A Garden Fresh Veggie Meal

This time of year when the garden is providing its bounty, we often eat all-vegetable meals and this was one of them.  For this dinner at the lake, the menu was grilled corn, blue ribbon green beans, fried okra, sliced tomatoes, and an appetizer of fried green tomatoes.
   

While working in my tomatoes the other day, I knocked a big green one off and stuck it in the fridge so it would stay green.  And shortly after I was watching the Food network and up pops Bobby Flay and a green tomato BLT throw down.  I didn’t do the sandwich, but did use Nick Melvin’s (throw down winner) recipe which I cut in half to get this.

1 ½ cups buttermilk

¾  tsp kosher salt, plus more for seasoning

3/8 tsp cracked pepper, plus more for seasoning

1 egg

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ tsp Creole seasoning

3/8 tsp garlic powder 

1. Combine the buttermilk, salt, pepper, and egg in a bowl. Combine the flour with the Creole seasoning and garlic powder in another bowl.

2. Heat the oil in a 7-inch cast-iron skillet over medium heat until the oil reaches approximately 350 degrees F on a candy thermometer. 

3. Dredge the green tomato slices in the flour mix, then the egg wash, and then the flour mix again and set aside. 

4. Once the oil is at the correct temperature, slowly place the green tomato slices in the oil. (Make sure the oil is no higher than half way up your pan.) Cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes on each side. Once golden on both sides, lift the tomatoes out and place on a plate that has been lined with a paper towel. Season with salt and pepper. 

Since I’ve never been satisfied with my Green tomatoes, I followed his recipe to the letter – except I still used a whole egg.  Bev wanted to try a ripe one as well and I served them up with some of Mary’s remoulade sauce.

The Blue Ribbon pole beans are a favorite of ours and they were cooked for a few hours with a smoked ham hock and the okra was fried up in Crisco – the hard kind is the only thing that does okra right for us. 

After the success with grilled corn the other day, we deicded to try it again with a different compound butter and I was more careful pulling back the shucks so I could get them back in place better - it didn't seem to help much though.  Since we were having remolaude sauce, I made a Creole butter as follows.

8 tbsp salted butter, softened

1 tbsp Emeril’s Essence

½ tsp hot sauce, I used Fire Ant Juice

2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley

½ tsp kosher salt 

The tomatoes were Yellow Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, and Green Zebra.

This is my plate and it was seriously good eats. 

I will use the tomato recipe again and next time use one third corn meal for part of the flour.  I will also use this compound butter again for the corn and make sure I have extra for those who want to brush on a little more.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Grilled Ground Beef Sandwich On Ciabatta

Larry

Gardening Thursday – Getting Ready To Plant

Back on June 23, we discussed Fall and Winter Activities which took us through Step 6 of my 14 StepsFor a Successful Garden, which took us into winter, now it’s time to get ready for some serious veggie gardening – obviously the farther north you live the later these things occur.

I ended the June 23 post, with planning your garden and now it’s the first of the year and the seed catalogs are showing up in the mail.  If you are not planning to grow your own transplants, you won’t need to purchase any seeds for a while, but since I sow my brassicas and peppers in the greenhouse in late January, I order my seeds shortly after the first of the year.

Step 7 PURCHASE SEEDS FOR & GROW TRANSPLANTS

I bought a greenhouse and began growing my own transplants several years ago because I wanted more variety than I could get in the local places that provide plants.  They went through a period of greater variety, but now seem to have less choices again as Bonnie is supplying more of them.

While it’s possible to grow healthy and sturdy transplants without a greenhouse, it’s much easier with one.  Trying to grow them in a window generally results in weak, leggy plants due to shorter hours of sunlight.  If you want to grow them without a greenhouse or hot frame, growing them under grow lights can deliver excellent results.

As I understand it there are only a few seed growers in the country and most of the suppliers are just distributors who buy from the growers in quantity and package for resale.  I order seeds from Jung and their sister Totally Tomatoes, Seed Savers Exchange, Johnny’s Seed, Tomato Growers Supply, Pepper Gal, as well as buying locally from Mayo Seeds and Farmers Coop.  There are many other excellent suppliers and these are just the ones I’ve settled on.

Step 8 SPRING SOIL PREP

If the soil was properly amended in the fall, it should be unnecessary to perform any garden-wide soil amendments in the spring, but rather fertilize the individual plants with the proper blend when planting.

So the first thing I do in the spring is till my garden with the tiller on my tractor as soon as the soil will let me from a moisture standpoint.  It must be dry enough to work up nice and crumbly and not pack down as I drive on it.  Just take a hand full and squeeze it and it is ready if it will crumble easily – if it doesn’t, it’s still too wet.

If the soil remains too wet past the time I want to plant, I may use my Mantis or small rear tine tiller to loosen the top of the soil if it’s dry enough and I’ve been known to plant without tilling if I have to.  For some cool weather crops, it’s critical to get them planted in time to produce a crop before hot weather sets in – spinach for example.

Step 9 PURCHASE SEEDS AND TRANSPLANTS

These are the seeds that will actually be sown in the garden and I use the same sources as listed above as well as local greenhouses for the transplants I don’t grow myself.

