Runaway October

Here we go…

Quinalt Straw­ber­ries

Sparkler Radishes (Radii?) hid­ing under the Choco­late Basil

Dill

Bush Beans stand­ing tall

Pur­ple Cone­flower Echi­nacea. Maybe some­day. If they feel like it.

Smith & Hawken Birdfeeder

Mush­room Bird Feeder

Pink Polka Dot Plant, Too cute not to include!

White Moon­flower

Mul­ti­col­ored Lantana

In the 12^th cen­tury Macer wrote that merely look­ing at the Marigold plant would improve the eye­sight and lighten the mood.

African Daisy

More African Daisies

Pink Chablis decid­ing it might be time to come out and play

Pur­ple Alstroemeria

Pur­ple Lilac Vine

What have you got growin’ on lately?

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I think this is the ear­li­est in the year that I’ve had a tan. But for good rea­son! My gar­den beds are pretty much done except for a few tweaks here and there.

My won­der­ful hus­band was patient enough to put these together for me yes­ter­day. I only nagged a lit­tle.

Once done, we ran to Home Depot and picked out soil. Not organic, but you make due with what you have. We chose to use the old “2 of every­thing” plan for soil since we didn’t have the resources to go pick up all the free “fer­til­izer” to be found on Craigslist.

Adding soil is seri­ous busi­ness in need of dou­ble super­vi­sion. Obviously.

Nice butt! –wolf whistle–

All filed and ready to plant. There was an irri­ga­tion drip line run­ning under the pre-existing gar­den that we were unaware of. Matt sliced it with the shovel when turn­ing over the dirt. We decided to bring it up and use it instead of just replac­ing the leaky sec­tion. I still need to run lines to each plant, but that’s easy. That’s what the black tub­ing is run­ning along the fence.

Here’s what I’ve got to work with. I had planned on using mainly seeds, but I was wor­ried that by the time they sprouted and had started to set fruit that the heat would make them go dormant.

Planted. Yay! We’ve got 13 tomato plants (Roma, Heir­loom Brandy­wine and Super 100 Cher­ries), Car­rots, Bush Beans, Dill, and Leeks in one bed. Pick­ling Cucum­bers, Jalapenos, Habaneros, Cowhorn Pep­pers, Crook­neck Squash, Hon­ey­dew, Ste­via, Cin­na­mon Basil, Spearmint and Cilantro in the other.

I still need to plant these straw­ber­ries in a con­tainer. They seem to do bet­ter when I can move them around as needed. And find some­one who wants to pro­vide these hon­ey­dews with a home.

See that bird­feeder on the left there? My MIL bought it for me.

So there’s my spring gar­den for the year. At this rate I wont even need sun­screen when we tube down the river this year.

What are you plant­ing this year?

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I have a hard time cook­ing for my brood some most days. Some don’t like mush­rooms, some don’t like any­thing spicy, some don’t like food that requires work (such as chicken wings), some just don’t like any­thing like lit­tle Rowan. It can get frus­trat­ing when you’re flip­ping through a cook­book list­ing off deli­cious recipes and every­thing gets vetoed by one per­son or another. It’s also frus­trat­ing when you give up and choose some­thing and it doesn’t get­ting eaten quickly enough to not grow slimy in the fridge. I know. It’s hard to believe that hap­pens in this house.

Matt, the boys and I stopped by a Half-Price Book store the other night, and I res­cued a cou­ple beat up low­fat cook books for a dol­lar a piece. Can you imag­ine the groans that caused? “Low­fat? You mean ‘Fla­vor Free’ right?” Etc etc. But there are actu­ally quite a few recipes that I think will end up being keep­ers. This recipe is one of them.

Seafood is not some­thing we nor­mally eat. I’ve never been huge fan, Matt doesn’t see what the hype is about, and kids will be kids, right? My brother on the other hand… We made a dou­ble batch and picked up a pound of shrimp on sale for less than 5 dol­lars. Every­thing else I pretty much had on hand.

Even a large serv­ing of the dish comes in under 350 calo­ries. The pasta makes it very fill­ing, and the broc­coli gives you lots of good vit­a­mins. Am I the only mama blessed with kids that gen­er­ally love vegetables?

Par­don my bad pic­tures. The sun had gone down before I started din­ner. Oops!

Pasta in Gar­lic Sauce with Shrimp and Broccoli

Adapted from The 99% Fat-Free Cookbook

This clear, thin gar­lic sauce is a note­wor­thy change from the heavy mound under which pasta typ­i­cally is buried. It lends both a per­me­at­ing fla­vor and a gloss to the pasta, set off by flecks of seafood and veg­eta­bles.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingre­di­ents:

• 10 gloves garlic
• 1 cup 99% fat free, reduced sodium Chicken Stock
• 8 ounces uncooked thin-strand spaghetti
• 2 table­spoons water
• 1 pound broc­coli flo­rets (About 1 large head)
• 1/2 cup sliced white onion (About 1 small onion)
• 1/2 pound cooked medium shrimp (About 24) peeled, deveined, and halved
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh dill
• 1/8 tea­spoon red pep­per flakes
• Salt and Pep­per to taste

Direc­tions:

• Put the gar­lic and stock in a small non­re­ac­tive sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cover. Sim­mer for about 20 min­utes, until the gar­lic is soft and eas­ily smashed with a fork. Trans­fer the con­tents of the pan to a food proces­sor or blender, and purée until smooth. Set aside.
• Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta, stir­ring to make sure the strands don’t stick together, and cook over high heat to desired ten­der­ness. (3 to 4 min­utes for home­made or other fresh pasta, 8 to 10 min­utes for dry pasta.)
• Mean­while, put 1 table­spoon of water in a non­stick fry­ing pan and bring to boil over medium heat. Add the broc­coli and onion and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook for 3 min­utes. Add the shrimp, dill and the remain­ing table­spoon of water. Stir, recover and cook for 4 to 5 min­utes more. Remove from the heat.
• When the pasta in done, drain it in a colan­der and return it to the pot over very low heat. Add the gar­lic purée then mix well to coat the pasta. Add the broccoli-shrimp mix­ture and the sea­son­ings. Toss together until well blended and serve immediately.

Nutri­tion info:

• Calo­ries  316.1
• Total Fat 2.5 g
  • Sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
  • Polyun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.9 g
• Monoun­sat­u­rated Fat 0.2 g
• Cho­les­terol     110.5 mg
• Sodium     613.3 mg
• Potas­sium     416.4 mg
• Total Car­bo­hy­drate     49.7 g
  • Dietary Fiber 4.8 g
  • Sug­ars 2.1 g
• Pro­tein     22.2 g
• Vit­a­min A 30.0 %
• Vit­a­min B-12 14.1 %
• Vit­a­min B-6 15.8 %
• Vit­a­min C 115.2 %
• Vit­a­min D 0.0 %
• Vit­a­min E 7.2 %
• Cal­cium 7.8 %
• Cop­per 9.1 %
• Folate     39.6 %
• Iron     25.0 %
• Mag­ne­sium 10.6 %
• Man­ganese     18.5 %
• Niacin     30.3 %
• Pan­tothenic Acid         6.3 %
• Phos­pho­rus         14.5 %
• Riboflavin     22.1 %
• Sele­nium 36.7 %
• Thi­amin 36.0 %
• Zinc     8.8 %