Vegetarian Sonoran Hot Dog

I’ve been wanting to try a vegetarian-style Sonoran Hot Dog for some time (it’s a Tucson tradition, after all), and finally gave it a try yesterday. I’m not a fan of the mayo, mustard, or ketchup so I didn’t throw those in. I did add some avocado for fun, and because I love avocado. We didn’t have any jalapenos on hand but next time I’ll definitely add them because a little spice would have been a good addition.

I cooked a Jumbo Smart Dog (just sits in boiled water for a few minutes) and wrapped it with 4 slices of MorningStar Farms Bacon (pan fried for a few minutes). I threw the bun in the oven for a minute, then topped it with the bacon-wrapped dog, just-warmed Amy’s Organic Refried Beans (really good – I hadn’t tried them before) and shredded cheese. Just a few minutes in the oven.

When it was bubbly, I took it out and added fresh chopped tomatoes and white onion (both from the garden!) along with sliced avocado. Now this is a serious veggie dog. And a complete dinner.

First Cantaloupe

The cantaloupe plant in the community garden has been growing fast and large over the last few weeks, and we spotted a few small melons growing about two weeks ago. (Sorry the photos turned out a little fuzzy).

cantaloupe plant taking over the fence around the community garden

cantaloupe growing a couple weeks ago

Then while I was out of town over the weekend, the neighbors discovered there were two large cantaloupes hidden near the bottom of the plant in the corner of the garden. So they picked them for the eating!

The first cantaloupe we picked

Then sliced in two

We ate some yesterday and it was good. The texture was still pretty crunchy, almost like a cucumber, which I actually liked. Although it could have had a bit more flavor and been sweeter, which makes me think it wasn’t quite ripe enough. Next time we’ll wait a few more days before cutting into it.

Sliced up the rest for snacking

Patio Planter

We have a large back porch, and when we moved in, there was a tree stump converted into a table in a section of the porch. There used to be a tree here, and it appeared that the previous owner decided to just cut the tree down, build a patio around it, and make a table out of the stump. I had to track down a photo from when we first moved in, since I didn’t think to take one more recently.

Table built into backyard patio

We’ve lived here for three years now, and the table was becoming a bit of a problem. For one, it had gotten damaged from the sun and the rain. It was actually swollen from the moisture as well as being cracked. It also didn’t allow for any flexibility in the porch setup. We had to have a table there.

So we decided to get rid of it, which wasn’t easy. First, we smashed the concrete around the stump so that it then sat in dirt rather than concrete. Then, we used a chainsaw to take off a number of pieces, making the stump as small as we could. Next, we lit it on fire! A little smoky but it did the trick.

Pulled out the roots and filled in with nice soil. We decided to make a planter. We bought some fence and stained it. Planted some cucumbers and beans.

New patio planter with cucumber and bean plants

Unfortunately, the fence has failed to keep out one of our dogs who insists on munching on the bean plants… (the same way she likes to munch on grass – I think she’s part horse). So we are rethinking what we should plant in here. Any ideas – are there vegetables that our dog won’t be interested in?

Did these peppers burn? Nope, it’s blossom end rot.

Once the peppers started growing in the community garden (several weeks back), we noticed that a number of them were getting spots of brown. Our first thought was that this was due to the blazing Tucson sun and they were simply being burned. To address this, we have been covering them with shade cloths that are really light and let in the filtered light so they still get enough sun.

Pepper plants covered with shade cloths

Well after doing this for a few weeks, we were still seeing the brown spots on our peppers. Lots of them.

peppers with blossom end rot

Well turns out it wasn’t due to the sun. It was calcium deficiency. Apparently this can be pretty common for both peppers and tomatoes, and causes blossom end rot which produces water-soaked lesions at the blossom-end of the fruit.

We applied some gypsum to the soil and hope this makes a difference. We don’t think it’s an issue with watering since we have a pretty good irrigation system going, and the other nearby plants aren’t having any issues.

Fortunately, it’s a mild case for now and most of the fruit is still edible if you just cut of the lesions.