PURCHASE FROM A REPUTABLE SUPPLIER

Unfortunately not all suppliers are reliable and you can get the wrong variety, old seeds that don’t germinate well, and diseased seeds.  I’ve had excellent results with the ones I use and if you’re into organic gardening or heirloom varieties, Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of heirlooms.

PURCHASE HEALTHY TRANSPLANTS

This is absolutely critical to the long term health of your garden because once you introduce a disease or pest to your garden via and infected plant, you may have it forever or go through a difficult process to get rid of it.  For this reason I mail order no plants except onion slips and asparagus roots, so I can look over any plants I buy.  It’s important to carefully check each plant for bugs or bug damage, such as holes in leaves, yellow or sagging leaves, and damage and if you are the least bit suspicious, pass on it.

Have a look back at the June 23 post for more details on seed and plant selection.

That’s all for today and next week we’ll plant the spring garden, followed by lawn success the following week.  Here are a few shots of my garden.

Thanks to the cool nights we had this spring (in spite of the very hot days), my peppers set on a bumper crop of peppers, some of which are huge.  In order, these are Big Bertha, Bonnie Green Bell, and Pepperocini.

We’re getting lots of tomatoes now and soon will be in the canning business.  These are Kada Hybrid and Quimbabya - note they've topped the 6 1/2 foot cages.

We’re also getting enough beans and corn to give it away to our friends and these are the onions in their final drying phase.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Open Faced Omelet And Pizza

Larry

Filet And Veggie Kebabs With Grilled Corn

After all the cooking we did while our kids and grandkids were here, we were cooked-out and had lots of leftovers, which is what we’ve been eating for several days now.  Bev had bought a whole beef tenderloin a few weeks ago and we decided we were ready to carve it up and have one of Bev’s favorite meals – kebabs.  It you’ve ever carved a whole tenderloin, you understand the need to have some kebabs and grind some burger from all of the pieces that aren’t usable for steaks.

I wanted to try the Anchovy Caper Butter recently posted by Lea Ann over at Mangos, Chili and Z, so the beef just got salt and pepper prior to cooking.

I generally prefer to cook the different components on separate skewers (they cook at different rates), but the boss likes hers looking like a kebab, so I nuked the onions and peppers (both from our garden) until they were almost done before skewering.  I normally like to marinate them in Italian dressing, but all I could find was some creamy Italian, so I used it.

Finally, our second patch of corn is coming in so we added some grilled corn to the menu.  We bought several bottles of Cafe Noche Chipotle Hot Sauce Sauce while in New Hampshire in May and I used it to make a compound butter for the corn.  For three ears of corn, I used 2 tbsp of salted butter, a tbsp. of chopped cilantro, and the sauce to taste.  Bev pulled the shucks back and silked the corn, then we brushed on a good coat of the butter – not quite melted – and replaced the shucks.

I believe most people overcook corn – if you’ve ever picked and ear, shucked it and ate it raw while standing it the garden, then you know it’s very good just like that. Good, fresh corn really doesn’t need to be cooked but merely warmed, which is why it only spends about 5 minutes in boiling water when cooked here.

We prepared everything in the kitchen, then headed to the lake for dinner on the dock.  Here it is cooking and headed for the table.

I removed everything from the skewers and spooned the Anchovy Caper Butter over the meat. 

I thought everything turned out very well – even the creamy Italian dressing.  I really liked both butters and will definately use them again.  Thanks for the recipe Lea Ann.

After supper, we had a nice time just sitting on the dock until 11pm - way past my bedtime.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Shrimp Scampi Pasta

Larry

Ready To Travel

We've been looking at and talking about a motor home for awhile, mostly so we can take our pets along when we travel - can you believe it.  But we'd about talked ourselves out of it due to having to spend so much and risk not liking it.  But then a friend of ours upgraded and put his on the market - it was too good of a deal to pass up.  We paid less than an SUV would cost and we know he was meticulous about keeping everything in great shape.  It's a 1996 model, 37 feet long with a diesel engine.  This is the two sides and the main living area.

We brought it home on Thursday - it was in a campground 1/2 mile away and it looks bigger in our driveway - it was sure an experience backing it in the first time.

We took it on it's maiden road trip on Sunday to take the grandkids half way home - Step 1 is to learn how to drive it and put fuel in it.  We made a 300 mile round trip and learned alot about driving it and some things that need to be done before our next trip.  Next will be to learn how to live in it by going camping locally, then making a trip out West.  After that, if we still want to keep it, we'll figure out where to store it for the long term.

One thing for sure, it takes all of your attention while driving - no electronic devices, no dog on lap, no eating - only the occasional drink of water.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  A Very Berry Breakfast

Larry

Independence Day At The Lake

It has been great having kids and grands with us for the holiday weekend.  For the Monday festivities, we lost the Walker kids to camp, but picked up daughter, Wende, so we still had a quorum.  It was pretty much more of the same, with Kathy wearing out the kids on the jet-ski and others enjoying the dock, except Bev and I put more effort into the meal.

