Kale Chips and Lebanese Salad

Kale Chips New Favorite, KALE CHIPS - WOW!!! 

Never believed these could taste good at all - they are TERRIFIC! Use kitchen shears to cut the kale off the stem and cut the leaves into bite-size pieces (discard the stems). Then arrange the pieces in one layer on a baking sheet (I lined mine with parchment paper), drizzle olive oil over them and then sea salt (Kroger sells in a salt shaker size grinder) grind it right over the cookie sheet. Baked on the top shelf of the oven (350 degrees) for about 4 minutes (tips start to turn brown, crinkle. YUM!! Then I scooped them off the parchment paper, dropped onto paper towel to soak up an excess olive oil. WOW!!!! I LOVE these! Just melt in your mouth. You have to try...

Lebanese Salad

5 Tomatoes chopped
1 Cucumber chopped
1-2 Bunches green onions with tops chopped
1-2 lemons Juiced
2 Bunches fresh parsley finely chopped
1-2 Tablespoon minced garlic
Mint for garnish add more if you want it in the salad
Sea salt to taste
Olive oil optional

Normally they put Bulgar wheat in this salad but I can't find it in my area. It makes this salad very healthy.

Garden Duties! How Lucky Are We?

On Sunday, Joe and I had a quick cup of coffee and talked about our garden duties, i.e. weeding the raised beds, planting new perennials, mulching, rearranging pots, picking lettuce, painting boxes, adding more dirt and mulch to the potatoes (yes, folks they grow up not down) and with that complete, starting up the new barbecue. It was delicious, grilled chicken shish kabob and veggies – accompanied with a fresh salad from the garden. We worked from 7:30 until 5:30, the weather perfect for staying out all day. It wasn’t too hot, overly humid and mildly overcast – the sun just peeking out here and there, allowing us to be comfortable while doing the work.

We bought some wonderful plants from the Farmers Market in Mount Clemens on Saturday. Joe and I wanted to add more flowering plants to encourage the more activity from the dwindling bee community not to mention the Monarchs which love to stop by on their long migratory routes. The lily pad flowers are blooming in the pond while the plants that look like huge petaled umbrellas are spreading out even further than last year. (I don’t know the name as our neighbor just dropped them off one day). Speaking of gifted plants, our friends the Victorys, brought a rare plant called, Little Brown Jug (wild ginger) from Tennessee that loves the shade along with some cool looking bamboo. We already have bamboo growing but I love it and thrilled to have more.  After living in the Northwest and seeing so much bamboo, I developed quite a love affair with it that stays with me today.

The garden is such a reminder of what it takes to produce something worthwhile. The responsibility that falls upon the shoulders of the gardener to participate in a cohesive way so that all is ecologically balanced – giving as much as you are taking. The earth reminds us that she is here for us, if we care just a little bit. We have had to walk our walk this year as we don’t have any help so it’s up to us. But we are managing and instead of thinking about what we have to do and stressing about it, we have chosen to look at it as a co-creation with the earth. Doing the best that we can when we can. And because it is incredibly collaborative, we have understood that the effort and love we put into the garden, more than equals what we get back.

So when I tell people about the size of the garden, many times their comment is “Wow, that must mean a lot of work!”  My reply, “Yep, if we’re lucky.”

From My Garden to Yours

Where should you get your worms this year?

Every compost should have ‘em!

This is my favorite  http://www.unclejimswormfarm.com