We Built a Scarecrow

Some birds were lurking around the community garden, so a couple weeks back we decided it was time to build a scarecrow. Neighbors and their kids were invited over and we drank homemade iced tea, dressed & stuffed the scarecrow. (Turns out the adults were actually the ones that did most of the work while the kids played on the swing and looked at the chickens! They did help pick out the hat, though).

My partner & I contributed the hat, bandana, and old shirt. For the eyes are broken pieces of CDs – this helps keep the birds away as well by reflecting the light.

We nailed him to a couple planks of wood then to the fence in front of the garden. No more crows to be found around here!

 

 

First Tomatoes and the Wrath of the Hornworm

Back in May the tomato plants were growing enough that we needed something to support them to keep growing up. We put up a cage around the cherry tomato plant and put some posts and piping across the roma tomato plant. This photo is from May:

Roma tomato plant (left); cherry tomato plant (right)

Both now have several fruits on them. The roma fruits grew more quickly.

cherry tomatoes

roma tomato

Then just last week, I was moving the leaves out of the way and taking a look at one that was getting red, and it fell off into my hands. So we had to eat it – but turned out it was almost perfectly ripe – juicy and delicious!

roma tomato fresh off the vine

And just yesterday, one of our cherry tomatoes was ripe for the picking. Also tasted great.

cherry tomato

Unfortunately, some worms have started to chomp down on both the tomato plants.

Roma tomato leaves eaten by horn worms

We actually had planted two roma plants (I’d forgotten this!) and one of them was now dead, so we had to pull it up and it will start of our compost pile (we just got a compost bin recently from a neighbor).

dead roma tomato plant at the bottom of composter

We found out these are fondly known as tomato hornworms. These can destroy our tomato plants, so yesterday we sprayed them with a Bt spray and are keeping our fingers crossed. The other plants still look healthy so I think we’ll be ok.

the remaining Roma plant

the cherry tomato plant now dwarfs the Roma

Vegetable and Tofurky Salad

I’ve posted before about big salads. Love ’em. Especially in the summer time, we’ll usually have big salads for dinner at least once a week.

This latest version included: mixed greens, cucumber, baby carrots, bell pepper, tomato, avocado, red pepper & jalapeno crunchies, sliced almonds, pine nuts, and sliced Tofurky deli slices (the hickory smoked variety).

Topped, off course, with a drizzle of olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Pasta Primavera

I made pasta primavera last night, inspired by herbs from the garden.

Ingredients fresh from our garden were the Thai basil, spicy oregano, and zucchini; the jalapeno was fresh from the community garden.

I sauteed some garlic and jalapeno in olive oil for a few minutes, then added chopped vegetables (bell pepper, broccoli, zucchini) along with the basil and oregano. Cooked until the vegetables just started to get tender.

Meanwhile we’d been boiling the bowtie pasta; when it was ready I threw it in and mixed it to coat the pasta with the light sauce. I let it sit there on low heat for just a couple of minutes before serving.

I topped with pine nuts along with some salt and fresh ground pepper.

pasta primavera

I was surprised at how flavorful it ended up being! I’ve had some bad luck in the past with this sort of sauce not having enough flavor. I wanted to avoid adding butter which I’ve ended up doing before.

The trick is just to make sure you put enough garlic & herbs in there to give it the flavor you want (more than you might expect), and of course enough olive oil. Adding some spice didn’t hurt, either.

Champagne Spritzer with Peppermint & Strawberries

Our peppermint plant is doing well and we have used it mostly in spring rolls.

fresh peppermint from the garden

I decided to try something a little different and made a champagne spritzer with strawberries and peppermint. It was one part champagne to one part club soda; pour over some sliced strawberries and mint leaves. Very simple. It helped to let it sit in the fridge for half an hour or so to pick up the flavors. Great summer drink!

champagne spritzer

Selection of Peppers

A selection of peppers from the garden.

Mexibells, jalapenos, poblanos, Anaheims, and yellow bell