Harvest Monday

Beans and more beans!

The last ripe tomatoes for awhile and some peppers.

The garden was a jumble of weeds and dying tomato plants until I cleaned it up last week.

Looking much better here.

And here.

Spinach, lettuce, bok choy planted under the netting.

A Cherokee purple - will it ripen on the vine?

A lone cucumber, picked later in the week.

Basil the best its ever grown for me.

See what other gardeners have harvested at Daphne's Dandelions.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Joining GBBD at May Dreams Gardens

 OWT

Remembering Dad on His Birthday

Today would have been my Dad's 94th birthday.

Here he is as a teenager (on the far right) some time in the early 1930s.  He was the sixth of nine children of Omar and Ada Buchwalter of Lancaster, PA. One daughter died in infancy and the other daughter, my Aunt Beulah is not pictured because she was serving as a missionary in Africa at the time of this photo.

I obtained this photo at the memorial service on Saturday of my Aunt Verna (far left) who was the last surviving sibling at her death in August.

 He lived to be 89 and died two days after my Mom's 89th birthday.   

On Friday they would have been married 72 years.

He is remembered with much love.

Addendum:  My sister Bonnie sent this photo of my parents taken three months before they were married.

Eggplant Bella

I made up a recipe last night for dinner and of course didn't think of taking any photos to share.  Despite that it turned out so delicious that I thought I'd share it anyway and let others who try it post the photos.

The inspiration for this was three Chinese eggplants from the Harbin farm stand, not in Harbin, China where Sarah once lived and worked, but a local market.  I'd purchased a package of small portabella mushrooms (Bella) at the grocery store that I wanted to use and  I knew I wanted a meatless meal.  I had my own tomatoes for sauce and some wonderful whole grain angel hair pasta.

I heated olive oil in my large skillet and then using the mandolin thinly sliced the three eggplants into the oil.  I added two large cloves of garlic, chopped and sautéed that to begin the eggplant cooking.  I then added half of a very large Vidalia onion and continued to saute.  I had to add more olive oil to keep that going.  Once it looked like the eggplants were fairly well cooked I added the box of mushrooms sliced up and sautéed more until the mushrooms softened.  I salt and peppered it all then tossed in some pitted Kalamata black olives that I halved.

The Eggplant Bella was ladled over the pasta and the sauce was added on top with a good grating of parmesan cheese.  Now I thought I had made lots and would have leftovers to freeze.  Well, Dan had three servings and Sarah took what was left and packaged it up for her lunch at work today.  Nothing was leftover!  It was that good.  Let me know if you try this and take some photos.

Joining Robin for Thursday Kitchen Cupboard.