Nearly open sunflower in my mom's garden.
My first time growing okra. I was blown away by how lovely the flowers are. This is a Red Burgundy Okra from Seed Savers Exchange.
A summer supper: CSA coleslaw (cabbage, turnips, carrots) and homemade chili covered baked potato (with homegrown tomatoes).
Biscotti for a crowd. Recipe needs a some work, but is very delicious, it just wasn't dry enough.
The original baseboards at our new house. You can see the paint build up on the bottom. The original paint was oil based and there are at least two layers on top of that. Unfortunately, they were not properly primed before being painted over with a latex paint and as a result are peeling in some areas. Which means we have to replace them if we want our paint job to be durable.
There's a toe-kick piece at the bottom that we had to remove first. You can clearly see the paint layers here. As you can also see, they put in the baseboards and then painted. That order is backwards and is resulting in more work for us.
Here is the wall with the baseboards completely removed. The other issue we have found are that they did not smooth the plaster below the old baseboards. The new ones we are putting on are about 1/4 inch shorter, so we are having to improvise. Also, since they painted the baseboards in place and didn't tape off very well, there is a paint line on the floor around the perimeter of the whole room that I have the privilege of scraping off with a putty knife and some solvent. Fun.
When we closed a couple weeks ago I was so excited to discovered a volunteer watermelon plant! At the time I didn't see any fruit on it. Well this past weekend I discovered a couple. No idea how we missed them. Here's the little one. 
And here's the big one! I've never grown watermelon before and I've no idea what kind this is, so I'm not sure when to harvest it, but since we've yet to have a really good watermelon this season I'm salivating already! The vine is really healthy and spread out, with lots of flowers, so I'm hoping we get a few more fruit off of it.
In an effort to use up some of the tomatoes we harvested I canned up a batch of salsa this weekend. I combined two recipes to come up with this and doubled the batch. (If you are new to canning please stick to a tested recipe, especially if you are using low acid foods as proper acidity is critical to the safety of your final product if you are using a water bath canner.) I made sure I used plenty of vinegar to ensure adequate acidity but be warned, this is not a by-the-book tested recipe. If you want to make this but are uncomfortable with canning, or just don't want to, you can definitely freeze this, in which case you would also have more room to play with ingredients since acidity is not so much an issue with freezing.
Slice 7 lbs of tomatoes along their equator (this makes seeding them much easier). Seed them and set aside. If you are using a meatier tomato like an Amish Paste reduce the amount to 6 lbs. The recipes I was basing this on instructed you to roast the tomatoes and then peel, seed and dice. However, seeding and dicing tomatoes that are roasted is rather difficult since they get really soft. Seeding before hand is much easier and you don't have to wait for them to cool.
Toast up 24 dried peppers about 30 seconds on each side then transfer to a glass or metal bowl, cover with 2 cups hot water, weigh down with a bowl or plate and set aside to soak. I used 12 guajillo peppers, 6 chipotles (dried, not canned), 3 Californias, and 3 chili negros. You can safely substitute an equal amount of different dried chilis, or reduce the number, but don't add more if you are canning the salsa.
Everything that I grilled: 2 heads garlic broken into cloves (in aluminium tray), 4 small onions, peeled of loose skin, 4 jalapenos, 4 poblanos, and the tomatoes. I put the tomatoes cut side down for just about 30 seconds to get a touch of color then flipped them skin side down to finish roasting. You want them to develop plenty of charred color and flavor but pull them off before they turn completely to mush. Turn the peppers and onions occasionally, until blackened pretty well on all sides. Give the garlic a toss/shake a couple times; I let them go until I was done with the rest of the veggies. When you pull off the chilis transfer them to a paper bag, roll down the top to seal and set aside. Transfer the tomatoes to a bowl as they will give off a lot of liquid that you want to keep.
Stem your dried chilis and transfer them and their soaking liquid to a blender or food processor. Pulse until you achieve a rough paste. Transfer to stockpot. For all the veggies I ran through the blender I was going a for smooth, but not completely pureed consistency.
Skin the onions and garlic and transfer to the blender. You'll want to keep a small bowl of water handy to rinse your fingers while you are peeling the garlic as it is very sticky and you'll need to rinse your fingers a couple times during peeling.
A shot of the onions and garlic. You can see that the onions get a bit translucent on the grill, but they don't get mushy. The garlic however get nice and soft. I used a bit of the tomato juices to help these along in the blender.
You can see that the tomatoes get very soft. Blend as with the other veggies and transfer to the stockpot. If you opt not to blend your veggies you will need to peel the tomatoes or the skins will create an unpleasant texture in the final product.
Your peppers will get very dark and partially collapse from roasting. Putting them in the paper bag uses their own heat to steam them and make them easier to peel.
Pepper skins are pretty tough so I did peel them. A word to the wise: wear gloves when handling all these peppers. I didn't (and I know better!) and I had a serious chemical burn on my hands that night since I also didn't wash off the capsicum oil quickly enough. 
