Karen Freeman
I love the fresh summer vegetables. It seems like Hobert and I have added daily to our garden. We can’t wait until they are big enough to eat! It’s exciting to walk through the garden each morning with a cup of coffee and check the progress of all of our little plants.
We don’t need to wait until things are ready to pick to start deciding on some recipes to use our bounty. We can anticipate and plan ahead.
My church youth group is preparing a cookbook and we have been collecting recipes from the ladies in our church. We have some great cooks in our congregation, as I’m sure you do too. Here are a few of my favorite dishes that I have eaten or made during our church meals.
The first recipe is sweet potato casserole. Everyone has a recipe for this. I could eat this almost every day. Sweet potatoes are very healthy whether you put them in a casserole or just nuke them and eat them without anything added. We have 2 rows of these on our garden this year!
The second recipe is Josie Reece’s squash pie. This is a dessert squash pie, not a side dish. To make it even better, it’s made with Splenda so even a diabetic can have at least a little taste!
The third recipe is from our minister’s wife, Esther. Esther is a great cook! The recipe is for a potato casserole. It’s an easy recipe to make and your family will love it. This one will become a family favorite.
The fourth recipe is a great way to use that cabbage that’s growing in your garden. Make your own kraut. It’s so easy that you will wonder why you haven’t always made your own. There is no processing! Just make sure that your jars are very clean. I do boil my jars for a couple of minutes just to make sure they are sterile. But, once you seal the jars, just put them in bags or in a dark place and leave them for several weeks.
Sweet Potato Casserole
Marie Harris
3 cups mashed sweet potatoes
1 stick margarine, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
Mix together and put in a square casserole dish. Put in oven while you fix topping mixture.
Topping
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup plain flour
1/3 cup margarine, melted
1 cup chopped pecans
Mix topping ingredients together and pour over the potato mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until brown.
Note: Acorn squash are good in place of sweet potatoes. It takes 3 acorns for 3 cups or 2 large acorns.
Can substitute for the 1 cup sugar with 1/4 cup honey and 1/2 cup milk using 1/4 cup margarine instead of 1/2 cup.
Squash Pie
Josie Reece
1 Cup Squash, drained (Yellow or Zucchini)
4 Tsp Self-Rising Flour
3 Eggs
1 Cup Milk
3/4 Cup Sugar or Splenda
1/2 Stick Margarine or Butter
Combine all ingredients except cinnamon. Spray Pyrex with Pam. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Sprinkle Cinnamon on top. Top with Cool Whip.
Potato Casserole
Esther Creed
1-pound package frozen Hash Browns
1 Cup Onions, chopped
1 Can Cream of Chicken Soup
1 Pint Sour Cream
? Cup Melted Butter
1 ? Cup Sharp Cheese
1 Tsp Salt
Mix ingredients and cook at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Sauerkraut
Garnett Mickles
1/2 Cup Salt
1 Cup Vinegar
1 Gallon Cold Water
Mix above in water and let set.
Chop enough cabbage to make 6-7 quarts. Pack medium tight in jars. Pour liquid mixture over the cabbage until covered. Put lids and rings on and tighten firmly. Set in brown bags until ready to eat.
Keep in brown bags until you eat to keep kraut from turning brown.
Did you know?
Gardening tips and tricks
Here, the latest tips and tricks from Paul James, host of Gardening by the Yard:
• To remove the salt deposits that form on clay pots, combine equal parts white vinegar, rubbing alcohol and water in a spray bottle. Apply the mixture to the pot and scrub with a plastic brush. Let the pot dry before you plant anything in it.
• To prevent accumulating dirt under your fingernails while you work in the garden, draw your fingernails across a bar of soap and you'll effectively seal the undersides of your nails so dirt can't collect beneath them. Then, after you've finished in the garden, use a nailbrush to remove the soap and your nails will be sparkling clean.
• To prevent the line on your string trimmer from jamming or breaking, treat with a spray vegetable oil before installing it in the trimmer.
• Turn a long-handled tool into a measuring stick! Lay a long-handled garden tool on the ground, and next to it place a tape measure. Using a permanent marker, write inch and foot marks on the handle. When you need to space plants a certain distance apart – from just an inch to several feet – you'll already have a measuring device in your hand.
• To have garden twine handy when you need it, just stick a ball of twine in a small clay pot, pull the end of the twine through the drainage hole, and set the pot upside down in the garden. Do that, and you'll never go looking for twine again.
• Little clay pots make great cloches for protecting young plants from sudden, overnight frosts and freezes.
• To turn a clay pot into a hose guide, just stab a roughly one-foot length of steel reinforcing bar into the ground at the corner of a bed and slip two clay pots over it --one facing down, the other facing up. The guides will prevent damage to your plants as you drag the hose along the bed.
• To create perfectly natural markers, write the names of plants – using a permanent marker – on the flat faces of stones of various sizes and place them at or near the base of your plants.
• Got aphids? You can control them with a strong blast of water from the hose or with insecticidal soap. But here's another suggestion, one that's a lot more fun – get some tape!
Wrap a wide strip of tape around your hand, sticky side out, and pat the leaves of plants infested with aphids. Concentrate on the undersides of leaves, because that's where the little buggers like to hide.
• The next time you boil or steam vegetables, don't pour the water down the drain, use it to water potted patio plants, and you'll be amazed at how the plants respond to the "vegetable soup."
• Use leftover tea and coffee grounds to acidify the soil of acid-loving plants such as azaleas, rhododendrons, camellias, gardenias and even blueberries. A light sprinkling – say, a layer of about one-quarter of an inch – applied once a month will keep the pH of the soil on the acidic side.
• Use chamomile tea to control damping-off fungus, which often attacks young seedlings quite suddenly. Just add a spot of tea to the soil around the base of seedlings once a week or use it as a foliar spray.
• If you need an instant table for tea service, look no farther than your collection of clay pots and saucers. Just flip a good-sized pot over, and top it off with a large saucer. And when you've had your share of tea, fill the saucer with water, and your "table" is now a birdbath.
• The quickest way in the world to dry herbs: just lay a sheet of newspaper on the seat of your car, arrange the herbs in a single layer, then roll up the windows and close the doors. Your herbs will be quickly dried to perfection. What's more, your car will smell great.
http://www.hgtv.com/landscaping/gardening-tips-and-tricks/index.html
Karen’s Kitchen is a weekly column by Karen Freeman of Tarboro. Contact Karen at:
kvfreeman@triad.rr.com
