The first fruits from our key lime (Mexican lime) tree! They’re so little and cute.
Phone Photo Friday
09/03/2010
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Tomato Basil Soup – Garden Fresh!
08/30/2010
I love soup and I love to make soup. Tomato Basil Soup is one of my summer time favorites, especially when I can use fresh tomatoes from the garden!
Ingredients:
tomatoes, any kind. I used about 10 beef steak
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 medium baking potato, finely chopped
1.25 cup broth
12 or so basil leaves. I prefer sweet basil
1 clove of garlic
heavy cream or sour cream (optional)
splash of extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
Start out by pouring a splash of olive oil into a big soup pot.
Chop up the potato and onion and throw them in the pot once the oil is hot. The potato is the unsung hero in this soup – don’t leave it out; it’s essential for the right texture/thickness.
Cook the onion and potato for 10-15 minutes but don’t let it brown.
Meanwhile cut up the tomatoes. Cut the tops off and then cut the rest into quarters.
My favorite thing about this recipe – no need to remove the skin or seeds!
Dump the tomatoes in with the onion and potato in the pot.
Add 1 clove of chopped garlic.
Pour the broth over top. (I use chicken boullion cubes & water.)
Cover and let simmer for about 25 minutes.
At this point, let the soup cool a little and then carefully blend it in small batches. Or … if you have the greatest kitchen invention ever (no, not a Kitchenaid Mixer …) a Braun multi-purpose blender … use the handheld blender to blend the soup up right in the pot. Wear an oven mitt and you don’t even need to let it cool!
Pick and wash 12 or so fresh basil leaves. I started with 6 and realized that wasn’t enough for my taste.
Chop them up and set aside a few pinches for garnish. Mix the rest into the soup.
Depending on the flavor strength of your broth and the sweetness of your tomatoes, add salt and pepper to your liking.
Serve with a dallop of cream (or a drizzle of half & half if it’s all you have …) and a bit of chopped basil. A piece of toast is nice compliment.
If you make this, let me know how it goes!
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Phone Photo Friday
08/27/2010
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Our Garden – July 2010
07/28/2010It’s hot, hot, hot and humid this July in Nashville. Our echinacea is blooming …
Our zinnia are blooming (liatris and canna lilies in background are done) …
and our crepe myrtle tree is blooming.
The crepe myrtle, banana tree and Japanese flowering plum tree all seem to be having a height competition.
That’s all good and lovely, but sadly, our peach tree is not doing so well. The tree looks fine but all of our peaches got some kind of worm that ate them from the inside out. That and some of them got black spots on the outside. Very disappointing. The last remaining peaches rotted on the tree. We need to do some more research before next year. Does anyone have experience with peach trees?
Then there is our vegetable garden… Our romaine lettuce got too hot and turned bitter. Our pepper plants have been suffering from too much sun and aren’t producing. Our brussel spouts have been eaten up by bugs. Our Better Boy tomato plant looks sickly. (Our Better Boys were bad last year too. Not getting this kind anymore!) Our watermelon plants got too hot in pots and the one and only melon dried up while we were on vacation. Our arugula is m.i.a.
But, it’s not all bad news. Our Beef Steak tomatoes, cherry tomatoes and grape tomato plants are doing great! We’re harvesting them faster than we can eat them and they are delicious! (Most of what you see there is the Beef Steak plant.)
I did a little research on the tomato skin splitting. Early on they kept splitting right before they would get ripe. Turns out it’s from not enough water and then a lot of water. Like 2-3 dry days and then a heavy rain. We’ve been watering them for 30-60 minutes a day on a low sprinkler setting now and they’re doing great.
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Zinnia & Glass Soda Bottles
07/27/2010Our fruit/vegetable garden is in a bit of a slump (more on that tomorrow) but thankfully our flowers are doing just fine. Zinnia are one of my favorite flowers to plant for cutting. They bloom for a long time outside and they hold up in vases for quite a while, too.
Jason and I have been collection glass soda caps on our window sill for the past 6 months or so. I’m not sure why or what we’re going to do with them. If the bottle is pretty enough it gets saved on the windowsill, too. I like to use them as vases.
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Our Vegetable (& Fruit) Garden – June 2010
06/21/2010In a continuation of Thursday’s post about our garden, here is a look around our vegetable garden and the fruit trees, plants & bushes we have around our yard.
Our green and red pepper plants are not doing so great and we’re not sure why. The plants each have a pepper but have few yellowish leaves and don’t seem to be growing much. We have one head of romaine lettuce, one brussel sprout plant and lots of grape, cherry, better boy and beef steak tomatoes. (BTW, we’re much happier with the beef steak than the better boy this year. I think this is the last year we’re going to plant better boy.)
The peach tree is doing pretty well. We have some little black spots on our peaches but not the big black mold spots like last year (known as Black Spot, from too much rain.)
I can’t wait for these babies to get ripe!
I’ve been loving the black raspberries this year! I’m looking forward to the bush getting bigger so we can eat more than 1 or 2 berries at a time.
Foreground – flowering yucca in our cactus garden. Background, l-r – vegetable garden, compost bin, peach tree.
I know it’s out of focus but that there is a cute, teeny little watermelon. We have 3 or 4 of these pea size cuties so far.
Jason’s Mexican (key) lime tree is looking good. I wonder if we’ll have enough to make a key lime pie.
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Our Garden – June 2010
06/17/2010
Are you ever just sitting somewhere enjoying a lovely scene and you think “I should take a picture!” That’s what happened last night while I was sitting out on the patio eating a popsicle. I am so grateful for our beautiful garden and sometimes I become like a proud mama with my camera …
it was getting dark so the lighting on these photos was weird and I was experimenting.
Here’s our garden last month if you’d like to compare: Our Garden – May 2010
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Our Garden – May 2010
05/20/2010May is a beautiful time of year. I feel so blessed to have such loveliness around my home and my wonderful husband who loves to garden (and is teaching me to love it too.)
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Posted by mahlbrandt
Our Vegetable Garden – May 2010
05/17/2010A few weeks ago we had the first “harvest” from our vegetable garden: a handful of tiny, delicious strawberries. This weekend we shared our first small cherry tomato. Isn’t it cute? It was yummy.
The raised vegetable bed with 4 varieties of tomatoes, red peppers, green peppers, brussel sprouts, arugula and romaine.
Baby green pepper:
Better Boy tomato plant:
Looking forward to these in a few weeks! Thanks to our greenhouses, we should have an early crop!
The herb garden:
Raspberry bush:
Peach tree:
Yesterday we bought two blueberry bush stems on clearances at Lowes. Not expecting any harvest this year but I’m looking forward to blueberries in the future!
I forgot to snap a picture of the Key Lime tree Jason bought a few days ago. We’re also considering adding some more fruit trees this year to make a mini orchard – maybe pear and fig. I’m so excited to have all these fruits and vegetables right from our own urban backyard!!
2 Comments | Art, Art: Cooking, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: fruit, orchard, tomatoes, vegetable garden | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Phone Photo Friday
04/23/2010
One of our azalea bushes in full bloom
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Posted by mahlbrandt
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