Getting Ready For Christmas & Around The House and Gardens & Red Beans and Rice Recipe

Long Title = Long Post

I'm finished shopping and now I'm doing a little decorating. Getting ready for a tea I'm having this Saturday for the ladies and girls in my family. It's exciting.   I'm reusing my decorations from past years and adding in a few natural items such as feathers and pine cones along with a generous sprinkling of glitter.  When in doubt...add glitter!  I painted "Merry Christmas" on the mirror with a little acrylic paint.  I'm sure it'll scrape off just fine with a razor blade. 

The mirror is actually an old dresser mirror I saved from a friend who was throwing it out for his mother.  I turned it sideways and painted white first.  When I tired of that I gave it a refreshing coat of glittery gold copper paint!

I also plan on making some fun things for the tea...will post on those later as well.

I love my Carruth Studios Nativity Stone....as well as my lovely handmade angels.   We had so much fun making them in Sunday School.  I teach the 10, 11 and 12 year olds.  My favorite group to teach!  So my Nativity has it's very own host of heavenly beings!

I draped one of my roosters lovely tail feathers over the top to frame it softly!  Just like a loving hug...Sigh....

Hee Hee....Looks as if one angel is in trouble!

My cat and my dog pooped out on me while wrapping presents.  Flossie made herself comfy on top of one of the wrapped gifts.  Delta is comfortable as long as the cat's sleeping!

I've been picking so much from the garden.  The row of red beans I planted (you may remember) way back is picked and shelled.  I was concerned that it may not have time to finish before the coldest weather hit.  We've had a few nights below 40 but the beans and the tomatoes held on!  The largest plumpest ones I put in the white colander.  The ones that started to dry I put in the silver.  I'm going to cook the plump ones.  They are amazing.  So much better than dried and dried's pretty good.

I'm also harvesting: carrots, cauliflower, cabbage, beets, collards, turnips, mustard, Lima bean, broccoli....hmmm...oh yes cilantro, green onion, Roselle, dill, rosemary....that's about it right now.

I'm planting additional kale, cabbage,  and broccoli (transplants), and beets and lettuce (seed) right now.

I spread the remaining beans on a pan to dry.

Pretty.  Very pretty.  I love to feel them.

The plump ones I cooked in a crock pot....since I'd be out shopping all day....Yum

Red Beans

 

(I cook from sight so these are all approximates)

Onions (about 1/2 cup)

Garlic (about 3 to 4 cloves)

Bell Peppers  (about 1/2 cup)

Celery (about 1/2 cup)

Green Onions (about 2)

small bunch of parsley

Salt to taste

Pepper to taste

Dried Red Pepper (I use the ones I grow)

Oil (I use olive)

Red Beans (3/4 to 1 lb)

Smoked Sausage

 

Chop up all the seasonings.  Saute seasonings in oil until tender.  Add to pot with beans and water (or stock).  Cover the beans about 1 inch.  If cooking on the stove you may have to add water or stock as needed.  Salt and pepper and crumble in dried red pepper (or flakes or ground).  Cut sausage into links fry a little while in the pan.  Add to pot of beans and simmer beans until done.  They should be creamy!  Serve over rice.  I like medium grain brown rice or short grain will do too.

 

Some people put a stick of butter in their beans.  They claim it makes them creamy.  Not sure on this.  I'm not inclined to try it personally.  You can also throw in tasso, ham, a ham bone (whenever we have a whole ham I always save the bone for red beans), salt pork...hmmm I'm sure there is something else I've missed that some of the elders do.  They throw most everything in there.

 

If you have a variation I'd love to know!

 

Here's a picture my daughter took of me holding a cabbage and some carrots I grew.  She thought the cabbage looked like a wedding bouquet.  Lovely hand hmmm?



Roasted beets and carrots with olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt, cracked pepper, and balsamic vinegar.  I boiled the carrots and beets first (separately) to make them tender.  Yum.

Sewing Lately & Zucchini Muffins

My husband spied a 1958 electric Singer sewing machine in the back of a flea market in Columbia Mississippi.   He thought it was amazingly cool....I thought it would just be a hunk of cool junk to take up precious space in my home.
Byron cleaned it up and oiled it....and unbelievably it works charmingly!  No actually wonderfully!  I'm in love with it now.  I broke two machines previously trying to hem Byron's jeans....this machine went straight through three layers of jean material without even hesitating!  I am so impressed....It looks really cool as well.  This machine is 54 years old and has been stored Lord knows where and it still works....I'm working on my third modern machine in the past 10 years!

