The summer herald of fruit is berries! I love all kinds of berries and blackberries is one of my favorites. Blackberries differ slightly from black raspberries as they do a bit of a soft stem in them.
One of the first perennials in the garden to come up in the spring is Rhubarb. These tart red stalks are delicious combined with strawberries in a dessert.
Hot Cocoa Bombs are the rage right now! If you have never heard of Cocoa Bombs, they are cute little chocolate balls that you place into a mug. When you pour hot milk over the chocolate balls, they melt, spilling out marshmallows, chocolate chips, and cocoa mix. Children just love these and so do adults for that matter!
Christmas is just around the corner and with it comes holiday baking! Baking cookies had always been a part of our family’s Christmas. When I was a young girl, my mother and some of her sisters would get together to bake cookies. Those were exciting times; playing with cousins and tasting all kinds of cookies.
A simple classic Broccoli Salad is always a hit with our family and when taken to community dinners I usually bring an empty bowl home. This salad combines the best of home-cured, smoked bacon, tart cranberries, and fresh broccoli in a creamy dressing. If you would like, you can even add some cauliflower to this salad.
Summer is winding to a close but my zucchini plants are still thriving and producing well. I am trying to hang on to summer and the bountiful garden harvest. This Zucchini Lasagna is delicious using tomato sauce I preserved and zucchini from my garden.
Zucchini…. is a very prolific veggie found in many gardens. My garden always has room for at least 6 zucchini plants! We love to use them in all kinds of ways. One of my favorite ways is to preserve some of my zucchini harvest for winter. I freeze Zucchini Bisque in pint containers to enjoy on cold blustery winter days.
Zucchini is one of the most prolific vegetables you can grow in your garden. Once they are picked they can be use in almost any vegetable side dish and even transformed into cakes, cookies and bars. I try and pick zucchini small…no larger than 10-12 inches but occasionally some get over looked.
Fried Dill Pickles—who doesn’t like this southern specialty! These pickles are air fried to lessen the calorie load and they are still delicious! I used my home canned Dill Pickles Spears but you can also use bought pickles.
Bright red juicy strawberries herald the arrival of spring. They are one of the most versatile berries and the most widely cultivated. They are featured in many dishes and are one of the easiest fruits to grow. My garden has always had a large strawberry patch much to my children’s dismay. They hated the weeding but when they berries were ready the patch became much more likeable. June-bearing are my favorite kind to plant. Homegrown strawberries have the most flavor simply because the sugar converts to starch soon after they being picked.
