Gulp

I had forgotten why I like to grow my salad greens indoors.

This was going to be lunch one day this week!!!

Looks like I need to start a new indoor garden...

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Wordless Wednesday

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Tex-Mex Roots

I grew up frequently enjoying enchiladas, sopapillas, burritos and tacos. With lots of Hatch chile, of course!

Now Lizard and I have our own at-home Mexican salad bar, burrito bar, taco bar (and not just on Tuesdays) or torilla soup bar at least four times a week, usually more like five or six days a week. Italian typically fills the rest of the monthly menu.

I also put great effort into growing my own spices, peppers and onions all year long, and I do my best to grow my own tomatoes during the summer.

Chili has been a mainstay at our house. We (obviously) haven't had the annual Super Bowl chili cook-off at work for two years now. I realized the other day it's been too long since I made my own chili. So I pulled out six varieties of beans and fired up the crock pot. It's huge, so we had plenty to share, and the neighbors said it was awesome.

It had been at least three years since I made my own homemade chili mac. Oh, boy, was this latest batch a hit!

My mom got me hooked on chili and eggs when I was very young. I hadn't made that in probably more than a decade. Lizard doesn't eat eggs, so I rarely make them. He was game to try his favorite breakfast of biscuits and gavy with chili while I scrambled up one of the best breakfasts I've had in a long time.

The pièce de résistance, though, was something new to my kitchen. I'd thoroughly enjoyed Navajo fry bread at a Truth or Consequences restaurant decades ago and at the end of our 2015 Ride the Rockies. But I've never had or made homemade Indian fry bread, even though the first 28 years of my existence was a hop, skip and a jump away from the Mescalero Indian reservation.

I don't know why I was so afraid to try making this on my own until now. Scores of fry bread recipes may be found on the internet. I read a few, then did my own thing, with each fry bread turning out a little better than the previous attempt. The fifth specimen was perfect!!! Lizard said our fry bread with my homemade six-bean chili was the best meal I've ever made. Rolling the dough is such good arm exercise, too. You can darn sure bet these babies will be on our menu often now!

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Garden Report

Sometimes I worry my garden reports might be kind of boring because most of what I grow has been featured before. Multiple times. Every year.

Yet my garden is exciting to me, and even more so when the crippling heat doesn't destroy it. There are so many things to see all summer long! And every once in a while, I still get a huge surprise. Sometimes the surprise is weeds. Sometimes the surprise is a garden helper or a garden terrorist. And sometimes, it's a flower I did not expect at all!

This year's gigantic surprise! The baby white picotee amaryllis pup spawned by my very first amaryllis has bloomed! In solid upper 90-degree weather! I am in utter shock!!! This is my favorite amaryllis, and now I have TWO active bulbs!

I planted my first-ever iris seeds last year, and quite frankly, I gave up on them and dropped some other seeds in the pot this spring. This year, at least one of those iris seeds is sprouting!

I've had my first Colorado zucchini ever. None of the cucumbers, crookneck squash, white pumpkins or melons (both waternelon and canteloup) are producing. But I have zucchini! I might even be able to celebrate "Sneak a Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Porch Day" this year (official holiday on August 8)!

Half of the first zucchini provided a zucchini boat with turkey sausage, as well as onions, tomatoes and serrano peppers from my garden, and the second half became the best home-grown homemade spaghetti sauce I've ever made.

Lizard didn't care for the zucchini boat, so I got the entire thing to myself. We didn't get even one serving of the quinoa noodles with sauce from my very own home-grown tomatoes, onions, serranos, carrots, spinach, zucchini, oregano and basil. (With store-bought garlic, celery, olives, mushrooms and tomato paste.)

I cried and cried.

Now I have another fresh zucchini. I plan to try my hand at spaghetti sauce again. I'll be using one of my new *plastic* mixing bowls... No more glass bowls for me!!!

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Wordless Wednesday

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