Here's my most recent plastic machine purchase...and this is the heavy duty one.  It is a little fancier and does some stitches the other doesn't, so for light work I still use this one.  I'm more familiar with it as well.  Lately I've been on an apron sewing kick.  I made one for my friend Christy for her college graduation and five other ones to sell for my daughters to make money to go Peak.  It's a youth meeting for our church affiliation.  I've sold them all.  I'm thinking about making more.  I sold them for $22.00.  I think that's a pretty cool price.  I may post future ones on my site to see if anyone is interested.  You may remember me posting about this 1920's apron pattern from Amy Barickman's book "Vintage Notions".

This is by far my favorite way to store thread.  It is so convenient  to look in and easily see what thread you need.  I use a little tape to secure the thread to the top of the spool if it doesn't have one of those cool tops that pop up a little to wrap and secure the thread under.

Here are five of the aprons I did.  I tried to choose really cool or vintagy fabrics.  The roses seemed to be everyones favorite.

I love these things!

I've also been crocheting edging onto cool flannels for baby blankies.  They're on the large side so I guess they could be used as lap blankies as well.  Thinking of selling these as well.  I crochet or knit in the car when my husband is driving.  That way I don't feel so useless or keep annoying my husband by shrieking and gasping at what I consider dangerous driving!  New Orleans during rush hour can be pretty bad.

Made zucchini date muffins with all the extra zucchini.  They were yum!  I'll post the recipe soon.

Also this is the best red beans and rice I have ever eaten (this is the beginning stages of cooking it...would you like that recipe too?)  Thanks to my neighbors.  They planted plain old Camellia red beans.  This is what came up.  Amazing yummy beans....much much better than the dried ones....So amazingly better.

Recent harvest!  I've had to pick the tomatoes green to keep the bugs from hauling them off!

Okra

It's hotter'an Hades around here right now, and it seems the only crops doing very well are the melons and the okra.  The hotter it gets.  The more they like it. 

We finally got what I call a rain.  It's looking and smelling like Louisiana again.  My mom had maybe hundreds of okra plants volunteer in her garden this year.  So she just let them grow.  I helped her harvest them the other day and snagged all the 3 to 1 inch pods to pickle.  My girls love pickled okra, and I have never grown enough to pickle. 

First I washed them really well...

...and cut the stems short.

I took out dill weed seed and garlic, both from the garden.

I put 2 cups of vinegar, two cups of water, 2 teaspoons of dill seed, and 1/3 cup of canning salt in a pot and brought to a boil.  I packed the fresh okra into pint jars, added two cloves of garlic and some red pepper flakes.  I filled the jars with the boiling vinegar mixture leaving a 1/2 inch headspace.  Then I sealed them with a lid and band and processed in a boiling canner for 15 minutes.  They turned out really yummy.  I waited a few days before opening a jar.  Mommy...I hope you'd like me to help you pick okra again!!!

I finally picked the large melon in my garden.  Guess how much it weighed?......

39.6 pounds!  You should have seen me lugging this thing back to the house.  I should have just used the wagon!

Blueberries and The First Fig

Byron's uncle has some friends with huge old blueberry bushes in their yard.  Unbelievably, they don't pick them!  So when they are ripe they call Byron's Uncle, who calls Byron's Father, who calls us!  Then, we all pile into the car with water bottles and sunscreen and drive up to Mississippi to pick plump juicy sweet and sometimes tart blueberries!  This year we picked plenty to freeze...

...eat fresh right away...

...and dry!  This is the first time I've ever dried blueberries.  I may have dried them a little much, but they'll most likely be fine for baking.  I'll just rehydrate them a little.  The book said to blanch them in boiling water first for 30 seconds.  I did and this is what they looked like when I put them on to dry.

Today I walked my usual rounds checking on everything and I noticed the figs are getting a little glow to them.  When I peeked a little closer I noticed under a large leaf this huge fig!  It's beautiful... the color is so rich....and did I say it's huge!

Inside...Me, Seleste and Talia shared it.  We each got a nice piece of only one fig!  I hope the rest are as yummy!

What's Up In The Garden

The peach tree is dripping with peaches.  Ms. Rivero came over and she and I peeled a passel of them.  We froze them on trays and then put them in bags.  They are so yummy to eat frozen on hot humid summer days.

My mouth waters just looking at this pic.  Those peaches are sooo juicy and sweet.  We also experimented and dried a few.  They turned out pretty yummy.  I plan to make some peach jam as well.  We also had a bubbling hot peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream when we finished. 

In order of how I like peaches:  Fresh, cobbler, frozen, jam, then dried.

