fruit Archives - Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

Going through old photos in my “Big Project” task has been a lot of fun. I had forgotten how much work the vegetable garden needed when we first bought our home 14 1/2 years ago. Before we bought this house, I had only tried a few tomato plants and some herbs in pots on our deck. So, in 2005 I began to learn how to garden through trial and error.

We bought our home in early September of 2005 but didn’t move in until mid-October. There was just too much to do to the house before we could move into it. I’ll post about those before and afters in the future. The photo above was taken in November of 2005 – about a month after we had moved in.

I had already pulled out the 4-foot tall weeds and mulched in between some of the beds with pine straw that I had raked up around the yard. Not having enough mulch to go around, I decided to temporarily cover the beds with weed block fabric, weighted down with bricks.

Lesson learned: Cover the weeded beds with something.

The next spring, I was happy with the results of my initial work. The beds were a hodgepodge but the few blackberry bushes, already in the garden, started blooming and I was inspired to become a fruit and vegetable gardener. Note: At first we thought the bushes were raspberry bushes, but upon first taste (puckered up beyond belief), we realized what we had was blackberry bushes and we needed to let the berries become. . . black before sticking one in our mouth.

Lesson learned: Do some research before you taste an unknown plant.

By the fall, my Newby herb bed (the horizontal bed in the front) was producing some nice plants and I was actually able to cook with them. That was a turning point in my cooking.

Lesson learned: Research which herbs are for cooking and which ones are for scent or decor.

The garden stayed like this for a few years and was pretty successful for a complete novice like myself. Once I got a few years of gardening under my belt, I felt more comfortable and asked my husband to add some more beds to the garden so that I could grow enough tomatoes to can.

Lesson learned: Start small and add space when you feel comfortable with what you already have before expanding.

Hubs obliged and we ended up moving all of the horizontal beds and lining up the other beds to make rows that were easier to navigate. We debated about the width of the paths but ended up deciding to do wide paths with plenty of room to navigate with the wheelbarrow and garden hose.

Lesson learned: We often had clusters of grandlittles with us so more room in the paths equals less stepped on plants in the beds.

We did not purchase anything to make the sides of the beds. We just used logs and other non-treated wood we had on the property. It’s not the prettiest or neatest, but it works for our rustic homestead.

Lesson learned: Use what you have before investing in more expensive or permanent materials.

We added hoops over the cherry trees we planted to hold the bird netting in the summer and smaller hoops over the bed I grew winter greens and brassicas in to hold the winter cover.

Lesson learned: Use systems to help your garden go from one season to another.

The decorative windmill was a surprise birthday gift from Hubs and son and I love to hear it whirling on breezy days.

Lesson learned: Read my post on Blessed Brown Wren about what I learned.

The next phase of the garden build-out was this past year. After a few years of limited gardening (due to health issues) and marauding deer and rabbits having an all-you-can-eat garden buffet we decided to put up a fence to protect it.

Lesson learned: Building projects seem to always cost more than we were expecting.

Our cherry trees died but we’ve added figs. I no longer have an herb bed because I like to sprinkle herbs around the other veggies for companion planting. I’m adding a lot of flowers this year to attract more beneficial insects and pollinators.

Lesson learned: Be flexible and enjoy rearranging plants like furniture in your home.

So far this spring, we’ve seen deer, gophers, rabbits, and squirrels deterred from the garden. I know the squirrels will eventually find out how to climb in but we’re enjoying the success we have right now.

Lesson learned: There is no such thing as a perfect fence.

How is your garden coming along? How is it arranged? What are you learning through trial and error?

What’s for dinner? Or lunch? Or breakfast? So many of us are getting stuck trying to figure out what to cook with limited trips to the grocery store and more people eating at home.

I thought it might be a good idea to share some of the ways you can use up foods you might find in your pantry or refrigerator. Here are a few I’ve used.

Make meat patties:

Meat patties use already cooked meat. Canned meat like tuna, salmon or chicken work well or you can dice up cooked chicken, ham, or beef. For a meatless patty, you can use mashed beans or lentils. Here’s a basic recipe for 3 patties:

Dice 3/4 cup of chopped veggies. I like to use onion, celery, and bell pepper but use whatever veggies you have on hand. Saute the veggies if they haven’t been cooked yet so they are semi-soft.

