Fall Garden Update November 3rd, 2013

Okay,  it's been a while since my last update, but I have been super busy with baby showers, wedding showers, anniversary's, birthdays, and weddings in the month of October! I think its the most eventful month of the year for the Wolff's! Anyway, here is how the garden is going.... These were taken October 13th, so we are a couple of weeks behind on the blog. I'll post more in the coming week! As of this post, I have string beans to be picked, and cucumbers very close to picking. Our baby tomatoes are small but growing. I'll post more on Wednesday.

Cauliflower

Zucchini

Baby  Zucchini

  

Baby  Zucchini

Bibb lettuce

Bean Flowers

Bean Flowers

Carrots

Carrots

Fall Garden Update

Live and Learn

Well its been 23 days since I put everything in the ground. I had some issues! 

First off my beans would NOT come up!! I tried twice in the last 2 weeks and NOTHING!! 

So, I went to the feed store and purchased new seeds. I am glad I did! I bought two new kinds - Blue Lake Pole Beans, and Contender Bush Beans. I planted these on Wednesday September 18th and they came up on Sunday September 22nd! So I have concluded that my previous beans were OLD! Live and learn they say! Anyway, 4 days to sprout is pretty good! 

Here are some pictures I took this morning. 

Beans

This is the Contender Bush Beans. Pretty neat, right?!

Blue Lake Pole Beans - "Pole" just means they are climbing beans.

Cauliflower 

When my beans didn't come up on the first try, I decided to plant some cauliflower in two of the spots where the beans didn't come up. The one at the bottom is a purple and the top one is a yellow "Cheddar" variety cauliflower plant.

Hopefully they will wind up looking like this when it is all said and done! 

See example below!

 

Next up - Squash 

 

My Zucchini squash have made a lot of progress! I thinned out the plants a little because I had WAY to many in each spot. They are looking a little yellow, but I am thinking the 3 inches of rain we got on Friday may be the cause of that. We will wait and see.

This is a yellow crookneck squash I bought as a small plant at the nursery. Look at the difference between that one and the Zucchini I planted from seed. Wow! It is way smaller than the Zucchini and very yellow.

Well, this looks like just dirt! I decided to throw in some Bib lettuce and  Spinach seeds here. So hopefully these pop in a couple of days!

 

Carrots

This is the sad state of my carrots. Again, I had trouble with all my seeds coming up. I planted some more seeds yesterday, so we shall see what happens here!

Tomato Plants 

Tomato plants

Cucumbers 

 I am very exited about my cucumber plants! The ones on the far end are looking great! It's kinda strange how the ones on the closer end are so much smaller. We are still trying to figure that one out. I have been babying these like crazy! The heat causes them to be so droopy in the afternoons. I have been watering them sometimes twice a day! You can see the cover hanging above them. I kept it over them while they were small to help with the unbearable sun in the afternoons. It shades about 30% of the light out so it is not beating them down so much.

Cucumber - "Straight 8" variety. In the background is my dill plant.

And sadly, my broccoli and cabbage seedlings are struggling. They came up but are growing so slow if at all. I may resort to replanting some or buying plants.

 

Well, that's it for now. I'll post another update next week!

Panko Crusted Redfish Filets with Lemon Thyme Sauce

What To Do? A Freezer Full Of Fish Filets!

- This Recipe Should take you about 35-40 minutes. 

 - It's the rice you're waiting on!

Last Winter, DH and friends went on several fishing trips and did pretty well! They caught trout, flounder, and LOTS of Redfish! Here's a Pic....

We have eaten fish all year. Good thing--- I know. We ate up all the trout and flounder pretty quick, and now we are left with the Redfish. The problem is trying to find a new way to cook it. We have had grilled Redfish on the halfshell, deep fried, cornmeal fried, baked, broiled, and even recently poached! So today I used my tried and true trout recipe, but subbed in the Redfish. 

 

I'm not sure if you can tell, but we freeze them in individual filets with the scales still on. This is how you need them for Redfish On The Halfshell. So first off, I had to remove the skin and scales.

Next, I gathered up my ingredients. Don't worry, you don't need alot of stuff. I guarantee you have everything in your pantry and fridge.  

But you need Panko Bread Crumbs if you want No-Fail Crispy Fish!

 
If you don't know about Panko Bread Crumbs, let me introduce you. Panko is a Japanese Breadcrumb that will make any dish crispy. You cannot go wrong! I have been successful with regular homemade breadcrumbs, but Panko is never-fail. Unless of course, if you burn them! Then they're super crunchy! Use it on anything you would pan fry or oven fry. 

For The Fish:                                       

1/4 cup Flour                                                   

1 cup Panko Bread Crumbs                               

3-4 tablespoons Canola/Veg Oil                         

1 tablespoon butter (not pictured -oops)             

2 eggs whites                                                 

1/2 lemon or more if you like (sliced)

Salt & Pepper

Thyme

For the Rice

1 Cup Uncooked White Rice
2 Cups Chicken Broth
1 Tablespoon Butter
Salt and Pepper
1/8 Tsp Thyme (optional)

 

For The Sauce: 

Use the 2 egg yolks

Zest of the Lemon (approximately 1 teaspoon)

Other half of the lemon - juiced (approximately 2 Teaspoons)

1/4 cup chicken Broth

Salt & Pepper
2 tablespoons butter

Sprinkle of Thyme Or fresh if you have some

Dash of Cayenne pepper

Okay, to get started.... Get the rice going first so you can cook the fish while the rice steams!

