OldDinosaurWesH
Well-Known Member
Daikon Radishes
Wes H.
Wes H.
let's see your veggie garden {pics}
- Thread starter Chicken
- Start date
- Status
ChinaVoodoo
Moderator
Hey, does anyone have a recommendation for a cantaloupe strain for cold climate?
Cantaloupe Minnesota Midget melon: http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/melon/melon-minnesota-midget-prod001972.html
also http://www.territorialseed.com/prod...ventional_and_Organic_Seed/organic-melon-seed
Watermelon Blacktail Mountain Watermelon: http://www.southernexposure.com/blacktail-mountain-watermelon-1-g-p-361.html
Bob
also http://www.territorialseed.com/prod...ventional_and_Organic_Seed/organic-melon-seed
Watermelon Blacktail Mountain Watermelon: http://www.southernexposure.com/blacktail-mountain-watermelon-1-g-p-361.html
Bob
ChinaVoodoo
Moderator
Oh yeah. Sounds great, Bob. Thanks. I'll likely stick with the cantaloupe because we can freeze it if we get lots.
When I grew Blacktail Mountain watermelon in 2013, their average size was around 9", so ending up with a productive season isn't much of a burden to consume.
Bob
Bob
Tonight, I peeled and boiled a chunk of my huge North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. Then I blenderized it in my food processor, added some water and salt, and made a satiny squash soup. Served with a small pat of butter and a sprinkle of dill weed. No other herbs or spices added.
I have eaten some of this squash roasted, but thought it wasn't particularly sweet. This soup, however, tastes distinctly sweet, but only after it is adequately salted. It's really a lovely soup.
Disclaimer: I eat soup from a large, plastic bowl, using a gray Lexan backpacking soup spoon that never gets hot. After slurping down a bowl of this delicious squash soup, I decided to photograph it. So I set up this photo with what you see, then dumped the soup back into the pot. The pic is entirely posed.
Caution: Using a food processor to process actual food may lead to your having to wash a half-dozen awkward processor parts in sudsy water.
Bob
OldDinosaurWesH
Well-Known Member
I'm glad to see you maintain your sense of humor!
Wes H.
Wes H.
I am deadly serious about the squash soup being delicious. You can make a similarly tasty soup with a small pie pumpkin, so long as you don't succumb to the powerful temptation to add pie spices (which just makes it taste like pumpkin pie flavored everything, that starts to show up in October).
Bob
OldDinosaurWesH
Well-Known Member
I'm sure the soup is delicious. I was referring to the annoying food processor. I have a commercial food processor that weighs 22 pounds and can turn rocks into dust. But cleaning it is a real pain! I hesitate to use it for that reason.
Wes H.
Wes H.
Many of the "labor saving" devices in the kitchen, with the exception of a toaster, squander all the saved labor on clean-up. Unless I happen to be setting up a production line for feeding a crowd of people (never happens), I find simple, manual tools to be usually faster overall. The cabinets beneath my kitchen counter are crowded with silly appliances (mostly received as gifts over the decades) that I never use. My electric kitchen range will do the Macarena and sing opera, but I just use two, occasionally three burners.
Bob
Bob
OldDinosaurWesH
Well-Known Member
My personal favorite is called a "Foley Fork" a simple hand tool with angled tines. It's is great for beating eggs, mixing stuff, you name it. Mine are 50 plus years old, and you can't buy them any more. Easy cleanup. One bowl, one tool and done! My food processor has several parts to take apart plus several rubber gaskets to clean. A real pain. It puts out a full horsepower, and it will turn rocks into dust! (As if I needed rock dust.) In all fairness to the machine, my food processor was purchased for commercial use. I just don't need it for that any more. So it mostly gathers dust. I do like my power mixer. An essential tool for making bread. And there is only the bowl and the mixer blade to clean afterward. For small jobs like muffins, I stick with my Foley Fork and a stainless bowl. And to make for less cleaning, I use paper liners in the muffin tin. (A trick my late mother taught me. She didn't like a bunch of cleaning either.)
Life's busy enough, who needs all that extra work!
Wes H.
Life's busy enough, who needs all that extra work!
Wes H.
Wes... you talking about one of these?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-FOL...SIL-STAINLESS-STEEL-WOOD-HANDLE-/282649415656
http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-FOL...SIL-STAINLESS-STEEL-WOOD-HANDLE-/282649415656
The Foley fork is like beating an egg with two forks at the same time. Too bad that one on Ebay has a split handle.