The blended roasted chilies on top of the tomatoes. Can you see the wolf?
A close up so you can see the texture. 
I also used 2 fresh jalapenos and 1 fresh poblano pepper. These I seeded and chopped fine.
Mix together all you roasted and fresh veggies, 1 bunch stemmed and finely chopped cilantro, 2 teaspoons salt, and 2 cups white vinegar. (Yes 2 cups - it is essential to ensure adequate acidity for all these low-acid fruits and vegetables). I recommend sticking with plain (cheap!) white vinegar for this as the nuances of a more expensive vinegar will get lost in all these big flavors. Simmer over medium heat 15-20 minutes. 
Fill hot jars with hot salsa to 1/2 inch of top. Wipe jar threads clean, top with a hot, previously simmered lid and ring screwed on finger tight. Place into water bath, bring to a boil, and process 20 minutes. Turn off heat, leave for 5 minutes then remove jars to a towel covered counter. Leave undisturbed for 24 hours. Check seal (when you press on the center of the lid it should not pop up and down), remove rings, wipe jars clean, and store in a cool, dark, dry area. It is recommended that home canned goods be consumed within a year for best flavor, however if they are correctly processed, properly sealed, and show no signs of spoilage they will technically last quite a lot longer.
We are officially in escrow. This is our new home! We've had the inspection, aside from some TLC that is to be expected on any 75 year old home, it is in pretty good shape, nothing needs to be done immediately except paint the interior. As long as the appraisal goes well and the paperwork goes smoothly we should close escrow late July. 
This is the site of the future main garden. The previous owners left quite a bit of stuff both inside and out which we need to sort through. Some we will keep and repurpose, such as the lovely pile of bricks. I will eventually rip out pretty much every plant in here as well as the boarders around the rest of the yard. Except for a few frivolous flowers that I love my goal is to make all our landscaping edible and/or medicinal. The front yard will be turned into our orchard. I have big plans, can you tell?! :o)
So, in sight of all this moving we've mostly ripped out the garden, including at least 25 lbs of tomatoes. There's at least another 15 pounds green, still on the plant that we managed to leave in for now. We are hoping some ripen and the rest I will likely can up into green tomato chutney or something. In the mean time I am drying some of the ripe ones. I also took out the Swiss chard - I'm guessing 25 pounds. I need to get that blanched and frozen before we leave for Chicago on Wednesday, among the myriad of packing we are trying to get done. Phew, I'm exhausted just thinking of it all!
In my quest to use the Swiss chard that has been so prolific in my garden I made homemade green pasta a couple weeks ago, inspired by Kate's post earlier this month.
After resting your dough divide it into four sections. Liberally flour your work surface. Working with one section at a time, roll it out as thin as possible into as even a rectangle as you can manage (you don't want too many weird edges). Cut into whatever shape you like. I used my pastry cutter on the first two sections, however it is just not sharp enough to handle pasta dough, so I abandoned it for a knife on the last two sections. I would like to note that as cutting surfaces go, granite is "EVIL" as far as you knifes are concerned, to quote Alton Brown.
It did make for pretty noodles though. I ended up cutting it into about one inch lengths just prior to cooking.
Once you have all your noodles cut sprinkle liberally with flour to prevent sticking and set aside to rest and dry a touch while you bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.
Friends of ours invited me a while back to come visit them and help cook for a weekend for a training they were hosting. That weekend was a couple weeks ago so I thought I'd share some pictures. 
The second morning I was there I woke up to this. It had rained the night before and was all misty and beautiful. I love visiting the East Coast. I get to bath in the lush greenness of it all. The few weeks of green hillsides a year that we get in SoCal pales in comparison; I hunger for it. 
EA and I, along with a couple others, spent Thursday - Sunday feeding a group of 60. It was so much fun (you know - if you think 16 hours/day in a kitchen is fun. Which I do. Yes I realize I'm Aby-Normal). The group consisted of omnis, vegetarians, and vegans, so except for the night we had an entirely vegan Indian feast we made at least two and usually three versions of each meal. I got to cook on this professional stove - heaven.
One morning we made Blueberry Strudel Muffins. We ended up with a bit too much batter, so I poured it in a pan and called it coffee cake. It was my first time using this recipe and I think with some experimentation it could be both delicious and reasonably healthy. Even with all the desserts and breakfast goodies it was by far the healthiest and tastiest "camp food" I've ever had.
They are serious about reusing, recycling, or repurposing everything possible. There was a bucket in the kitchen for all the food scraps, which went into the compost pile. The egg shells and coffee grounds went directly into the garden to feed and protect the plants. Empty plastic bags and containers were washed and saved for storage and lunch bags. There were no throw-away plates, utensils, or cups. Tread lightly was the name of the game.
I also got to visit with this sweet girl. It is so nice that MJ and EA have jobs that allow them to keep her with them. 
