Our pepper plants are actually exploding right now, and I’m so glad I didn’t rip them out of the ground in frustration rage a few months ago. But anyway, we had a good handful of shishito peppers early on, that we roasted in a pan. Along with some basil and chives that we mixed with yogurt and lemon for dipping. Easy and delish.
1. Shrimp and broccoli rabe. We had a bunch of broccoli rabe ready to pick in the garden, so we wanted an easy recipe to try. I don’t think we got the rabe right- it turned out really crispy and nothing like the picture- but the shrimps were tasty.
2. Broccoli and kale pasta bake. Yummy. I thought I had the sauce part all wrong, but turned out just fine. Would make again.
3. Sardine pasta with lemon and garlic. We’ve been trying to incorporate sardines into our meals, and we made a version of this. It was actually pretty good, and little dude couldn’t eat enough of it.
4. Banana yogurt muffins. Weren’t my favorite. Probably won’t make again. Maybe it was the sunflower seeds we used?
In this edition of my-summer-veggies-mostly-all-died-despite-my-efforts, I made some hummus with our lemon balm, as suggested on the back of the tahini jar. I’ve never grown lemon balm before, but it literally has come back from the dead twice now. Tomatoes and cucumbers acquired elsewhere.
The most exciting part of Tuesday- besides yelling at every bird, playing with the sprinkler, whenever the fridge is open, and when Jon comes home- is when our farm box arrives. The cucumber is an addition from our garden, and was also an exciting find.
Our strawberries grow in groups of two or three, and are very tiny. So I’ve been saving each one in a bag in the freezer, in the hopes that I can eventually make the smallest, but sweetest, batch of jam.
Finally! After several seasons of trying, we’ve successfully grown an edible carrot! And just in time for the Easter bunny.
I’m planning on picking them all within the next week or two, to make way for pepper plants. What should we make with them?? I’m gonna try baby food, maybe roasting a handful, or just eat them plain. They smell so super carroty!
For the record, I hate the word chard. I also wasn’t a huge fan of the veggie until recently. It grows so easily and fast in our garden, so we keep trying to eat it in different ways. If you don’t think you can grow anything, try growing chard. We stumbled upon this healthy recipe, and we eat it at least once a week.
Chard that is healthy and not awful
1 onion, diced
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 big bunch chard, stems removed and chopped
1 can white beans
Heat a little olive oil over medium high heat. Add onion and pepper, cook about 5 minutes. Add garlic, then the chard, and cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Then add the beans and cook until they are warm. Season with salt and pepper.
Our ginger ale finished fermenting, and we bottled it in these cute soda bottles. It didn’t get as “bubbly and effervescent” as I hoped from the description, but it does taste kinda carbonated! A bit of a zing to it! Plus all those good bacteria swimming around in there. Next we are trying a beet/apple soda!
These cookies are one of my very favorites. Many of my favorite things revolve around jam. Baby B was a great helper right up until the second batch needed rolling out. He didn’t believe me that I just needed a few more minutes, before the dough got all warm. But somehow all the cookies got made, and eaten!
I’ve been experimenting with different ferments this winter. We made a lemon dill sauerkraut that is delicious, a beet kraut that is great with potatoes, and we’ve got a spicier kraut mix still bubbling away. Now we are trying out a ginger bug, that we can add to juice to make soda. I was hoping for more bubbles, but we still have a couple more days until it’s ready to try! Have you been cooking up anything exciting?? 
guy and his girl 