Heat a tablespoon of oil in the pan on med-high heat. When it shimmers, add the 2 cups white rice.

 

Toast the rice until it looks like it is getting opaque.

Pour in the 2 cups chicken broth and bring to a boil. Pour in slowly because it will splatter in the hot pan at first!! Oh and add a sprinkle of Thyme. Just a pinch! Then lower heat to the lowest setting you have and cover. Done.

Now, start on the fish!

Preheat oven to 250 Fahrenheit. We will need a warm oven to put the fish in while we make the sauce. 

Sprinkle filets with Salt and Pepper. Lightly coat in flour, then egg white, then Panko breadcrumbs.

 Heat 1 tablespoon butter and 3 tablespoons oil in saute pan on med-high heat. When it shimmers, put in your filets.

 

  

Pan fry until golden and flip over. This takes about 2 minutes per side.

Remove from heat and put in oven safe dish. Squeeze a little lemon juice on each one and top it with a lemon slice. 

(My lemon is cut weird because I wanted to use one entire lemon and I was making for the three of us - no company!) Put a cover or foil on it and put in the oven while you make the sauce.

Now, the sauce!

Whisk the egg yolks, lemon zest, and lemon juice together in a small bowl.

Put a small pan of boiling water on the stove and place a bowl that will fit over the top. (Double-boiler)

Whisk until it begins to thicken and smooth out. 


Next slowly add in the 1/4 cup chicken broth, thyme, and salt & pepper. 
Continue whisking until it thickens up again.  
Notice how the color got much lighter when we added the chicken broth.

Next, I melted in 1 tablespoon butter and some cayenne pepper.

Stir until smooth, and your done! The sauce should take less than 10 minutes to finish. Look for it to coat the back of a spoon.

I served it up with a simple saute of spinach and onion!

Fall Garden

Fall Gardening -Starting My Seeds On Labor Day

So, I am determined to grow fresh vegetables for us this fall. I have procrastinated a bit because of the unbearable heat. I did manage to get the cucumbers seeds planted last week and they came up on Saturday! 

Here they are on Labor Day. I'm going to wait a few days and thin them out... leaving the strongest ones.

I also planted some seeds on Labor Day.....  broccoli, cabbage, green beans, carrots, and potatoes. An ant mound kept me from planting the squash! I think I took care of them and hopefully I can get those in the ground tomorrow as well as some herbs.

I sectioned off the areas so I wouldn't over plant the seeds. 

Above is the carrot section. I made 3 rows of 20.

This section is about 5 feet long by 1.25 feet wide.

The section on the left has broccoli and cabbage. Here I did 4 cabbage and six broccoli. (If I remember! We'll see them in a few days I hope.)

The plants you see are leftovers from the summer. 

In the back of the photo is a bell pepper plant and a serrano pepper plant. In the front of the photo is a habanero plant. (Around the habanero plant will eventually be herbs.)

They seem to be doing fine so I am just going to leave them alone.

This is the opposite side of the garden. In the large rectangle, I planted 2 rows of 6 green beans.

 In the smaller rectangle is 2 rows of 2 lima beans. I'm not the biggest fan of lima beans, but I had some seeds so we will try them out.

Behind the small rectangle, we are doing an experiment. I had like 8 small yellow potatoes from the grocery store that were beginning to get eyes on them, so I threw those in the garden to see if they will come up! Time will tell! But, I don't have high expectations for them! 

That's all I could do on Labor Day as I ran into two piles of ants on the other side of the beans. I treated the ants and couldn't continue until Wednesday, September 4th. 

Wednesday, September 4th, 2013

Inside the circles, I planted 5-6 zucchini seeds. The circles are to remind me where they are until they come up. It seems like a lot, but last time when I tried to grow from seed I didn't have a single one survive! So this time I am trying to increase my odds! I will have to thin them out if there are too many. I might just have to find them a new home. We love squash in this house!

Well I have 2 small sections left in the raised bed. I am going to try Fall tomatoes again this year in one. The other will probably be some herbs... like thyme or parsley... So I'm off to the Nursery to see what they have!

Quick Lunch - Black Bean and Sausage with Peppers Over Rice

So, to start, I had made a pot of black beans over the weekend so those were the base for my dish. I challenged myself to whip up lunch in 30 minutes! You can do this for dinner too! Here is what you need....

Cooked white rice (use up leftovers!)
1 link sausage (any kind you like)
1/2 yellow onion
1 small bell pepper (any color)--- mine was from the garden and it was beginning to turn red
1 clove garlic (you will see a theme here--- we love garlic!)
2 tablespoons canola or olive oil
few dashes hot sauce
1/2 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1 and 1/2 cups water
2 cups cooked beans

Ready, set, GO!

 

Chop up your onion, bell pepper, and garlic while you heat up the pan with the oil.

 Throw in your veggies and saute for a couple of minutes.

 

Slice your sausage on the diagonal and put in the pan with the veggies. Cook until sausage and veggies begin to lightly brown.

Add in a couple dashes hot sauce and a 1 teaspoon of tomato paste. (if you don't have tomato paste - no problem! Use a little diced tomato or even ketchup if you have too!)

Give it a stir for another 5 minutes and then add in the black beans and spices. 

Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

 While your waiting, get your rice out and heat it up! If you don't have leftover rice, you could easily start the rice in the beginning and it would be done at almost exactly the same amount of time to whip up this dish!

And that's it! What an easy dinner! 

 

You could easily do this with chicken and white beans.

Actually, leftover chicken would be great! I think I'll have that on the menu for next week!