ElainaA

Wow! That must have been one huge basil plant. Mine, on their second growth after one severe cutting, are starting to flower. It has to be another pesto day really soon.

I second that request to have pictures of your greenhouse. We are putting up one from a kit this fall to use next year so I'd love to see what you have. Do you have issues with blight (early and/or late blight) or is that mostly an east coast thing? I am also curious as to the type of irrigation system you use in the garden. We put in a drip tape/ drip emitter system 3 years ago and I love it. I do admire all you do. Did you make your pickles today? That's what I am doing now (well, no - I'm typing this while the jars sterilize). 4-day brined sweet pickles - they go into the jars today. Elaina

That's one reason to have children. Sadly, they do grow up and leave - and don't come home every night to wash dishes. Elaina

What an interesting thread this is! I am actually rather suspicious of the OP - there have been a few of these very general questions by new posters recently - and the OP never turns up again. But whatever the intent this has resulted in a collection of fascinating stories. My mother graduated from Cornell in 1932 as a Home Economic major - taking lots of cooking, baking and pastry classes. The she married my father who was one of the most restrictive eaters I have known. Add in 6 kids and very little money - Dad worked in a factory, Mom stayed home. We ate pork chops, chicken and pot roast, green beans, peas and corn, lots of potatoes and rice. That's about it. The odd thing is that my paternal grandparents were Sephardic Jews who had grown up in Jamaica, coming to the US as young adults. But they raised my father to eat very basic meat, potato and a veg. The one exception was baked bananas, which my grandmother made and my father loved. After Dad died, my mother branched out - I discovered that she really liked eggplant, leeks and lots of other things that I had never seen in our home growing up. She did bake - pies, cakes and some wonderful pastries. At Christmas she made marzipan - starting with almonds that had to be shelled, blanched, dried and ground. We (the kids) helped with all the steps and she let us paint a few of the fruits and veggies she made - but only a few- they were her art work. Hanging around the kitchen I learned a lot about basic cooking and baking. We joke, in my family, that somewhere around age 30 all my mother's female descendants become involved in both cooking and baking and some type of fabric art (she was a weaver and quilter). My daughter just turned 30 - she is a good cook but I'm still waiting for the other part. It seems to have skipped the males. I didn't really start cooking until I was in graduate school. Basically it just crept up on me. I think I started with a pretty blank palate (college food had not expanded my experience much) so lots of things were new. And being a book addict, i started collecting and reading cookbooks. I've been very blessed with friends who have taught me a great deal - spending a couple of years helping one with her catering business - and especially with a husband who loves and appreciates good food and is a great cook himself. Planning and cooking meals, whether just for us or for friends is one of my favorite activities. Even when I was still working, after a long day it was relaxing and rewarding.

The peach bubbly looks like just what you need after a day in the kitchen. Or in the garden. Or anywhere, really.

Lamb fries sounds a lot better than lamb testicles. Also 'lights' as a euphemism for lungs. More informally, I think parents often do this with small children (as with liuzhou's parsnips). When of my nephews was about 2 or 3, the only meat he would eat was chicken. In reality he was eating pork, beef - whatever the family had - only my sister told him it was chicken. He caught on after awhile but it worked for a time. Elaina

My picture isn't good but this was delicious - stuffed zucchini with sausage, corn, tomatoes and various other things that were hanging around the kitchen.

I grow - and like- Gardener's Delight. But my favorite is Sweet Chelsea - very similar, a large cherry , prolific and very good flavor. But my usual sources (Pine Tree Gardens and Johnny's - I figure if the seeds grow in Maine they will grow here) no longer carry the seed. If any one knows a source, please tell me!

I can hardly remember ever getting a good peach - or plum - in a grocery store. They are all as hard as rocks. The local farm stands have pretty good ones although they are not strictly speaking local - either from Pennsylvania ( I'm about 40 miles north of the state border) or from the farms north of Syracuse (about 45 miles north of me). This is the farthest south I have ever lived - I suspect much of our summer fruit is pretty wimpy compared to warmer growing zones. We do have great apples and pears in the fall though. There were black walnut trees on my grandparents' farm - my mother always talked about both how much work it was shelling them and how good they were once they were shelled. Elaina

Shelby, you are anything but boring.

Can I come too? ElainA

I'm inspired by Shelby! I picked LOTS of cucumbers today. So I canned 3 more pints of gherkins with the little ones, 3 3/4 quarts of mixed mustard pickles and started some 4 day brined sweet pickles. These are the vegetables for the mustard pickles before I added the sauce and cooked them. The cukes, carrots and onions are from my garden. I don't grow cauliflower and my red peppers are not ready yet. The finished mustard pickles and the gherkins. I've been working on candied cherries and apricots: The cherries are done. The apricots just came out of the syrup today so they need to dry. I have never candied apricots before - I think I blanched them too long. Elaina

Shelby that's a wonderful tutorial! And I really like that you let your cats help. Well, hang around anyway. How many quarts do you plan on canning? I am so jealous of those of you in warmer growing zones! Well, my time will come....... Right now it's pickle time. Elaina

I freeze it either in quart canning jars (if I have any left after canning tomatoes and pickles!) or plastic quart freezer containers. I find freezing easier than canning - I freeze about half my tomatoes and can the rest. When they thaw they are kind of mushy but that's fine for sauce or soup. And I do enjoy, when I have family or friends cooking with me, handing an unsuspecting person what looks like a perfect fresh tomato but is actually hard as a rock.

