I made pizza with spinach from the garden.

It's true! I made whole wheat thin crust pizza with tomatoes, basil and spinach.
After i rolled out the dough, I spread a thin layer of basil. Last week when I made this sans spinach, I put the basil on top of the tomatoes and the basil got quite crunchy and wasn't terribly flavorful. So I put basil on bottom this time.
Next I layer washed trimmed spinach leaves, then a can of drained tomatoes. Fresh slices would be better, but this is good too.
Then shredded low fat mozzarella cheese and parmesan.

Then I baked it at 425 for around 10 minutes, untill the crust looked done and the cheese was melted and just golden brown.

Avery was so excited when I pulled it out of the oven, he waved to it, and brought Pop over to look at it.

Avery ate his pizza with great gusto.

eating local

Have you ever had veggies right out of the garden? No long trip in a truck, no refrigeration, no sitting in a grocery store, no languishing in the veggie crisper, no being overcooked. Just a quick rinse and then crunch.
Picking my veggies is so rewarding. It reminds me of my grandfather who had an amazing garden on his ranch in the Texas hill country. He had rows of pole beans that towered over my eight year old head. When it was time, we'd go down to the garden pick tomatoes, beans, okra, inspect the pecan trees, feed the cows. He had a ranch hand, but he still liked to do these chores himself. He was like that.
The smell of tomatoe vines, bean leaves makes me eight again, marveling at the plants Granddaddy had grown, taking three steps to match his long stride.

In season

Today for lunch I made butternut squash soup using half a squash left over from my Dinner for Henry Pizza. I modified this  healthy recipie, adding milk at the end to add some bulk and thicken it up a little bit- though if you wanted to stay vegan, you certainly could.
After finally figuring out what is what in the garden, I harvested a decent amount of collard greens. I wanted to keep this lunch as healthy as possible and also wanted Mom to eat it (she despises collards with bacon fat) and didn't want to go to the store. So, in big pot, I combined the greens, some prepared salsa, garlic, some onion, about 1 1/2 cups of water and 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for a while. Next time, I'll add less vinegar. Once the green were limp and tender, I spread some soft herbed cheese on whole wheat toast points and topped with a spoonful of the greens. OMG! so good! The cheese was a good counterpoint to the greens. And the soup balanced the whole thing out.
Norm ate the whole meal! Mom liked the greens, and so did Dad, a born and bred Southerner.

early summer update

No major updates here (all of our plants that have exciting news are the ones that were transplanted to the in-the-ground-garden at Amy's), however there are a few small and exciting things.

I got to eat homegrown salad a week or so ago. It was great, and really quick and easy. There are two more little pots of it for lunch sometime this week.

Also, my watermelon plants are loving life in their 5 gallon pot. Tendrils shooting out every which way and little yellow blossoms showing up... wheeee!!!

The cilantro has made a good start and the spearmint, I think, was switched at birth with a blade of common grass.

I have some strong papaya seedlings, but I don't know if my attention span will be long enough to see them through their adolescence.

dinner

I totally had a salad tonight with greens from my garden! it was fantastic!