Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Ripples of a trip to Ybor City

These are some of the wonderful tiles that you can see outside of the Columbia Restaurant in Ybor City.if you are in Tampa, you want to go there and see for yourself.  The food is delicious too!  I won't go there without getting some of their Spanish bean soup and their 1905 salad- very unique and wonderful tastes!  Here's a link https://www.columbiarestaurant.com/pdfs/menu_lunch.pdf
 

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Saving the freshness


Last Saturday, I brought enough rosemary, purple basil, and garlic chives from TTCG to fill 3 pint jars with leaves.  My plan was to make jelly bases for each of them.  Added the purple basil to 2 cups of boiling cranberry juice cocktail, crushed and added the leaves and let it steep for 15 minutes.  then bottled and froze it to make jelly another day.  It was good enough to drink- cranberry predominated but the basil added color and richness to the brew.

The next day, I took a cup of apricot nectar mixed with a cup of water, boiled it then brewed it for 15 minutes with the crushed rosemary leaves.  The rosemary predominated and I'm not sure that this experiment was a success but I also froze it and bottled it for another day.

Found this recipe for garlic jelly online.  Used 2 cups white vinegar instead of white wine vinegar with a half cup of crushed garlic- the smell in the kitchen was overwhelming- we were really coughing, and I steep but did not boil for 15 minutes and strained the liquid immediately instead of 24 hours later.  The resulting vinegar lends a wonderful garlic flavor to dishes.  I may just add the garlic chives to that and refrigerate.  Tomorrow, its time for thyme!  I have some from A Simpler Place in Time that I need to use. Wonder what thyme and pineapple juice would do?

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Retirement Dreams: What kind of jelly do I make?

Fresh purple basil from my TTCG plot 2 patch.

My dream is to retire travelling to four areas of the country where my family lives in each of my three favorite months in that area.  To do that, I have to find a way to generate income in each of those areas- either with the house and land during the months I'm not there- or to find a way to support the property in that area during the three months I am in the area.  Yesterday, I arrived at a plan.  I could make jelly! Now jelly is  not that big of a profit maker, but I know that you can make jelly, tea, and wine out of almost everything that you can grow anywhere.  So here's my plan:  April through June, I want to live in the New Haven area in a place like this.  There I would plant all kinds of flowering bushes and trees and even have a meadow full of edible flowers.  Flowers that bloom in the spring in Connecticut like roses, violets, Queen Anne's lace, Lilacs, dandelions, and apple blossoms make wonderful jelly.  When I am not making jelly, I can visit the churches and libraries in the area for clues about my genealogy, visit with my cousins, and go into New York City for the day.  What a wonderful time!  I would leave the area after my Mom's birthday on July 10th every year.

Then on to Stone Lake Wisconsin where I would love to live in a house like this one.  In July, August and September, all kinds of berries in the area are ready for harvest- including cranberries (yum!), so then I would make berry jellies and jams.  At the beginning of October, they have a Cranberry Festival that would be a great time to sell my wares.

I love New England in the fall. Apples and pumpkins, the leaves, and the holidays.  That is also my favorite time to visit the historical sites there.  Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family in New England and all kinds of butters, cakes, and cookies...

By New Years', I am ready to come back to Florida- Rob would want to have a place in Tampa because that is all he knows.  This time of the year is sometimes not so great for veggies because there are frosts from time to time (gardening is better earlier) but this is still a good time of the year to grow all kinds of herbs and spices- you can even harvest beauty berries at this time of the year.  So winter in Florida would be a good time to make herb and spice jellies.

Now making jellies for consumption is a lot of work and short on profit- but there is something that would be more profitable- writing books about making jellies, travelling the country and using those jellies and jams in recipes: Cookies, candies, savory dishes- and lots and lots of pictures and stories.

So what I am doing about this dream today?  Well in my kitchen, a tea of cranberry juice and purple basil is brewing.  What a taste and color! The purple basil tones down the color of the cranberries and adds a rich earthiness to the taste.  The color is a wonderful deep pink!  Hope to make the jelly from this brew tonight!

Sunday, July 21, 2013

What's growing Plot 2 Temple Terrace Community Garden 7/20/13

What's growing in the heat of the summer?  TTCG plot 2 looked fairly chipper yesterday.
The flowers in the thief's garden looked great!

A brand new bed of black eyed peas was growing like crazy!  And in the back you can see that marigolds and okra are thriving!
This lemon grass looks very happy

Eggplants are happy..


And there are a ton of gorgeous flowers!

Here's a close up of okra flowering- I've decided to add some okra.

Here's my plot in the garden

Volunteer boniato is taking over- finally something I can train up my trellis! Arugala is also very happy in the shade.

Long beans and Seminole pumpkin are not too happy. Celery is dead.
Sunflowers grown from Publix raw sunflower kernels are taking off!

Purple basil is just amazing!  In the back you can see part of my flower tower.


Better photo of my flower tower phase 1.

Regular basil and garlic chives very happy.  Zucchini seed planted in the shade is growing nicely too.  Ones planted in the sun did not germinate.

Close up on the zucchini

There's a happy pepper growing in the shade too.

Here's what I brought to add to the flower tower which now looks more like a tower now!  They were bought at Grace's last week and have been getting used to the Florida heat on my porch until yesterday.  Now we will see how they do in the tower.

So,if you want to add something now, I recommend flowers,okra, black eyed peas, growing in the shade of a trellis, and maybe a flower tower(but that is a ton of work and takes about 3 dozen plants! )








Great-Grandma Weber's Summer German Potato Salad

 This was a staple at our family's summer outings for as long as I can remember.  My youngest sister asked me for the recipe so I though...