Zucchini Pizzas and Fried Green Tomatoes

So the other night I was a little too ambitious with my dinner plans.  I grilled sliced zucchini from my garden and charred some tomatoes.  I then mashed the tomatoes and placed the zucchini slices on a cookie sheet and covered them with the mashed tomatoes and some mozzarella and put it in the oven at a low temp to melt the cheese.  When it was ready, we sprinkled some chopped basil (from the garden) on top.

While that was in the oven, I was roasting some cabbage and bacon on the grill and frying up some green tomato slices in the kitchen.  After and hour and half of cooking, we finally were able to sit down and eat it all.  

Yesterday, I gave a pint size baskets of tomatoes to my neighbors along with a good size cucumber.  Afterwards, I checked the garden and harvested some more tomatoes (after throwing about a dozen of them in the compost pile... thanks to the stinking aphids), 2 peppers, and another large zucchini.  My backyard gardening neighbor gave us some "hot" jalapeno peppers, so I am thinking maybe now I should start learning how to pickle things and make some jalapeno jelly too.  

Running Total of  Summer 2012 Produce

cucumbers: 20

Tomatoes: 187.36 oz = 11.71 lbs

Zucchini: 4

Peppers:  2

Beans: handful of Lima bean pods

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Best summer harvest yet!!!

After killing a few adult aphids and several baby ones, I picked a good amount of tomatoes and 4 cucumbers.  Today's weight of tomatoes is 45.47 oz, so roughly 3 oz shy of 3 lbs.  The two large green tomatoes will be sliced and fried for some yummy fried green tomatoes tonight.

Running total of Produce

cucumbers:  19

tomatoes: 146.14 oz = 9.13 lbs

zucchini:   3

peppers:  0

potatoes:  0

peas/beans:  

There are about 3 peppers that I so want to pick but I think I will let them stay on a few more days to get some growth to them.  The 4th zucchini is about ready too, so will have to keep looking for some more recipes.   This week we are going to do some zucchini rolls filled with shrimp and goat cheese grilled on the grill. 

We have been doing our best to eat and cook with all the tomatoes and cucumbers but we just can't seem to put a dent in them.   I have packaged up a pint size each for my neighbors along with a good sized cucumbers  (some green ones).  I will keep the yellowish ones to eat for myself.  

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Zucchini bread

Our first recipe using some of our garden grown zucchini is some yummy zucchini bread.  We used a Paula Dean recipe.  It was enough to make one large bread (which we took to our small group last night and we left with just an empty plate).  Even the kids at it up... little did they probably know though that it had zucchini in it... all they saw where the chocolate chips.  Besides the large bread, we also had enough to make 5 mini loaves to eat our selves and share with family and friends.

Here's the recipe we used.

Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread by Paula Dean  ( but there's not a single pat of butter in it!!!)
3 cups all-purpose four
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
3 eggs
2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, grease 2 9x5" loaf pans
Sift together four, baking powder, salt, spices, and baking soda
In a large bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy. Add sugar and continue beating until well blended.
Stir in oil, vanilla, zucchini, pecans, chocolate chips.
Stir in sifted ingredients.
Pour into loaf pans.
Bake for 50 minutes.  Mini loaf pans for 25 minutes.  Check with toothpick.. comes out clean.. its ready.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

Surprise zucchini today

After helping my father-in-law move into his new house over the weekend, I hadn't had time to check the garden in two days.  I already knew I had a zucchini that was about ready to be cut off so as I went to get it this morning it had doubled in size.  Zucchinis grow fast.  I did my usually walk around picking a few ripe tomatoes (today's haul was a little over 13 oz).   As I was rounding the back side checking on my cucumbers, low and behold, I was surprised with another 10" zucchini that I hadn't seen before.  So I told Jennie that we will have to make some zucchini bread soon before they go bad.

 
 With the netting on top of the tomato plants, the stems are now reaching about 6 ft long so they are beginning to lay sideways and starting to crowd out and shade my sweet pepper plants and into my kale "tree".  Not sure what to do, so will just leave it be for now.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!

I think my garden has officially made its value just in tomatoes so far

This morning I found some more ripe tomatoes ready to be picked.  Thanks to Jennie's yarn scale, I am able to get a correct weight on my tomato yield.  Today they weighed in just a hair over 2 lbs.  I think its about time I start swapping produce with my neighbors, because I can't eat this many tomatoes.  Went to HEB this morning for the weekly grocery shopping and was able  to plan a whole weeks of meals using mostly produce from my garden.  Only spent $76 for this week, that of course includes store bought produce that is organic.   My wife and I try to eat mainly organic or local.  My garden is grown organically, as well as I can.  No one can be 100% organic if growing outside.

Found another zucchini this morning about 7" long.  I am going to wait a few days before picking it, simply because I already have 2 sitting in the fridge.  Thinking about making some yummy zucchini bread with it and one of the meals for the week will be grilled zucchini pizzas.

Finally have a few Aladdin sweet and bell peppers that are getting to a good size.  The larger ones should be ready in about a week.

Pest problems:  Loopers (larva of moths) or some cutworms are devouring my kale leaves and aphids are starting to eat my tomatoes.

Possible solution: I might try to mix me up some Garrett Juice to help with the pests.  J. Howard Garrett has written several gardening books.  Some of my favorite are:

Garden Tip:  don't get tomato pollen in your eyes... it stings!!  It's the one drawback of clumping my tomato plants this year.  I was reaching deep in the depths of the clump and a leaf rubbed my eye.  From now on its safety glasses for sure.

Get dirty and keep on gardening!