Bob
Bob
Here's a new one for about $8: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000BU7UBG/ref=asc_df_B000BU7UBG5186645/
I can think of dozens of uses. Thank you, OldDino.
Bob
Oops! That one seems to fall apart, according to multiple reviews. Never mind.
I can think of dozens of uses. Thank you, OldDino.
Bob
Oops! That one seems to fall apart, according to multiple reviews. Never mind.
OldDinosaurWesH
Well-Known Member
The vintage one on E-Bay looks a lot like my older one with its wooden handle. Probably of a similar vintage (1940's maybe). I also have a "newer" Foley Fork with a plastic handle. (1960's?) The new one on amazon, at least based on the photo I saw, doesn't have the pitched / angled tines. I have one like that too. It's called a granny fork and will work, but not as well as a Foley Fork. The pitched / angled tines are really good for creaming butter or shortening into the sugar and flour for making cookies. Unless you are left-handed. The pitch is definitely for a right handed person.
I guess I'd better get my camera out. I didn't know you folks were so passionate about cooking.
Wes H.
I guess I'd better get my camera out. I didn't know you folks were so passionate about cooking.
Wes H.
OldDinosaurWesH
Well-Known Member
Okay, Foley Forks:
Photo one, two Foley Forks and one Granny Fork left to right. I couldn't find the really old one with the wooden handle. It is actually the most useful of all four I have.
Photo two, 1950's or 1960's vintage Foley Fork. You can see the pitch in the tines.
Photo three, 1970's or 1980' vintage Foley Fork. Cheaper more flimsy handle, and no pitch to the tines.
Photo four, Granny Fork 2000's vintage. thinner metal no pitch to the tines.
Wes H.
Photo one, two Foley Forks and one Granny Fork left to right. I couldn't find the really old one with the wooden handle. It is actually the most useful of all four I have.
Photo two, 1950's or 1960's vintage Foley Fork. You can see the pitch in the tines.
Photo three, 1970's or 1980' vintage Foley Fork. Cheaper more flimsy handle, and no pitch to the tines.
Photo four, Granny Fork 2000's vintage. thinner metal no pitch to the tines.
Wes H.
Late September in My Garden
Although it feels to me like the garden season is over, I do have some fruit and veggies that are still producing.
Sweet Banana Pepper has been my most prolific pepper the entire summer. I've eaten them raw in salads, pickled them, cooked them and still fall behind. Some are large enough to be made into chili rellenos. [hollowed pepper stuffed with cheese, dipped in batter, then fried, and served with salsa verde]
I've harvested one golden bell pepper this summer. The four plants just wouldn't set fruit for most of the summer. Now, they're trying to give me something. I use large, square bells for stuffed peppers. [rice and ground beef stuffed into and hollow pepper, topped with Parmesan cheese, and cooked in pasta sauce]
These little cherry peppers are so red that they stain my cutting board red. I usually seed them, then finely mince them as a cooking condiment. I've also pickled some.
From 5 Black Beauty eggplant plants, I harvested maybe 9 medium fruits. The first wave went into a large tray of Moussakas (Greek eggplant, potato and cheese casserole), and the later ones were diced into stew. While the Moussakas wins hands down, it is a huge and tedious project to prep. But it lasted for almost a week.
Ever-bearing brambles (blackberries or raspberries) don't really bear fruit continuously. There is an early crop on last year's canes, then a hiatus, and finally a late crop on this year's canes. The non-ever-bearing kinds produce only the early crop. Unfortunately, Japanese beetles damaged the blossoms of the early crop, so my yield was scant. Now that those pests are gone for the year, the late crop is abundant. I often munch a few directly from the canes, while I'm out in the garden. It's also hard to beat a handful of fat blackberries dumped onto a bowl of ice cream.
My corncob pipe plants are sort of food. I contemplated purchasing a hand-crank corn grinder to make cornmeal from my 5 varieties of dent corn. Although most of the ears are still drying on the stalks, the ear count is disappointingly low. Of 60 corn plants, there are probably only about 30 ears. And many of the ears on these tallest of corn plants are not all that large. It's hard to justify spending over a dollar per ear for a grinder. And I'm not planning to grow corn next year. [I still have to consider just having a corn grinder for bad times.]
Bob
Although it feels to me like the garden season is over, I do have some fruit and veggies that are still producing.
