Peppers

I plant thirty or so pepper plants every year. At least half are green bells which will turn to red if left on the vine to ripen. The rest are banana peppers and other sweet varieties. By early June they are producing the above amount every week and will do so until frost. They are the most resilient and productive garden plants in my garden, impervious to bugs and disease. They are truly the plant that keeps on giving. I pick the above amount or more every week and freeze some mixed with onions and tomatoes to add to Chili and Taco's, but use the rest in the following ways:

Pickled banana peppers and pepper-onion relish

Roasted Peppers

Roast Peppers on grill or in oven at high temp, turning until all sides are chared. Place in a bowl covered with plastic wrap until they have cooled a bit. Peel, seed and core, then toss with a bit of olive oil and garlic salt. The plastic wrap steam step makes the peppers much easier to peel.

Sausage and Peppers

Brown Italian Sausages in a large skillet over medium heat. While sausages are browning, cut up peppers (I use an assortment of sweets-red, green and yellow) and onions into wedges. Move the browned sausages to the outer edges of the skillet and cook vegetables until the peppers soften and the onions begin to caramelize. Stir occasionally. Use tongs to place the sausages on top of the veggies, cover and lower heat. I add just a bit of garlic salt as the sausages will release a lot of seasoning. Cook 45 minutes or until peppers are tender and the sausages are cooked through. Leftovers will make delicious subs. Heat the mixture in the microwave, then place the peppers and onions on a sub roll, add the sausage that is sliced in half and spread open, then top with sliced provolone or mozzarella and heat in the oven until the cheese melts.

Healthy Taco Meat Mix

Saute green peppers and onions in skillet until slightly tender. Add ground meat and brown. Drain fat. For each 1 to 1 1/2 lb ground meat stir in 1 can of refried beans and 2 packages of taco seasoning mix. At this point I add a quart of fresh or frozen diced garden tomatoes. Drain off some, but not all, of their juice. The remaining juice will replace the water normally added to the taco seasoning mix, but will give you more nutrients and flavor. If you don't have all the garden veggies available, adding a jar a salsa to the meat, refried beans, and seasoning is also good. Simmer the batch for 15-20 minutes and freeze any amount you won't use in 5-7 days.

Stuffed Peppers

Parboil pepper halves in simmering water 10-15 min. Use tongs to remove peppers so you can use the water to cook your pasta. Mix together 1 1/2 lb ground meat (beef/pork combo is best) 2 eggs, 1-1 1/2 c. Italian bread crumbs, 1/2 c. Parmesan cheese, 1 grated onion, a splash of milk, and salt and pepper to taste. Stuff parboiled peppers and bake at 350 for 45 min. to an hour. I always have extra meat mixture left over and shape these into meatballs. These can be baked along with peppers, but they need to be turned every 10 minutes and when browned can finish cooking in the tomato sauce.

Pasta Sauce

I like to use 2 cans of tomato puree and one can of tomato sauce for my base. To this I always add at least 1/2 c. Parmesan cheese, a couple of T. olive oil, a couple of T. of sugar, garlic salt, pepper, and fresh parsley. Then, depending on what's in the garden, I add-fresh or frozen-onions, green or red peppers, diced tomatoes and shredded carrots (sounds strange, but they really add flavor). Simmer for an hour to blend flavors. Serve over pasta and stuffed peppers.

Imperial Violet

Blue Ginger

Tibouchina

Imperial Violet is the pencil color of these two flowers that are now in bloom.

The Tibouchina, or Princess Flower, is a shrub, given to me by Linda Hart, after I lost the one she gave me last year to a late freeze. I understand that these are supposed to come back from the roots after a freeze, but my first one probably hadn't been in the ground long enough to do so. This year I'll definitely provide protection until it is better established. The velvety leaves are almost as beautiful as the blooms. The Tibouchina likes light-I have it in a spot that gets sun most of the day.

The Blue Ginger is not a true ginger but is of the same family as the Spiderwort and Wandering Jew. One of my customers at work, a fellow gardener, brought me some stalks of this one day and told me to plant them vertically under a few inches of soil in a mostly shady area. I was sceptical, but was rewarded the next fall with some ginger type foliage and a few blossoms. Now, four years later, I have clumps of these in several areas blooming like crazy with an almost florescent Imperial Violet flower stalk.

Cooking Lima Beans

Lima, or Butter Beans, as they are sometimes known in the south, are one of the few veggies that thrive in the brutal heat and humidity of our summers. If I had to pick a favorite veggie, it would be this. I have been eating a bowl of these every day for the last three weeks. It took me awhile to figure out how to cook them just right. If you buy a box of frozen Lima's the instructions will tell you to cook them for 20 minutes with an added 1/4 cup of water. This makes a not so flavorful, mealy bean. I experimented with cooking my homegrown Lima's just barely covered with water and cooking them longer and they were much more tender, but still not as full of flavor as I'd prefer. So after some experimentation I've come up with the method of cooking the perfect Lima:
Add chicken broth (homemade is best, but store bought is OK) and water to cover. Plop in a couple of tablespoons of butter for added flavor, add a little pepper and salt/or garlic salt, cover and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer 45 minutes to an hour. Remove the lid the last 10 minutes and let the water cook off and the beans will absorb all the broth and butter yumminess.
With many vegetables, I've found that cooking them in a skillet instead of a saucepan allows for more uniform distribution of heat and a more consistently cooked product.

Figs

I planted this "dwarf" fig tree at the end of the vegetable garden, and I suppose it likes the location as it has grown leaps and bounds beyond the "petite" variety it claimed to be. Apparently I am growing it to feed the birds and squirrels. No matter, figs are not my favorite food, but I do appreciate the beauty of its fruit and form.