Use 1 small can of drained meat or 3/4 cup cooked, chopped meat or mashed beans/lentils.

Mix the meat and veggies together and add 1 egg. Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste. Mix well until all ingredients are well blended. The mixture will be loose. You can add a few tablespoons of bread crumbs or cracker crumbs to the mixture if you want it to be firmer.

Divide the mixture into thirds and place each third into a greased frying pan (I like to use cast iron) and cook approximately 3 minutes on each side.

The photo above shows a salmon patty with a dill sauce. Here’s how to make the sauce: mix 1/4 cup mayo or plain yogurt, 1 Tbl. yellow mustard, 1/2 tsp. dried dill weed, a pinch of pepper, and 1 tsp. of lemon juice. Mix together and top fish with it.

Apple sauce or fruit sauce:

Do you have fruit that is going bad? Apples are perfect to make applesauce. Just cut up peeled apples into slices or chunks. Add a little bit of sweetness with sugar, maple syrup, brown sugar, or molasses (or favorite) and some spiciness with cinnamon, nutmeg, or cloves. Cook it for 20-30 minutes on medium in a saucepan on the stove and you’ve got homemade applesauce. We like to eat ours chunky but you can smush it with a potato masher to make it creamier. Other fruits to use are peaches, plums, or persimmons. You can cook berries the same way and use it as a topping for pancakes or ice cream. Yummy!

Cook with eggs:

Eggs are very versatile and a good source of protein. You can serve them fried, scrambled, poached, or hard-boiled. Eggs are also a good way to bind other ingredients together such as in a quiche or omelet.

Omelets:

I don’t bother to make omelets the proper way. I really just make scrambled eggs with lots of extra ingredients and call it an omelet. My family gobbles it down and I can feed a lot of people quickly using one extra-large frying pan.

For this kind of “omelet”, I cook veggies and any extra meat I want to use in some oil or fat (I use either avocado oil or bacon fat). Make sure the ingredients are chopped up so they cook/heat up quickly. You can use onion, celery, garlic, leftover potatoes, peppers, broccoli, green beans, etc. and chopped meat like ham, lunch meat, chicken, hamburgers, hotdogs. If you want to add spinach or tomatoes, add them after you add the eggs. This isn’t gourmet food, so just clean out the fridge by using up what you have.

Once the veggies and meat are softened, add beaten eggs and season with salt and pepper. Cook on medium-low heat for 3-4 minutes, stirring occasionally until the eggs are cooked. Add grated cheese if you’d like and give it one more stir.

For each person I’m serving, I use 2 eggs and approximately 1/2 cup total of veggies and meat and 2 Tbl. of grated cheese.

Quiche:

Quiche is one of our favorite weeknight meals and I usually bake 2 of them at a time so we can have leftovers for lunch or breakfast the next few days.

For one quiche, here’s what you do:

Make or buy 1 piecrust and put it in a pie pan.

Prebake in a 400 degree oven for 5 minutes to dry out the crust a little bit.

Mix 1 cup of leftover meat, 1 cup of shredded cheese, 1 tsp. of chopped green onion, and 1/2 cup of leftover veggies (broccoli and spinach are our favorites). Spread this mixture over the piecrust.

Mix 2 eggs and 1 cup of dairy (whole milk, half-n-half, cream) salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Pour this mixture over the meat and veggies.

Bake for 25 minutes until the center doesn’t jiggle when you wiggle the pan.

Let cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting. One quiche makes 4 adult servings.

Don’t know how to make a pie crust?

No worries, here’s a recipe that takes care of that:

Put 1 cup of meat, 1 cup of cheese, 1 tsp. of green onion and 1/4 cup of leftover veggies into a greased pie pan.

Mix 1/2 cup of baking mix (like Bisquick) with 1 cup of dairy (see above), 2 eggs, and salt/pepper/garlic powder together.

Pour over the ingredients in the pie pan.

Bake 400 degrees 20 minutes or until the middle is set and it doesn’t wiggle.

Let cool 5-10 minutes before serving.

Most of these recipes are so easy, you can teach your children how to cook them and they will have learned a new skill. How are you using up what you find in your fridge and pantry?

Learning to garden through trial and error

Tell me what to cook: Clean out the pantry cooking

fruit

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