Reaping what you sow (or at least what your neighbors sow)

Back in April my eyes were bigger than my garden. After three years without any veggie garden at all, I was anxious to plant one of everything! Needless to say, less than 150 square feet can only hold so much so my neighbors received extra watermelon seedlings and pumpkin seeds and my dad got half packets of beets, beans and butternut squash seeds.

While my own watermelon vines died, my neighbor's flourished and led to several, large watermelons. Last night we got home late after spending a day at my parents house cooking and eating butternut squash from my dad's bumper crop (he got 12 giant ones, I got 3 wimpy ones--I think I'm doing something wrong). Anyway, it was after 10 pm when I heard someone on my porch and there was my neighbor, precious watermelon chunk in hand. We ate it tonight; it was delicious! So my tip to you: share your seeds/seedlings. Garden insurance policy!

And while I'm already posting a photo of my messy, overstuffed fridge, a few other notes.

This pasta sauce is really, really good. I've made it three times (less olive oil, more garlic and oregano than it calls for) and it's great. Last time I overcooked it and ended up with a tasty, garlicy pizza sauce. Ok, I am irritated, that was supposed to be a link but I CANNOT re-find the dang recipe (i've used it three times--where is it tonight??) So here it is from paper--at least I printed it out--source unknown:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In heavy oven-proof frying pan or 9x13 inch glass cake pan combine:
~3 pounds tomatoes, halved. They recommend Roma, you can use whatever, just do a single layer covering the entire bottom of the pan
1/3-1/2 cup good olive oil
12-18 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (it called for 12, I did more)
3 tbsp fresh oregano leaves, chopped (or more, I did about 1/4 cup or more)
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp fresh ground pepper.

Roast 30 minutes then toss and roast about 30 more minutes until carmelized. Remove from oven, cool slightly and then blend until smoothish.

Other kitchen notes:

• I bought the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and, I must admit, I was disappointed. The boule, basic loaf always had an off taste and there were several errors in the book (all noted on their website, but still).  And then I tried the olive oil flatbread recipe and the book might be worth it just for that recipe. It's fantastic. I made pizza crust (see above: burned pasta sauce=pizza sauce) and from the same batch did a rosemary flatbread to serve with butternut squash soup (using up all the leftover squash from my dad's million pound butternut).
• The mango is for another batch of mango chutney but I am out of canning jars....so I've been eating the mango.
• And, finally, confession time. I totally stole that glass cup from Slow Foods. Or maybe it was my party favor for my $65 ticket? Nope, probably stole it. The guilt is kinda getting to me.

Comments

[claire]

you are my hero for the sole reason that you showed the inside of your fridge.

[farfromca]

Watermelon sounds really yummy right now. Sounds like you need some garden soil from your dad's yard. :)