs, then let sit in milk for 5 minutes. Then add all the ingredients and mix. Spread into either 2 classic loaves or 6 mini loaves. I did 1 regular and 3 minis. Top with as much ketchup as you want! Bake for 1 hour.

So simple and delicious!

Texas Everbearing Figs

2009-07-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

Yum!!! Figs!!! My mom has a two year old figtree, and this year she has been getting lots of fruit! We have these two little ones left, which will probably disappear. I'm not expecting to get much fruit out of any of the trees this year, if at all.

Garnet Sash Pomegranates!

2009-07-13T20:40:00.001-05:00

This is one of our pomegranate trees. There are three pomegranates, two in hand and one directly behind. It's probably another growth we should have trimmed back to develop further growth in the root structure, but oh well.

There is also one pomegranate on the Red Silk Pomegranate, but I need to look into that, because it would seem that tree has sugar ants crawling into the fruit.

Meyer (Valley) Lemons

2009-07-13T20:38:00.000-05:00

Not much to say about these, but they look great!

Brown Select Satsuma

2009-07-13T20:37:00.001-05:00

Sounds appitizing, right? Well we've got a fair amount growing. I'm not surprised because there's a guy out in Alvin who has an orchard and sells Satsumas, $20 for about 50 of them.

Rio Red Grapefruit

2009-07-13T20:35:00.003-05:00

We have a single grapefruit growing from our Rio Reds. This will probably have to so, since I can't imagine the tree supporting the weight of the grapefruit.

Acres Home Pear

2009-07-13T20:35:00.001-05:00

This is the pear providing shade (or not) for the cantaloupe. It's a pretty good looking pear tree, out of the four.

Surprise melons!

2009-07-13T20:29:00.001-05:00

These cantaloupes popped up, completely unplanned, in the dirt under one of the pear trees. There are 7 well developed cantaloupes right now, with many more smaller fruits just beginning to form.

Carrie mango

2009-07-13T20:25:00.001-05:00

Our Charlie Brown mango tree. We probably should had nipped this in the bud when it started growing. Too late now...look how big it is!!

Orchard plans

2009-07-13T19:47:00.000-05:00

This is a map I made of the orchard, showing how everything is laid out so that eventually when the trees loose their tags (or I take them off) I'll be able to ID the trees.

Welcome!

2009-07-13T19:34:00.000-05:00

Welcome to my new blog! This blog is going to be about a variety of tropics, but all focused on food! The purpose of this blog is to provide a written record for me, as well hopefully helping other people in Houston (and elsewhere) explore food.

Eating:

This site is finally my advance into the world of food blogging, and I will often reference many other food blogging sites as well. I will often post recipes of my own creation or reviews of other people's recipes. Cooking has always been a part of my home life. Both my parents are fantastic cooks in their own unique ways. My dad has brought me up to like a variety of foods, from sushi, to crawfish, to lamb and beyond. Dad likes to explore the unknown in food. Mom, on the other hand, is more of a classic, everyday kind of cooking. She makes the best steaks, and has always provided healthy and diverse meals when I was growing up.

Growing:

Gardening is new to my life. My mom has had her own garden for a few years now, of which I am ridiculously envious. I have been able to grow a few things in containers over the past year, but now I have bought a house and have my own backyard to experiment with! Dad has contributed as well - he has given me the opportunity to start my own orchard. The orchard is situated on commercial property, and contains 34 fruit trees. You will hear a lot about those in the next few months until I get my backyard garden up and running.

Houston:

Sometimes, but not often, I will post restaurant reviews. More often, the Houston aspect of my blog will come from exploring local resources and foods. I have read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, which has inspired me to try to live more locally. So let's see what Houston can come up with!