What is the best part of summer? I am sure everyone has a different definition. So, maybe I should ask "what is the best part of MY summer?"
It is now, not any particular day, or month, or whatever, it is now, when I am getting my first produce from my garden. Nothing spectacular yet. Just one of my favorites.
I really do love fried green tomatoes. And I have had them twice this week, but I do have to be careful, or I will eat them all green and fried, and not have any ripe and red tomatoes. I love them also.
I have also had mashed potatoes and green tomato gravy. Most folks have never heard of green tomato gravy. One year I had soooo many tomatoes, both green and red, and didn't know what to do with all the green ones. At that time I was still canning and freezing, so canned the red tomatoes. Decided to try freezing the green ones, it worked pretty well, but they don't taste like the ones fresh out of the garden.
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| REFLECTIONS |
To make green tomato gravy.
Take a couple of green tomatoes, cutting the stem out, then chop the tomatoes into small pieces. Once they are chopped, place them in a saucepan with butter and slowly saute them until tender, cooked through, but not browned.
To this mixture add flour (don't ask me measurements, I am a "cook by pinch and guess), mix well, then slowly stir in water continuing to stir until the mixture begins to look like gravy. You will recognize it when you see it. If you don't, perhaps you have never made gravy.
Add salt and pepper to taste, spoon over your mashed potatoes, eat and enjoy.
I know there will probably only be one in ten that likes fried green tomatoes, and probably one in twenty that will like the gravy, but if you like it, you really like it, and if you don't like it, don't sweat it. You have to be a little bit nuts, like I am, to like some of the stuff I do.
Soon there will be green beans, and, if lucky fresh corn. The potatoes are bloomin' like crazy, the plants full and green, so hopefully will have a good potato crop this fall. That is the extent of my garden. Nothing like when all the kids were home. Then we grew just about anything that would grow in a garden.
One year the kids and I grew peanuts, roasted and ate them.
One year we grew kohlrabi - just wanted to see if we could. It grew and we ate it. Every year we tried to grow something different, just to see if we could, and then to see if we liked it after we grew it. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't, but it was fun.
I remember the year I grew turnips. Cooked a mess of them for supper one night. One son thought they were potatoes, he had a really really big appetite, so loaded up his plate. I wish you could have seen the expression on his face with the first bite. Needless to say he DID NOT like turnips.
We learned that we liked persimmons, when we knew when to pick them You have to wait until after a frost, then they become sweet and juicy. Eat them before a frost, you will pucker up for about 24 hours.
Another thing that was fun was parsnips. They are a tuber that you don't want to dig until after a hard freeze. That is what makes them sweet. We like them parboiled, then rolled in flour and browned in a skillet of butter. Really good eating.
One year raised broccoli. It grew well, but so did the worms. Major operation getting the broccoli cleaned so we cold eat it. Too much work. Bought all future broccoli from the store. Tried celery, didn't do much.
I don't raise cucumbers and zucchini any more - I like them - but they always bear way too many and too much goes to waste. Tim and Kay have cucumbers and zucchini in their garden, so I always have some fresh on hand. In fact, my major project today is making zucchini loaf. My recipe makes two loaves, Jerry and I will eat one, will freeze the other until the kids come home from Maine in September.
All this talk of food is making me hungry. Wonder if I should have fried green tomatoes for lunch????
Enjoy your day and God Bless.
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