Darienne

I posted a photo of my dirt bag garden recently and noted that my Eggplants were not producing anything...a couple of little flowers followed by nothing. My question: Many garden centers still have vegetable plants for sale for planting even though it's half way through July. Could anyone suggest what would be the most useful seedlings to buy to get some kind of crop in Central Ontario...zone 5a.

And I, for one, am glad you did. (It's also nice to know that I am not the oldest on eG, although no doubt the crabbiest.)

It's now July 2023 and I am still that crabby old lady who started this thread and this is my second time restarting. What do I hate now? I hate the 'new to us' fridge in the kitchen. It was such a good deal and so clean and shiny bright new with wonderful sliding glass shelves and cute side door plastic compartments. We bought it for the garage, when that old garage fridge gave up the ghost and I was so impressed with it that I had Ed move it into the kitchen and put our old workhorse in the garage. So what's the problem you ask? Well it doesn't hold half of what our old fridge holds. Those cute door compartments are so limiting and the interior of the entire unit holds not all that much. We are forced to use the old fridge to hold so much of our food and it's in the garage which means that I don't like going out there in the winter to access the fridge. And I am constantly repackaging foods into smaller containers in the fridge so that enough items will fit in. Yes, it has a HUGE freezer and I realized too late that the new fridges are for those folks who don't cook from scratch and eat so much frozen food. We don't, although I cook and freeze regularly. For that we have a 'new to us' upright freezer which I can access so easily. And of course, we still have that old cellar chest freezer which goes back to the stone age and as of today, it is still working just fine. And I'm still too short to use it with comfort. So that's it for this morning. No doubt I'll be back. I do seem to become crabbier with each passing year...

We really do need a Wow!

First laugh of the morning. Thanks.

We all have firsts in cooking...first time making cookies, first time cooking asparagus, first time stuffing a chicken. The first thing I ever cooked was Kraft Dinner and that was back in the 40s. Yep, the 40s. But then there are those firsts...things we've always put off, things we were so hesitant to try, things we didn't even know we could do. Two this week for me. First time I ever poached chicken and I was stunned at how easy it was, how quickly it happened, and how wonderful the results were. And today I made my first ever mayonnaise. Oh, so good. Loved it. I, the decades-long averse cook, made her first mayonnaise. I've still never made bread from scratch. And I don't know how to use my air fryer yet. My son makes Chicken Pot Pies...I've never made one. What are your recent significant firsts?

I love this salad, but don't make it often. It's so rich...like a dessert almost. Yummm. No cheese here either...

At this point in my life, I think it's out of the question. But thanks for the information. Mostly I just wanted to know what it was and what it might cost. I still have to incorporate other kitchen pieces into my life...like my air fryer. I've had it for over 6 months now and the only one to use it was our son when he visited.

I have just learned about the existence of this APO this morning...yes, I do live in a closet... and thought I'd look up the cost of one from Amazon.ca. No luck. They aren't available and Amazon doesn't know when or if they will be again. So that is just Amazon. ca. Then I turned to Amazon.com. Is it true? Are these ovens over $1,000.00 in the US? Thanks.

Wow! We really need a wow emoji. Really, really, really. I am so impressed by your garden, cd. As for the pumpkin pepos...or at least that's what we always called the little emerging plants on the female hardshelled gourd flowers...which we also hand pollinated back when. What made it really special is that we grew a variety of different shaped gourds, and there, under the flower, was this darling (sorry) teeny weeny kettle gourd, or a cannonball, or a canteen gourd, or whatever it was. Then after a few years we gave up. Growing hardshelled gourds in East Central Ontario is not really a good idea....

So here's the "master non-gardener's" garden. Once upon a time we had a huge garden...no more. But I was determined to grow tomatoes this year for my Sunday Bacon and Tomato Sandwich and so this poor embarrassing table of dirt bags is the result. I had to put it inside the back yard and off the ground so that any resident male dogs would not pee on it and I could manage it easily. So pathetic as it is, the tomatoes are coming along nicely and we counted many small tomatoes on the plants this morning. The eggplant on the left is a bust and the right side with Poblanos and other bits is still up for grabs. .

