Midget Mutant Eggplants Have Purpose

The midget, mutant eggplants have a purpose. They are the perfect size for eggplant fries!!! (and the crowd goes wild). Eggplant fries are a recipe I found on the internet last year. They are wonderful and go great with anything you would normally have french fries with.

You start out with cutting the eggplant. With my midget version, you don't even have to cut them that much!



Mixture is made of 3/4 c flour, 2 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, 1 tsp parsley flakes (salt and pepper to taste). No eggs, milk or breadcrumbs (which make most fried recipes messy to prepare).



After mixing, deep fry to a crispy, golden brown. These delicious guys were the perfect side:



Yay to eggplant fries! Maybe I should edit the eggplant tag to "mutant midget eggplant". LOL.

Bummer Summer

This summer has been a bummer, in the garden and for life in general. But - there are always positive things that spring out that keep me going. I went out this morning (before the excessive heat warning goes into effect for the next 4 days) to check on things in the garden.

I found NINE cantaloupe. Not two, not four....NINE. In fact, I found 11 but two were already mush. I can't believe it. I realized as I dropped them on my front porch, that I have a lot of produce accumulating - good thing I'm visiting friends and family this week!



There is a mix of peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, cantaloupe and a few more mutant eggplants. The garden hasn't turned out quite like I was hoping - but I am going to be satisfied with what I've achieved!

Blossom-End Rot Strikes Again

I thought I was safe from any more damages from blossom-end rot. But, I was wrong. I have been patiently waiting for my eggplants to grow like they did last year. Unfortunately, this week I realized that last year we had mature egg plants at this time. In fact, we were well into the "Summer of Eggplant". Hrmph.

Today, I began to examine my eggplants a little more closely. They had started to rot...still attached to the plant. So, our plans for eggplant fries galore have been reduced to "we'll have some."

Here are the minature eggplants all ready to be eaten (the non-rotted ones):



As I mentioned previously, the green peppers were affected as well. They were already miserable looking, but I took the opportunity to take a picture of this "bell" pepper. They are already turning red...at this size:



Oh well, next year we may have to scaled back the garden and focus on the important things.

Fresh, Farm Picked Melons!

I've been keeping a close eye on my cantaloupes. Last week, I came out to find one all cracked up and bug filled. Bummer. I wish I had some advice on how to pick them perfectly, but I haven't figured it out yet!

Earlier this week, in anticipation of it becoming over-ripe, I picked a cantaloupe. It was terrible. Not completely green, but it was the type of cantaloupe you are served in a restaurant when it's not really in season. It lacked flavor.

Today was a big day though! I had two perfectly ripe cantaloupe. I have a hard time not eating as I cut these. They are so good!



Plenty more where that one came from! Odd that the cantaloupe is ready about the same time as last year, despite getting in the ground about 3 weeks earlier. Interesting observation, I might make a special note.

The Joys of Summer

I love tomatoes. I love to cut them up and eat a whole plate as a snack. Or, as a meal! They are one of my biggest joys of having a garden and one of my favorite memories from Grandpa's garden growing up.

I could seriously write a love poem to garden tomatoes,but I'll keep that one to myself. It probably would have a sad last verse since this year has not been the greatest for tomatoes.

I had a decent hall from the garden today, I picked about 10 tomatoes and a few more peppers. Now,I'm going to sit back and enjoy this:



Delicious.

Zucchini Bread A Fan Favorite

I've made a lot of zucchini bread this summer and I plan to at least freeze already portioned bags for later adventures. Of course, I was happy when Ryan liked it and thrilled when my friend RR (and family) liked it. BUT - I received the BEST compliment of all time today.

The pickiest little eater I know LOVED my zucchini bread. In fact, he said "mmmm" and just to make sure I heard him he said it again even louder "MMMMMM".



I had to refrain from giving him any more than just the one slice. While the Zucchini part is oh so healthy, the bread part isn't. He did choose my bread over his normal go-to of mac n cheese. Point, Aunt Kayla.

Elsie's Salsa

The blossom-end rot delayed my salsa making plans this year. I have been slowly gathering ripe tomatoes, resisting my desires to eat them and putting them in a gallon bucket, anxiously awaiting a full gallon so I could make salsa.

Our 2009 garden plan was basically this: make "grandma's salsa." The grandma in this case was Ryan's grandma, Elsie. Ryan has great memories from his childhood of his grandma canning her salsa. The taste brings back all of those memories and it's something that my non-food loving husband, LOVES. I tried making it last year, scared to death that it wouldn't taste the same, but Ryan and his sister both agree that it tastes just like they remember.

So, aside from the gallon of tomatoes, the salsa also includes green peppers (obviously not from my garden), jalapenos, onions (also not from my garden...can you tell I'm bitter?) and Serrano peppers (or, a hot chile pepper).

Mixed all together and cooking on the stove:



After cooking and hot water bath canning..... we have 10 freshly canned salsa jars (and one larger jar with the leftover). I am not very good at planning how many jars I need, but I made a note for next time, I need 12 pint jars!



Hopefully, this is just the beginning of our yummy salsa making 2010. If you want the full recipe, please let me know.

Picking Peppers to Pickle....

I did not realize two weeks passed since my last garden post! I have no excuses, other than life happens! Things in the garden have slowed down at the moment, which makes no sense to me - it should be flourishing!

Since this post is about peppers...I'll get down to the nitty gritty. The green peppers were basically wiped out. There are some peppers growing, but they are so tiny they are not useful in recipes and certainly aren't going to be added to a veggie tray any time soon (or ever)!

The banana peppers are great. I already prepped one can (aka jar) of them and I've been using them on sandwiches. The jalenpenos are doing ok, what is left of them. They also didn't see the growth that we saw last year, but I am getting enough to be able to can and possibly make poppers.

Here are the picked peppers waiting to be canned:



(I will need quite a few more jalapenos, so I'm working on it!)

The serrano pepper plant and the cayenne pepper plant are also growing long, beautiful peppers. I am a little afraid to eat them...they are going to be HOT!!!

Hopefully things will pick back up, so I can have more posts!