Easy Yummy Fruit Cobbler Recipe

2 cups sugar (divided)
1 cup self rising flour
3/4 to 1 cup milk
1 stick of butter
Fresh Fruit (I like peach, blackberry and blue berry)

Melt butter and pour into 9 X 13 inch pan.  Mix 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour and 3/4 to 1 cup of milk.  Drizzle batter into pan over butter (don't stir!).  Sprinkle desired amount of fruit evenly over top use less or more depending on your likes.  Sprinkle 1/2 to 1 cup of sugar over top (depending on your likes!).  Then bake until golden at 350 degrees.  Serve hot with vanilla ice cream.  Sooo Yum.

It's always wonderful to have a little extra help, no matter how fleeting.

This was some of today's harvest:  squash, cucumber, Lima beans, purple hull peas, corn, and green beans.  There also was some more onions ready, okra, and cherry tomatoes.  I picked the sunflowers a few days ago...and they're still beautiful!  As you can see in the background I'm still cracking pecans and surprisingly they're still good.

...and lastly...The Federated Council of New Orleans Garden Clubs awarded me the "Woman Of The Year Award".  I knew something was up when I walked into the luncheon and my Mother and two of my sisters were sitting there.   Not usuallllllll.....anyway....I was very surprised and thrilled!  I'm still smiling!

Today's Harvest

This morning after getting the girls off to school, I grabbed my very fav cultivator tine hand garden tool and went out to see what how the potatoes did....And here it is!  My potato harvest!  This is by far the best number of potatoes that I have ever grown.  I feel confident that I will do even better next time. 

Trying and trying again is the key to succeeding with gardening.  Sometimes you just have to figure out what a certain veggie likes in your climate and garden.  That's why keeping notes is so important.  Now I know that potatoes and corn do best if planted in February here...even if I do have to protect them from the rare frost.  Those rare frosts have come a lot more often in the past two years.

Yes the potatoes are mostly a really nice size.  Seeing them next to the garlic makes them look smaller than they are.  The garlic is just really big!  I put three of the garlic in the horticulture show and people kept asking if it was elephant garlic.  Nope,  It's just really big garlic.  Thank you chickens for all that awesome fertilizer!

There's also some scallop squash, yellow squash and zucchini, bok choy, wax beans, and blue lake green beans.  I find the bush beans do best for me.  There's a red onion in there and some herbs:  parsley, thyme, and basil.  I think tonight's dinner will be completely from the garden!

Close up of my beautiful herbs and beans.

View of the garden from the front garden path.

This is one of my favorite plants for pots, angel wing begonias.  It does well when I forget to water it.  It gets a little leggy, but with a trim it bushes out nice and full.  It also roots easily in water. 

This Amazes Me

It's amazing how much food that can be grown with part time effort.  All of this is from my garden!  Much of it was grown with minimal effort. 

The citrus was as simple as planting a tree in the spring, giving it a little water every now and then during dry spells the first year, watering it during any extended dry spells the next year, spreading a little composted chicken manure around it twice a year, and when black soot appeared giving it a spray of neem tree oil once a week several times at twilight....and now....a beautiful tree that gives abundant fruit chock full of nutrition and goodness!!!!   I would encourage anyone to try it...

So much idle ground being mowed, trimmed, treated and fed...taking up time, effort, and money....why?  Your land has so much to give you...plant a seed....a tree....a plant......and let it give......

Green beans from the garden...(the frost last night has just about killed them....but oh what bounty while they lasted!)

...dried chili peppers ready to crush...

....PECANS!  (I have twelve gallons of pecan meat in the freezer right now.  I plan to make praline pecans as presents to teachers and friends....super yum...I'll post the recipe later.)

Pickled Cauliflower and canned green beans from the garden.  Super juicy yummy sweet grapefruit and navel oranges from the trees....

Green onions, green peppers, green cucumbers, and yes...potatoes!!! From the towers...I must recommend the towers...I'll tell more later.  There's my compost bucket.  I never chop anything without having my bucket ready....those are stalks of dried basil seed I need to save....

Summer stuffed artichokes from the freezer warming up.....

...and a very sweet and crisp cabbage freshly picked from the garden...

....my Mother-in-law and I made the most delicious venison sausage from two large roasts a cousin gave us.  This is soooo delicious...It is mixed with ground pork 1/2 and 1/2.  After figuring all of our expenses we estimated the cost to be $1.05 a pound....compare that to $3.89 that a local grocery charges for a similar product.

...there's plenty to store and plenty share...

....value the land....be nice to the land...and It'll will give to you....

Recent Harvest