Okra @ MindSay 
I thought I would let you all see how my garden's have been growing with all that rain that we have been getting for a month. The first will be the flower garden and then the vegetable garden.
At the top from left to right is, balloon flowers, galdious, red lilly, dasiy, white easter lilly's, yucka pant, and then my veg garden, peas in a row out front, cucumber's, tomatoes okra on far right and the whole garden at left center and of course all this could not be possible if not for my gardner Mr. B. What a man!!!!.
I hope you enjoyed all the pictures and I so much wanted all of you to see what I have been up to. I did get over heated last Sunday so this Saturday I took it easy and let Mr. B move some plants around that have gotten so big that they have out grown their place.
Now gardner's let me see your garden's. It doesen't matter if it is in the ground or in pots on the patio or even it they are inside. If you are growing it I want to see it. Now is time to show your stuff.
I want to see Pic.s
Have a great weekend and remember I am waiting.
The rain's have stopped long enough for us to get the garden out. Last week my husband as you can see tilled up the ground just before the rain moved back in on us. The face he is making is that he really, really, wanted to do this job. He is such a great guy. We did get some plants, planted before it down poured. The tomatoes, peppers and okra. Then Wednesday it stopped long enough for us to get the squash in, then back to rain. Now today we planted the carrotts and peas and I started broccolli from seed last week in some small pots and they all came up so and doing well so far. I well be able to plant them in the garden in a couple weeks.
So yeah!!! we finally got our garden in. It was a very nice day today. We had some clouds that came in and for awhile we thought it was just going to down pour but the winds came in and blew the clouds out. Yes it was a very nice day.I dead headed some of the flower's so it will promote more growth. And I found out the ants love the humingbird feeder. So towmorrow I will be cleaning it out and putting in new food for the humingbirds. Darrell has said there is something you can put where the hook is that ants don't like. I will have to investigate the matter. I haven't seen any humingbirds around lately, the last time I saw one was around the first of May. But maybe some are still hanging around here.
Well I hope everyone has a lovely day on Sunday. Enjoy the day. And God Bless you.
Well I tried my hand at making fried chicken and fried okra for the first time tonight. If I were grading myself, I would give myself a very lenient "C". That is only because the okra was cooked and except for this monster chicken breast the chicken was cooked as well.
I had two big problems, well maybe more than two. First the okra. The egg wash was perfect but I did not have enough cornmeal/flour mix to cover it correctly. So although the flavor was there it turned out to be a breading okra dish instead of what I was wanting. But another mistake was using to much oil to cook with. Shame on me for that. That okra was swimming like dolphins in the ocean. I know now to drop back a bit when administering the oil. Then I was using whole wheat flour, trying to be somewhat health conscious, instead of regular flour. So although the okra "mix" tasted o.k., the chicken came out tasting like it had cornmeal all over it. The "cornmeal like" breading tasted o.k. but it just did not go with the chicken.
But the those problems were not my only downfall. I made other mistakes. I like a lot of salt with my fried chicken. I have one of those mini salt grinders that I have been using but as I found out tonight that just ain't going to cut it when cooking food. Morton's needs to take me away and learn me some things. Then I had the heat up too high for the chicken. So my first turn came up so brown it was almost black. After cutting back the heat the chicken started to cook better. So that was an easy lesson to learn.
So my debut for cooking fried chicken and okra has taught me some valuable cooking lessons that I can use for the next time. First, use the correct ingredients. Second, make sure my cooking settings and oil is correct for application. As far as my self inflicted grade goes, well I would not share tonights endeavor with anyone else, even though it is cooked thoroughly. So I really deserve an "F". But there will be a next time and I will be going for an "A".
NOTHING, and I do mean NOTHING, beats the taste of a garden fresh tomato in the summer. The so-called ‘greenhouse’ tomatoes at the supermarket, along with the genetically engineered ones, just can’t hold a candle to a fresh, garden-picked tomato.
Since I can’t fathom going through an entire winter without tomatoes, I am forced to settle for the substitutes in the off season. Granted, some are better than others. And about midway through the winter, you forget just how inferior these tampered-with substitutes really are. And then comes the first “OPEN” sign on the local produce stand, and your heart LEAPS as you read the smaller sign underneath proclaiming “Fresh Picked Garden Tomatoes!”
Garden salads. Pasta salads. Tomato sandwiches. BLTs. Charcoal grilled burgers topped with a huge slice of tomato. Egg sandwiches. Ah, for cryin’ out loud…ANY kind of sandwich!!!!
And what could go better with your garden-fresh tomatoes, than a fresh fried batch of southern fried OKRA! (An offering made especially for the pixelpyro, who LOVES his fried okra…)
All we need now is some fresh corn on the cob dripping in butter, a bowl of pinto beans embellished with chow-chow, some green onions and a wedge of cornbread...
Geesh, I’m hungry. I’m outta here…