Here's the recipe for the faux - V8 juice (the recipe calls it Vegetable Juice Cocktail). Because of all the vegetables this is not safe for canning unless you have a pressure canner. I freeze it. For about 5 1/2 quarts: 12 lbs tomatoes 2 peppers (any color - I use red) 3 medium onions 3 medium carrots 3 stalks celery (my addition) bunch of parsley (my addition - I don't measure) 1 T celery seed Peel and cook tomatoes. Process other vegetables in food processor or blender until close to liquid. It helps to add some of the cooked tomatoes to the raw vegetables. Add to tomatoes with celery seed. Simmer about 45 minutes, put through a food mill, return to pan and bring back to a simmer. For each quart of juice, add 1 t. salt and 2 T lemon juice. The recipe also calls for 1 t. sugar - I omit this. Freeze. The recipe gives directions for canning with a pressure canner. Since I don't have one I freeze it. If you do: pressure can 35 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure. We just finished the last jar from last summer - i need those darn tomatoes to ripen so I can make this year's supply! Elaina

I always thought I was a good cook. One of the first times I spent a weekend with my now husband (of 35 years) I decided to impress him by baking bread for him. And he had, in his apartment, flour ! and yeast! It never occurred to me to look at expiration dates. The flour was about 5 years old (or older). The bread came out about the consistency of a block of chalk. And weighed about 10 pounds. He was very polite and even ate some. Maybe that is why I married him. I make better bread now. I still have failures because I love trying new things. But they are usually edible. And he is still incredibly nice about it. And I still think I am a good cook. Elaina

How can so many posts come in when I'm, still typing! I am so glad people like this sauce - it is one of my favorites. If any one is interested I also have a really good recipe for a faux-V8 juice - not safe for canning because of the vegetable content but safe for freezing. We have just finished the last jar from last years tomatoes - I expect to find my husband in the garden staring at the tomato plants trying to get them to ripen faster. Elaina

Shelby - I will be following your projects. So many tomatoes! Wonderful! Do you do anything other than canning whole tomatoes? I've dried cherry tomatoes to use in salads or just as snacks. I still have only 2-3 tomatoes ripe. I may be buying some for all the canning projects. But later - our growing season is much later than yours. (sigh.) Do you do pickles? What kinds? I am just starting to have enough cukes to pickle - I'll be starting a batch of mixed mustard pickles tomorrow. Elaina

Have you tried anadama bread? It's one of my absolute favorites. The Peter Reinhart recipe is great but there are lots of others out there. In my hippie days many years ago in Vermont it was almost a requirement. (The story about the name might amuse you, given your name. Supposedly Anna ran out of flour so she used cornmeal in her bread. Her husband said "Anna, damn it, what did you put in the bread." Hence, anadama bread.)

I'm in zone 5A - about 35 miles south of Syracuse, NY, at a fairly high elevation (The local weatherpeople refer to this area as "the southern hills". Southern only if you are in Syracuse.). We often have frost into June so tomatoes never go in before June 1 - and this year I lost almost half of them (and all my peppers) to frost. Right now I have lots of green tomatoes but also still lots of flowers. It'll be another couple of weeks before I can harvest much. We spent yesterday examining a friend's greenhouse - no blight and ripening tomatoes! I think my husband agrees that it's a good idea. So next year maybe I'll be making sauce now! My daughter lived in southern New Jersey for several years - I was amazed at the difference in climate in a less than 4 hour drive. I've never grown any of the Magic group. They are listed as blight resistant but I have heard the flavor isn't too good - it sounds like that is not your experience? I grow Defiant and Legend (also supposedly blight resistant) but I'm always looking for new varieties to try. Elaina

That is so beautiful! Elaina

Actually, she will be starting a teaching position at Smith. Thanks for the tips - the restaurants and the art museum. I understand there is also a lovely botanical garden. Elaina

I'll be spending some time next week in Northampton, MA - and since my daughter is moving there, there will certainly be more visits. I understand it is a good town for restaurants. Does anyone have any recommendations? Elaina

Shelby - You just can't make all your tomatoes happy, no matter how hard you try. I really hope that isn't late blight - it's showing up here and it's disastrous. So far, I've escaped - I only have early blight and septoria, both epidemic here. With these, the plants usually survive. I grew purple peppers for the first time this year. Unlike red, yellow and orange sweet peppers these are purple from the start. The bad news is that when you grill them they turn a very unappetizing grey. I think this is there first and last year for my garden. Here is yesterday's harvest - including my entire tomato harvest to date. It's still early here. I usually can tomatoes Labor Day weekend. Elaina

I think this is really unacceptable. However I understand the impulse. I bought a quart of apricots today at a farm stand - when I got them home the entire bottom layer was rotten. Of the 5 peaches I bought (at a different farm stand, yesterday) 2 had large bruises that did not show up in the basket. This seems to me to be happening more and more often -and not just at supermarkets. I do not grow fruit (except raspberries) and I usually buy from local farm stands but it seems that even there I cannot be sure of getting good quality fruit. Elaina