Summer Harvest Family Picnic

Every summer we have a big family picnic on the first Saturday of August. We get together at two of my uncles' houses (they live right next door to each other) for a baseball game, grilled corn, lots of food, and homemade beer.

The baseball game used to be a leisurely event that was fun for both the young and old. Well our young aren't so young anymore and as a result, the baseball game is a little more competitive. This year I was on the winning team...yea! I have to admit I hit pretty well, but I really just hid in the shade of right field when our team was in the field. Each year my brother and some cousins dress up the outfield hill. This year they went with a big "M."



After the game, we head to my other uncle's house courtesy of a hayride. The tracker used to pull us was actually my great-grandfathers old John Deer (I'll try to get a picture). Then it's food time!

My Aunt Mary and I decided to make some festive cupcakes. First we had a floral bouquet:






We also made corn on the cob cupcakes:




Overall it was a great evening!

Deb's quote of the week:
My mom has decided that crossword puzzles are her new thing. She's getting really good at them. However, she'll occasionally ask for help from the family. It then turns into a family activity and she gets mad because we've taken over her puzzle :) Here are two mistakes we found recently when trying to help her:

Clue-- Barbecue
Puzzle-- _ _ _ l l
Mom's answer-- SMELL...um, how about GRILL

Clue--Bull;SP
Puzzle-- _ _ _ _
Mom's answer-- SHIT...um, SP means Spanish so it's TORO

She's so great! Only mom would think they'd put SHIT in a crossword puzzle!

Ooh La La

I made a French dessert last night that was absolutely delicious! I found the recipe on a blog I follow, Confabulation in the Kitchen (http://shallwecook.blogspot.com/2010/07/berry-cherry-clafoutis.html). It's called Berry Cherry Clafoutis. Both the berries I used were freshly picked by me and my dad! The original recipe is on that blog but here is the recipe with my changes:

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1 cup fresh blackberries
3 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup sifted, all-purpose flour
1 cup skim milk
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons almond extract

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9-inch, round baking dish with nonstick spray, then toss in blueberries and blackberries.




2. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, flour and salt until well-combined.
3. Add milk, vanilla, and almond extract to egg mixture and whisk well. Pour wet ingredients over fruit.



4. Bake 45 to 50 minutes, or until dessert puffs and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Center will deflate as the dish cools on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.




It has a great custard texture and the almond extract gives it great flavor! Plus the berries were so juicy when eaten warm! I will definitely be making this again and again!





Okay, it's also time for another quote of the day from my mom! This weekend we were showing the garden to some friends. My mom was pointing out one of our tomato plants, which has odd shaped fruit growing on it. She told our guests that she thinks the plant has a "generic disorder." Um, mom...I think you mean genetic! :)

Also, here's a few pictures of what I saw hanging out on my front porch when I left for work this morning:

Ummm....Taters!

Growing up, my family (dad, mom, me, and my younger brother, Eric) always vacationed with my Aunt and Uncle and their kids. We always found a quiet little island off the Carolinas or in the Gulf where we could collect sharks teeth, ride bikes, play cards, eat, and have a great time! Now my brother and my cousin, Andrew, are two peas in a pod! They are goofy, outgoing, witty, sometimes annoying boys! There was one particular vacation when I was in high school or early college where those two were in especially rare form! Their quick wit and goofiness was pushing my Uncle Jim to the edge (Oh Uncle Jim...there are no words to describe him!). I don't know how it started or why it started, but the entire week (and still to this day when potatoes are eaten) those two ran around giggling about taters! "Ummm taters" is all I remember from that trip. So this blog entry is dedicated to Eric and Andrew...ummm TATERS!

Here's a picture of some of us (there are about 5 people missing from this trip) during our Grand Canyon adventure a few years ago.


So, we dug potatoes last night. In April, we planted red, white, and Yukon gold potatoes. You plant potatoes in the spring by getting old potatoes that have started to grow eyes (the white viney things). You can cut each eye out separately, along with a chunk of the potato, and plant the eye.

Come summer time, the potato plant will get large and flower, while below lots of potatoes are waiting. We dug two rows last night and here's what we got:

That's a lot of potatoes considering we still have five more rows to dig!