However...for those of us taking in your mail and watering your plants and watching your house and property, this is a good thing. We get to eat your tomatoes which you are gone.

What is Prime Day please?

From: The Potentially Inappropriate Memebrary for Historians and Literaries

Our two sons always wanted that Whipped Cream/chocolate wafer cake for their birthdays. "Inconceivable! "

OK. I've done the two library systems searches and have access to only two of the titles: Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone and Ruffage. I'll borrow them. Any others will be through ILL. My own two vegetable cookbooks are too old to even mention some of the above-named green bits. Added: Our nearby city library has now extended borrowing privileges to our little rural system libraries. Why I don't know. There's nothing in it for the city. And the process of accessing my borrowing privileges has not been without challenges. However, I just phoned to see if I could place a hold with my out-of-town membership and the nice librarian set it all up for me as he learned also how to do it. And now I simply await email notification. Who knew?

Actually I don't know if I can get them all. I've heard of all these. In my local village (population circa 1,400) grocery store, and indeed it's a chain, I can't even get eggplant or Brussels Sprouts. They don't carry them...because no one will buy them. They gave up years ago.

Off to the library holdings, both locally and city (which is now available) or ILL. Escarole is added. Thanks @Senior Sea Kayaker(Would love to visit Cape Breton. Son lives in Halifax, a lovely civilized city) Believe it or not, I am a very dedicated vegetable and salad eater. And always have been. I suppose it's partly that I grew up in Ontario and Quebec in the 40s and there were so few vegetables available then in grocery stores. (Was a major fight back when to get Ed to try Romaine. We were both raised on ice berg lettuce. Now he has no interest in ice berg lettuce. Don't tell him I told. )

Somewhat humiliating confession time: Here's a list of the fairly common green vegetables which we have never cooked or eaten: collard greens, fennel, kale, chard, beet greens, watercress, arugula, endive and turnip greens. No doubt I am missing some I don't even know about. (No exotic vegetables please which I can't buy in our nearby small Ontario rather provincial city.) I need help. From the get go. Where to start? How to cook them? What casserole type dishes can I include them in (possibly with the intent to hide their existence from Ed until I can get him to accept them.) Which ones can we eat raw? Which ones might Ed be willing to eat raw? Thanks for any and all help.

I've eaten Poutine a number of times...mostly it's been either ho hum or plain awful...I think canned gravy is the answer here. But one time, at a local but now defunct brewery, I had Poutine that was, as they say, to die for. The level of deliciousness was out of this world. I have no idea why. It was many years ago.

Ed and I ate breakfast together for many years after he and I retired. And once a week we went out for breakfast at a local diner. That I thought was the height of luxury. And then the restaurant closed...the owner/cook was sick of getting up so early in the morning. I don't blame her. Now we eat separately. I always eat and quite early...I feed the morning meal to the pups (or as in this case, pup). Ed eats if and when he pleases and we no longer eat the same things. However, I do get the coffee at 6:30 am every morning. But I've always been an early riser. No complaints here. I'm just glad I can still get up.

I've never even heard of either of these fruits. Off to Google I went. Wow!

Apropos Smithy's remark about being there. We weren't and we didn't. The windows in our new living room were installed 10" above where they were planned to be. (We had them at Rottie-looking-out height.) We had to have them redone at our own cost alas. Not to mention my outbursts of unacceptable language when I saw what had happened.

I couldn't survive without my old garage fridge. We ended up getting a much newer and much prettier fridge for the kitchen, only to discover that this lovely modern fridge couldn't hold a fraction of what our old fridge...now in the garage...could hold.

Made David Lebovitz' Strawberry-Sour Cream Ice Cream (The Perfect Scoop) again and was not blown away by the results. And with good reason, so to speak. First of all, the strawberries were less than top grade and this time the sour cream was only 14% butterfat instead of 18%. The recipe calls for only 1/4 cup sugar, but I added an entire extra 1/4 cup to make it palatable. And dear husband, Ed, of course complained that it wasn't creamy enough...his fault basically for buying a lesser % butter fat sour cream. Still, we'll eat it with some pleasure, if not extreme.