Sweet Banana Pepper has been my most prolific pepper the entire summer. I've eaten them raw in salads, pickled them, cooked them and still fall behind. Some are large enough to be made into chili rellenos. [hollowed pepper stuffed with cheese, dipped in batter, then fried, and served with salsa verde]
I've harvested one golden bell pepper this summer. The four plants just wouldn't set fruit for most of the summer. Now, they're trying to give me something. I use large, square bells for stuffed peppers. [rice and ground beef stuffed into and hollow pepper, topped with Parmesan cheese, and cooked in pasta sauce]
These little cherry peppers are so red that they stain my cutting board red. I usually seed them, then finely mince them as a cooking condiment. I've also pickled some.
From 5 Black Beauty eggplant plants, I harvested maybe 9 medium fruits. The first wave went into a large tray of Moussakas (Greek eggplant, potato and cheese casserole), and the later ones were diced into stew. While the Moussakas wins hands down, it is a huge and tedious project to prep. But it lasted for almost a week.
Ever-bearing brambles (blackberries or raspberries) don't really bear fruit continuously. There is an early crop on last year's canes, then a hiatus, and finally a late crop on this year's canes. The non-ever-bearing kinds produce only the early crop. Unfortunately, Japanese beetles damaged the blossoms of the early crop, so my yield was scant. Now that those pests are gone for the year, the late crop is abundant. I often munch a few directly from the canes, while I'm out in the garden. It's also hard to beat a handful of fat blackberries dumped onto a bowl of ice cream.
My corncob pipe plants are sort of food. I contemplated purchasing a hand-crank corn grinder to make cornmeal from my 5 varieties of dent corn. Although most of the ears are still drying on the stalks, the ear count is disappointingly low. Of 60 corn plants, there are probably only about 30 ears. And many of the ears on these tallest of corn plants are not all that large. It's hard to justify spending over a dollar per ear for a grinder. And I'm not planning to grow corn next year. [I still have to consider just having a corn grinder for bad times.]
Bob
Funny you mentioned that, I just grabbed some cobs from last years grow and showed the kids how to make cornbread starting from the removing kernels from the cob straight through to the finished product and they just finished eating dinner which was basically skipping everything else and a double portion of cornbread hehe.
I used to grow flint corn then switched over to growing the feed corn. The resulting products from bread to polenta, grits etc are all far superior in texture and flavor not to mention ease of shelling and grinding (!) compared to the heirloom flint corn I had grown. I still might try another heirloom corn in the future but it'll be another dent variety, wapsie valley looked very promising before I started down this feed bag hobby I've had for the last few years but I do like trying new things.
Another thought would be to integrate wapsie into the mix, it's very easy to select corn for desired traits and allows almost instant confirmation of making the desired changes, tobacco is a little too daunting for me but corn? Anyone can make their own landrace.
Mmm I love talking corn.
Err it doesn't look like that at all, save this flash?
I used to grow flint corn then switched over to growing the feed corn. The resulting products from bread to polenta, grits etc are all far superior in texture and flavor not to mention ease of shelling and grinding (!) compared to the heirloom flint corn I had grown. I still might try another heirloom corn in the future but it'll be another dent variety, wapsie valley looked very promising before I started down this feed bag hobby I've had for the last few years but I do like trying new things.
Another thought would be to integrate wapsie into the mix, it's very easy to select corn for desired traits and allows almost instant confirmation of making the desired changes, tobacco is a little too daunting for me but corn? Anyone can make their own landrace.
Mmm I love talking corn.
Err it doesn't look like that at all, save this flash?
Last edited:
Bloody Butcher corn gives you reddish cornmeal. Oxaca Green gives you green. McCormack's Blue Giant give you blue. VA White Gourdseed produces huge kernels of white (and will probably produce some gigantic hominy, if I decide to mess with that).
Of the giant varieties that I grew this year, the only one that seems to also produce very big ears is Larry's Boone County corn, which is white. It seems to be clearly more productive of grain, not just stalk. But they're a pain in the tush to hand pollinate.
Now...what is your cornbread recipe?
Bob
Of the giant varieties that I grew this year, the only one that seems to also produce very big ears is Larry's Boone County corn, which is white. It seems to be clearly more productive of grain, not just stalk. But they're a pain in the tush to hand pollinate.
Now...what is your cornbread recipe?
Bob
- Status
Similar threads