We decided to go with the traditional Independence Day fare of seafood – won’t make that mistake again, it will be burgers and dogs from now on.  Since three of our seafood loving kids were with us, a very rare event, we decided to tap into our Maine purchased seafood stash. 

We started with an appetizer of bacon wrapped grilled scallops using some very thin Benton’s smoked bacon I’d had cut for this purpose.  Mike Davis of Lotta Bull BBQ had made these at the cooking class I attended at Dead End BBQ back in May.  He used a thick sliced bacon that I thought overpowered the scallops so I tried it thinly sliced, but it still overwhelmed them – they will be cooked pretty plain from now on.

For sides it was some leftover green beans, mac and cheese, and homemade bread.

After the scallops, I deep fried some shrimp, as they were the top priority for most of the girls, except Lauren wanted some grilled.  I used the batter recipe we’ve been using for fish tacos and the grilled ones got treated with butter and Emeril’s Essence.

Following the shrimp, I used the same batter and deep fried a pint of whole steamer clams.  They tasted good but were much tougher than those we had in New England and I assume freezing them contributed to this.  That Hornitos stuff is for medicinal purposes only.

Finally, I mistakenly cooked some haddock on foil, seasoned with Essence and butter.  It was a mistake because I meant to use the grill pan, so they ended up being sautéed rather than grilled.

Earlier, we had made a simple shrimp sauce of ketchup and horseradish, a remoulade sauce using Mary’s recipe at Deep Dish South, a tartar sauce using a recipe from Ina Garten, and mango salsa using the ingredients list from Allrecipe.

We had varied opinions on the dishes, with Bev liking the haddock the least and Rhett thinking it was outstanding with the addition of both remoulade and salsa.  Everyone had the same overpowering comment about the scallops and all liked the shrimp.  I thought the sauces and salsas were all excellent and I made a full batch of remoulade to be sure I’d have some on hand – it’s delicious as a salad dressing.

Kathy pulled the kids on the jet ski again and we had a little interruption mid-afternoon from a passing storm that gave us ½ “ of much needed rain.

The cook and sous chef cooling off with some of that Hornitos stuff - on the rocks with salt of course.

All-in-all a great way to celebrate America’s birthday. 

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Pork Butt On Your Grill

Larry

Gardening Thursday - Pruning My Azaleas

It’s been several years since I pruned my azaleas and like many of our other shrubs they were way out of control. Unlike the “be ruthless” advice I gave for the earlier shrubs I pruned, azaleas must be treated with more care, as with all evergreens, so enough greenery remains to support the plant. In general no more than 30% should be removed at any one time and for azaleas, it should be done shortly after the blooms fade so as not to cut off next year’s blooms, which are put on in mid-summer. Here is the first one prior to beginning.

Since I prefer azaleas to have a nature growth habit rather than look like a blooming boxwood, I prune each branch with hand shears. I use proper pruning technique which means remove entire branches back to a main branch or shorten a branch back to a healthy node. If you look at an azalea it will generally have one or two long branches coming from the last node and other shorter branches from the same node. I just cut off the longer ones within ¼” of the node and leave the smaller ones or in a few cases I go back to the second node.  This is the first and second node on this one.

I cut it at the second node since it was sticking up so far.

Here you can see the two larger ones on the left and smaller ones on the right.

I also removed all of the dead branches back to a main stem as they can eventually kill the plant. There was a big dead limb in the middle and I cut back hard on some of those lying on the ground. This is the after shot including the debris pile.

Next year I’ll work on it again to get it in good shape for a couple of years. Here’s the ones in front of the house that are covering the Japanese maple, a juniper, and the azaleas behind them. My goal is to have them look like individual plants touching each other, rather than an azalea mass, but it will take me two years.

These were not as old and out of control so I just cut back the wild limbs - did a little work on the Redbud as well.

If you plan to prune trees or shrubs and you are unsure of proper pruning techniques, just do a search on those three words and many good how-to sites will pop up. Knowing where, when, and how to cut will help keep your plants healthy and looking good, but doing it wrong can severely damage or kill the plant.  Also pruning regularly will prevent what I'm having to do with some of mine because I let them go too long.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Grilled Chicken Ala Chris

Larry

Grandkids At The Lake

After a fun day at Cades Cove on Friday, Saturday was devoted to playing in the lake at Almost Heaven South where supermom, Kathy, wore the kids and hersrlf out on the jet ski.  Before heading for the lake, we fixed them up with a simple high carb lunch to give them plenty of lake energy.

We had no leftovers and this all but finished up our first patch of corn.  We'll get a few more ears, but the next patch will be ready within a week.  Kathy went thru three tanks of gas and did a great job organizing, such that everyone got their fair share of being where they wanted.

In keeping with our desire to eat from the garden, supper consisted of potatoes fried in a cast iron dutch oven, fresh picked green beans cooked with Benton's bacon, leftover crappie, poached in lemon-butter-caper-white wine sauce, and reheated brisket from the blogger party.  Here's my plate and the Texas based Roden girls were into the brisket.

It was all very good and this may be our favorite potato preparation method.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Lawn Problems And Garden Produce

Larry