Ooohh-lala, Saucey!!!

Since I'm in St. Paul, MN for the next two weeks, I thought this would be a good time to fire off some recipes. What good is a vegetable garden if you don't have anything to use the harvest for?

Before I start, I will apologize for the lack of specific amounts for the ingredients. I just judge it all by eye. A smidge here, a handful there, hmmmm...might as well use all those.

The main ingredient is of course the tomatoes. You can use a couple cans of crushed tomatoes; I'm using about 25 small fresh Roma tomaters.

Ingredients:

Roma Tomatoes, blanched
Half Onion, diced
Six Garlic Cloves, minced
Handful of Basil Leaves, chopped
Couple Sprigs of Rosemary, minced
Handful of Thyme, minced
Handful of Oregano, minced
Cup of Red Wine (and use some crappy stuff..save the good wine for drinking)
1/4 Cup of Olive Oil
Kosher Salt
Black Pepper

Steps:
Heat up the olive oil in a pot. Bring a pot of water to a boil as well. Add onion to olive oil and cook for about 4 minutes. When the onion begins to turn clear, add garlic and continue for another couple of minutes. Add wine to the onions and garlic and let simmer. Meanwhile, take the tomatoes and cut an "X" in the bottom of each fruit. When water comes to a boil, add tomatoes and let them sit in boiling water for only 2-3 minutes.
Pull tomatoes out and rinse with cold water. Then grab the top of the tomato and squeeze the flesh out thus separating from the skin.
Discard skins and add tomato fleshes to onions, garlic, and wine. Add minced herbs along with salt and pepper to taste. Continue to let simmer for 15-20 minutes. ***Note: You can add Italian sausage to the sauce as well.***
Serve over desired pasta and enjoy.

There you have it. It may not be the perfect sauce recipe that your grandmama made when you were a little tot. But it's quick and fairly easy.

A Southern Comfort

It's probably not a plant most people find in home gardens. At least, not in gardens north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

With a little Cajun in my blood, I've always had a small place in my tummy for okra. So this summer, I figured I should try and grow my own since it's difficult to find in the produce section this far north (which is funny to say since the capital of the Confederacy is about 100 miles south of us).

I did a little research to see exactly what I should look for and do in growing okra. Like all other vegetables, there are several varieties of okra. The most popular seems to be a species created and bred by Clemson University....called Clemson Spineless. Part of the attraction to this variety is the lack of a tough exterior. Eventually I found one plant tucked away in the Home Depot vegetable plant section. A couple weeks later I found a second variety, the Cajun Delight, at our stellar nursery near the house. I planted both in a large pot along with two long stakes to steady the plants as they grew. I had read that okra plants could grow to 5 ft. tall.

The Clemson Spineless was slow to take-off, but the Cajun Delight was gangbusters. I have had plenty of okra..which have come in two waves. I had a great harvest in mid-July followed by a second jump in okra pods about a week ago.


It is a very interesting looking vegetable to watch grow and mature. It first appears as a pretty yellow flower. But the flower only blooms for about 12 hours and then falls off. Underneath that bloom is the young pod. Within a day or two, the pod grows several inches and ready to be picked. The prime size to cut off the okra pods is about 2-4 inches. Anything larger than that and the pod becomes too tough and not easy to eat.

Some folks don't like okra because of it's slimy flesh. But my grandpa claims cooking okra with a little vinegar can take care of that. I've found when you fry it, the slime disappears.

Either way, I'm happy okra has been a part of our garden.

Slowly But Surely

It's been awhile since my last post. Not a whole lot exciting has been happening except for the fact that both of us have not been home this week. But there has been one very pleasant surprise this week...and this summer as a whole.

A lot of people I talk to with home gardens always say that bell peppers are the most fickle plants. More times than not, they don't produce much except frustration.

But this year, our bell pepper plants have been amazing. Not just a lot of fruit, but they have been large in size. And just this past week or so, we've finally reaped the rewards. We have at least a half dozen ripe red bell peppers on the plant....with another half dozen yet to ripen. I've also noticed that the peppers take a long time to ripen on the vine compared to other vegetable plants. But once we cut into one and tasted it....we knew it was well worth the wait.

Why did this year's crop do so much better than last? It could be a lot of factors. I put them in a bigger pot. I bought these plants at a quality garden center opposed to last year's plants from Home Depot. It could be the potting mix I used. Maybe the drought last year was too much to handle. It could be a lot of reasons. Regardless, I consider the bell peppers the big success of this year's garden.

"Why You Lil' Sunuva...."

I've seen a lot of little "guests" in the garden this summer. Ants, the occassional slug near the cucumbers, and even a couple preying mantis taking care of some other pests on the okra plants.

But when I saw a couple of green tomatoes gnawed on at the top of the Marglobe plant (over 6' high)...I knew my little squirrel buddy was not the culprit.

Then today, while I was trimming off some dead branches on my tomato plants, I came across two of these nasty little creatures. And after a little research, I discovered the little brown droppings on the leaves I've seen for the past couple weeks should have tipped me off. Ladies and gents, I give you the tomato hornworm caterpillar.



It gets it's name in part because of the horn-shaped red things on its last section (right side of pic).

So are these caterpillars friend or foe? Well, the answer is foe. They enjoy eating tomato plant leaves. And with a little Google research, I discovered they go after the fruit in July and August. So there's the answer to my half-eaten tomato mystery.

There are a couple ways to take care of them. Apparently nature takes care of business when a certain type of wasp will lay eggs on the hornworm and eventually the hatched larvae will eat away at the caterpillar. But I don't have the time or leaf capacity to wait for that to happen. So I went with the technique best for small gardens.....I just picked them off. Unfortunately, as I was picking one off the Roma plant, he fell deeper into the plant and I could not find him. But fear not, I will find him come hell or high water.

There's also a pesticide that takes care of the little buggers, but I'm going to shy away from that chemical option. Let's just hope there aren't a lot more hiding from me. I prefer my tomatoes get eaten by two-legged folks...not ten-legged ones.

Where The Buffalo Roam

Floating Down The Snake River In Grand Teton National Park

The farmer surprised his better half with a trip to Wyoming for her birthday/Bar exam completion. We've spent the weekend visiting a couple of our nation's beautiful national parks. Part of our visit included a float trip on the Snake River. During our venture, our guide explained the settlement of the Jackson Hole valley back in the 1800s. The big industry of the time was fur trading....more specifically beaver pelts. But the folks who didn't fare so well (and still do not) were farmers. Two main reasons for the lack of good agriculture in this area: it's an arid climate in the summertime and there are only 60 frost-free days each year. That gives you about two whole months to grow anything....and that's not much.

The only thing that is prevalent around here is sagebrush, which is pretty useless. Not even the native bison will eat that garbage.

So if you move here, don't plan on much of a home garden unless you plan on building a greenhouse.

"Excuse me, can a bison get a homegrown tomato around here?"