When you're digging potatoes, it's easiest to use a pitch fork. But be careful not to stab the potatoes! If you do injure one, make sure you eat it soon...if not, it may rot! Use the pitch fork to lift the plant from the ground and flip it over. Hopefully you'll find lots of taters underneath.



Keep the potatoes dry and cool and they should last for a while. We usually store ours in the basement.

Here's a picture of our biggest catch:

On the right is a normal sized red potato...on the left is the queen bee of red potatoes!

I promise to add some potato recipes soon!

Finally...another quote from Deb! Although this isn't really a quote, it's more of a disgusting statement:
We were at my parents having dinner, bring the food to the table about to eat, when my mom calls my brother. He was out of town and she had been dog-sitting. She proceeded to tell him that Knuckles (the dog) had "runny poopie" that day. Really mom!!??!! Great dinner conversation!

Weed Prevention 101

Here's a few quick tips about preventing those annoying weeds in your garden. I already told you how to get rid of them once they show up (tiller, hoe, or my favorite...pull them by hand) but how can you stop them from showing their ugly little faces in the first place? Here's one trick we use in our garden



We use black tarps made of this cloth/plastic material. You can find it at your local hardware store. It comes in a big roll. We lay it down around our squash plants and cut holes around the plants. It's a great way to stop the weeds from growing around the viney plants. This year we're also going to put it around our pumpkin and cantaloupe plants.

I've also heard that you can put wet newspaper down around your plants and it will prevent weeds while it slowly biodegrades. Has anyone tried this? I think it would be very time consuming for our larger garden but it might be a nice alternative for a smaller space.

Another question for my readers (if there are any!?!?)....what in the world is this?



We found three of them in our radish patch. They look like carrots on the bottom but the greens are different. I googled purple carrot, purple radish, white beets, and nothing matches. Any ideas?

Finally, another quote from my mom:
We were picking more peas last night (so many!!!) and in order to reach all of them you have to lean over the onions. Our onion stems/greens are already over a foot high, which means they're hard to ignore. As we are about to finish picking, my mom stops, looks up with a weird look on her face and says,
"I smell onion?"

I wonder why!!!!

What's for dinner?

I didn't spend much time in the garden this weekend because I took a road trip down to Kentucky to visit my BFF, Dana, her husband Chad, and their son Anthony (I heart him!)



Sunday afternoon I did spend some time weeding with my dad, aunt Mary, and mom (yep, she helped again...although she was very cranky about it!) We cleaned up the beans, tomatoes, and lettuces. It's looking much better. Dad and Mary like to use tools (tiller or hoe) to weed but I prefer just pulling them out by hand, especially when the ground is still damp from the previous day's rain.

Since we have gotten so much rain lately, I have been eating most meals straight from the garden. A big salad for dinner every night! Sunday nights we always have family dinners at my parents. It's my mom's way to get us all together once a week, not that we need an excuse but the food is always yummy! Last night we had pork chops (well I didn't but everyone else did), a salad, potatoes, and peas. Everything but the meat came from the garden. Such a rewarding feeling!

I decided to lend a hand this week for dinner and cook the peas and potatoes. The snow snap peas were rinsed and the very ends snapped off, then I put them in a big skillet with some olive oil and seasonings. I let them cook on medium for about 10 minutes. They turn bright green when they're done! And they're delicious! You can cook them as long as you'd like but I like them to still have some crunch. Sorry there are no pictures of the end product, it was gone before I could get the camera out. But here's what we started with....




Even though the potatoes aren't done yet, we dug some up and they were excellent! I tried something new with them. I baked them in the oven on 425 in a glass dish that had been sprayed with Pam. Then I washed the potatoes and cut them into slices without completely cutting them apart. Then I melted some butter, added some chives (also from the garden) and seasonings and spread it on top. I baked them for about an hour but I could have put foil on top the whole time to speed up the process. I actually got a picture of the last two before I ate them. I'll definitely use this recipe again!


Just for fun:
My mom says the funniest things so I thought I'd start adding some of them to the blog. Here's her quote from last night:
We were watch a home improvement show and they were remodeling a boat house. They added fans with misters in them to help it stay cool and keep away the bugs. My mom said:
"Won't you get wet with mister?" No...really, mom! I love her!