Homemade scalloped potatoes taste great!

Even though I am late in life, I’ve never prepared scalloped potatoes from scratch! In the past, whenever the urge hit me, I would just grab a package of Betty Crocker Scalloped Potatoes from the cupboard and twenty minutes later they were ready to go. But this Thanksgiving, things changed. I had been invited across the street to a neighbor’s house where everyone was to bring a covered dish. My thought was, sure I can do that!

Thanksgiving Day can and I began to have second thoughts, but then came across a simple recipe on the Internet for Scalloped Potatoes. I had all the ingredients and decided what the heck. I would give this a try. You can view the results in my You Tube video.

The problem was, after making the dish, I chickened out and grabbed a box of the commercial stuff so I could make a ‘safe’ dish. You see, never having made this before I was afraid to be serving it to friends. So, I made up a second batch to take with me. Well, while I was making the boxed preparation, I happened to glance at the nutritional label and was shocked to see that the sodium level was through the roof. I think it was something like 600-800 mg of salt per serving (depending on serving size)! My dish was nowhere near that much at something like 173 mg per ‘generous 123 gram’ serving. Also, once I began to think about it, making the recipe from scratch was not really harder to do, but it was definitely cheaper!

So, the next time you are thinking about what to make for dinner. Give scalloped potatoes from scratch a try!

The high cost of commercial seed purchases!

I had occasion to go to a seed website today to look at some seeds for my planned spring garden. What a surprise to find that a package of just 30 Red Cayenne seeds were going to cost me $3.95 for the package and $4.95 to ship them to me. That’s a cost of .30 cents per seed! I then tried adding four packets of seeds (bean, tomato, melon and cucumber) into the shopping basket to find that the shipping was now $6.96 for a total cost of $18.75! Folks, that is just too much money! And yes, there is a cheaper way around this problem.

For one thing, you can frequent the local mega-marts like Lowe’s and Home Deport where you can often find the exact same packages fro the same company for less than half the cost. Plus there is no shipping charge! What might cost $2.95 on-site may only be $1.95 at the store. That’s a real bargain.

Another way to get around this is to plant only heirloom seeds and then allow some of the plants to go to seed. I’ve done just that this past season with hot cayenne peppers, sweet Banana peppers, Kentucky Wonder beans and even Cherry Bell radishes. I’ve carefully dried these and then stored them in small packages in the bottom of the fridge. I now have plenty to plant and even to share come next spring.

I was thinking also, it might be fun if other began traded seeds via the mail or even started selling them to other interested parties. One idea I had was to offer ten seeds if someone sent an order. I would only request that they also include an extra .41 cent stamp, by way of payment, for each packet of ten seeds processed. Such a transaction would not include actual money, but would allow for the seller to ship out ten seeds at a cost to the buyer of .82 cents while the seller makes a profit of .41 cents. Additional batches of seeds could then be purchased at a rate of ten seeds for every stamp included. Anyone out there who might want to comment on this, I would appreciate hearing from them. I'm just trying to think outside the box.

A fall mini romaine crop!

There must be something about cold frames and cool fall weather that brings the best out in crops like lettuce. I realize my best quality and largest leaves by growing plants in this manner. As you can see, this is one healthy group of plants! The leaves are so dark and crunchy that they make a solid impact as a base of any salad.

I’ve been growing a small amount of romaine and even spinach this way for some years now. I usually will start a few lettuce plants in early August and will have the resulting seedlings to transplant size by the start of September. Before I know it, I’ve got myself an award winning crop. My only regret is that I didn’t build some more of these frames over the summer. Still, by mixing these in with some store bought iceberg lettuce, I’ll have enough to last me into December.

A pleasant garden surprise - Curly Kale!

One of the biggest surprises to me for the gardening season that just ended was a plant called curly kale. I figured it to be a rough tasting thick skin offshoot of the cabbage family and really failed to understand why anyone would like to steam it as part of a dinner. Well, I was wrong again as it turns out. (Something I’ve gotten used to over the years). This plant tastes awesome when taken fresh from a steamer and then lathered with a bit of butter, salt and pepper. It has a wonderful texture with just a hint of the taste of cabbage. I’ve added it to my evening meals and plan to grow three to four plants next year. (Just one plant provides an awful lot). And did I mention it can fend off really cold temperatures? One morning it got down to 24F and while that pretty much killed everything else that wasn’t covered, the kale brushed it off like water off a ducks back.

Cherry Bell Radishes

I harvested a few Cherry Bell variety radishes from my cold frame on Election Day (yes, I did vote) and thought I would document one of them for my records.

The radish pictured here weighed in at 23.5 grams and was over a foot long. The roots were about four inches in length and the plant sported a total of nine leaves. The radish itself was about one inch wide by one inch long. And yes, it was delicious!

I'm not sure why I like to grow these. Part of the reason must be the fact that from sowing to eating can be as quick as one month. The other reason, for me, is the color they add to a salad.