A trip to Bountiful - via the garden

In my last post I mentioned a busy life, there is always something that needs doing and I think we have that in common. We all have our own busy and pressing matters, to-doing, running hither and yon, etc. Part of my busy this Summer was the garden, not bad as pressing matters go really. Ultimately satisfying and very delicious, still sometimes you just can't figure out how to get it all done. You see, when a garden comes on, it often comes on all at once!

This Summer we had record breaking heat, which resulted in our first bumper crop of tomatoes in years. So far we have harvested about 50 pounds of heirloom tomatoes from 3 plants. Amazing and so tasty, yet a bit overwhelming. Oh but look at those beauties! Nothing like a fresh tomato from the garden. Oh, and the chilies, good gravy we have roasted a lot of chilies this summer!

We also grew tomatillos, An experiment really - that ended up combining nicely with the chilies to make some tomatillo salsa. Oh Summer in the garden...

And now we have figs. So many figs! Our tree is drooping under the weight of their sweet soft goodness. I have been inviting passers-by to help themselves as I still have fig preserves in the larder from last year. Figs coming out of my ears I tell you!

Lastly, our new brood of backyard chickens have at last laid an egg! A teeny tiny egg sure, but no less exciting. I haven't sussed out which one is the layer of said egg yet. So looking forward to having fresh eggs again. Hooray!

So concludes this episode of "In The Garden." Are you growing anything?

In my next post you might actually get to see a spot of sewing, will wonders never cease?

In a Pickle

It is full on Summer here in Portland. The garden keeps on giving and sometimes you end up with more than you can eat fresh from the garden. So what do you do (other than gift friends and family with produce)? Well, as they say in Portlandia, "We can pickle that!"

So, armed with a handful of carrots, a fistful of Haricot vert (lovely little french green beans), and a few pickling cucumbers; I set about making small batch refrigerator pickles.

I love a refrigerator pickle; all my produce was fresh picked from my garden then ready in jars in under a half an hour. Since no traditional canning methods (water boiling bath or pressure cooker) were needed, it's easy breezy beautiful pickles! I use this method for small batch only, since they only last a little over a month in the fridge. Of course, they often don't last that long because of the eating. There are plenty of Refrigerator Pickle recipes out there on the internet if you want to give it a try.

Ours will be officially ready this afternoon (24 hours after putting up), but they taste even better if you can wait at least a few days to try them. It's really hard to wait.

Do you like pickles? What is your favorite?

I will be announcing the winner of The Better Bag Maker book tomorrow! Still time to enter HERE!