Sunday, July 14, 2013

Sunday Cooking and Weekend Gardening

We had a beautiful weekend here in mid Missouri!  Our pool water is a little cool from nights in the 60's and days only up in the 80's but that does make some beautiful weather for porch sitting, visiting with friends, working in the garden, and getting a little cooking done for the week.

My garden is looking great.  I have noticed a little munching damage.  I'm not sure exactly what to do.  I know I need some sort of fence but since I'm not sure if the problem is deer or rabbits, for now I just stuck my husband's radio, blasting country music out there.  We'll see if that takes care of it.

My squash are looking nice!  Hopefully this year we will get at least one precious squash from my garden.  Definitely I think some of the new things I tried are working.  I was out in my garden early Friday morning and saw some honeybees hard at work pollinating the squash!  Hurray for the girls!

This year I tried burying either gallon milk or vinegar jugs with holes poked in the bottoms/sides, or gallon sized plastic flower pots with my plants.  I fill them up with water which gives the roots of my plants a good drink instead of just running off.  It seems to be working.  Here is a picture of one of the flower pots submerged between two tomato plants (and some green tomatoes)  :) 



Here is a picture of a baby yellow zucchini!  My mom started seeds for these yellow zucchini plants.  She had too many for her own garden so she shared a couple with me.  So far so good!  Zucchini bread, here I come!


In addition to working in my garden, today I did a little baking.  We have a favorite bbq side dish that is Baked Potatoes & Onions.  Today we had them with barbecued pork steaks.  Since I had the oven on, I went ahead and baked these Easy Sugar Cookies.



And I baked a loaf of molasses/light wheat bread.  I like to have something homemade for breakfasts and lunches and this bread will make great toast and terrific peanut butter sandwiches!



I also made some stewed squash to go with my dinner.  That's one of my all time favorite summer dishes.  It's the dish that keeps me growing the ever elusive yellow summer squash.  I got this squash from my husband's uncle, who has a much greener thumb than I do.   I grew up eating LOTS and LOTS of stewed squash, and I can make a meal out of it alone.  I'll post my version of this great southern side dish this week.



Have a great week!

Gina