Onions in the Bed

We built a garden this spring of eight raised beds, and I filled six of them with asparagus, strawberries, garlic, onions, and salsify. I'm deciding what to plant in the last two. Carrots, certainly, and perhaps leeks. We'll see.

The Pickle Factory

Do you have access to lots of cucumbers this summer? I mean the kind that come from a local vine and not the waxed foreign variety. If you do, it's worth making this recipe for sweet pickle relish. You can't buy this stuff, so I warn you that once you make it, you'll get hooked on the flavor and will have to make more next year. Oh, and if you give it away as gifts, then your friends will be hinting around for another jar in just a few days. So yummy! Here's the recipe:

Mediterranean Pea Salad Recipe

Fresh, tangy, and crunchy, this is a great salad for your Independence Day picnic. It's healthy, too. I've added variations at the end of the recipe for turning it into a main dish salad.

In case you're tempted to use bottled salad dressing, please don't. This is super easy and bottled dressings just add too much sodium and oil and "bottled dressing funk" flavor to an otherwise super delicious salad. Here's the easy recipe:

Double Day Lily, Golden Corn Muffin Recipe

This is a recipe for simply delicious corn muffins. It's adapted from the Farm Journal's Complete Home Baking Book, copyright 1979, the year Bob & I married. My grandmother gave me the cookbook for a gift my first Christmas as a wife. I love that she signed the first page. Unless it's a first edition or valuable collector's book, you should always sign books that you give as gifts. It might bring someone joy to remember you when they open their book, even decades later.

Here's the recipe, right below the photo I took yesterday of a flower that was given to me years ago. When it blooms every summer, I am reminded of the dear lady who gave it to me. Oh, and at the end of this post you'll see a photo of one of our very traditional vegetable plate suppers. (The tiny bit of ham that seasons the beans doesn't count.)

New Potting Bench, Fried Okra Recipe

I've long wanted a potting bench with a nice deep sink for scrubbing and soaking pots and vegetables, so when I found this sink at a local Habitat store for just $10, I snatched it up. Bob was so inspired that he built this potting bench around my sink the very next day, just in time for washing all the okra I harvested from our garden. He installed a faucet as well as an extension of the garden hose for a sprayer. Right now I catch the water coming out of the drain in a 5 gallon bucket, and use that water to give my flowers a drink. I think he's brilliant and so very thoughtful!

Here's a recipe for fried okra, right below this photo of my wonderful new potting bench. You can see Bob and his "helpers" in the first picture.

Aunt Julia's Yellow Squash Casserole Recipe, Bob & Debbie 1980

I lived my whole life in Pennsylvania until Bob & I were married. He took me to Atlanta to meet the whole clan, and I remember feeling that I'd never experienced anyplace more hot and humid than Georgia in July. It was 106 degrees the day we took all Bob's little cousins to Six Flags over Georgia. Uncle Buster's teeth almost flew out of his mouth on the roller coaster! Here's a photo of us way back when we were first starting out together. Oh, the memories!!!

Bob & Debbie in 1980

Atlanta Bob's late Great Aunt Julia gave his mother this recipe and she passed it along to me. Happiness is family recipes passed down through the generations! 

Westminster Chimes & Aunt Vida's Whole Fried Potatoes

What are the sounds and aromas that conjure up happy memories for you? Just let me roast a chicken, fry potatoes, and hear Westminster chimes from our mantel clock and I'm transported back to the Victorian house where my Great Aunt Vida & Great Uncle Jimmy lived. Sadly, Uncle Jimmy's been gone for a long time. Aunt Vida turned 104 years old this year. She taught 3rd grade Sunday school for 70 years and worked alongside her husband in their photography studio. She never had children but she had lots of toys and games for me to play with when I visited. She was a great cook, too. See her recipe for Whole Fried Potatoes below.

This isn't her clock but it has the same chime, and that's what counts. Every time it rings, I get all warm and fuzzy....and happy...inside. :-) 

Sugar Snap Peas from the Garden & Recipe

The first time I ever remember tasting sugar snap peas was at my grandmother's house. She served them with stewed new potatoes, all mixed together with lots of sweet, creamy, salty butter. I've loved them ever since, and the recipe is after the photos below.

Not-Green Pea & Potato Soup & Pea Sprout Update

Not-Green Pea & Potato Soup with Buttermilk

Not-Green Pea & Potato Soup with Buttermilk

If the words "pea soup" conjure up visions of Linda Blair's head swinging crazily on her shoulders, take heart. The fresh or frozen sweet English peas in this soup float in a flavorful broth thickened with mashed russet potatoes. The comfort-food flavors of potatoes and peas are brightened by the tang of whole milk buttermilk, and the entire thing comes together in about 25 minutes. Combine that with the healthy nutrition content, and I think it's a real winner. I hope you will, too.

Peas Please!

Deer Pellets

City girls probably don't know what this is, but if you're a gardener, you'll recognize the calling card of one of my garden's most voracious intruders: the whitetail deer.

Why Gallimaufry?

Brody Boy & my garden wagon

Working in the garden is a great time for thinking.