Summer squash is the thin-skinned variety of squash that includes zucchini. It is one of the first vegetables ready to eat out of your summer garden. Most people are familiar with zucchini, but as this vegetable cross-pollinates, there are hundreds of varieties with different shapes and shades of green and yellow, some both green and…
Category: Summer
So you planted tomatoes, now what do you do with them
Gardening seems to be a simple activity. You put seeds and seedlings in the ground, water and weed, but you didn’t realize that harvesting tomatoes, and many other plants, is not like going to the grocery store and buying what you need for the week. For tomatoes, we plant the seedlings in April and around…
Salsa Two Ways
Last week, I was asked for a salsa recipe and it made me remember that I forget that not everyone cooks like me. In the summer, I make this every week to have on hand. Besides that it tastes better than anything store bought, the best part about making your own salsa is that you…
Gazpacho
In the heart of summer, we have lots of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers coming out of the garden every week. These ingredients are even better together, in the classic Spanish soup, Gazpacho. Gazpacho is a very old dish that originally was intended to make stale bread palatable, by soaking the bread with vinegar, olive oil,…
Make your Own Crispy, Salty, Vinegary Snack
Summer is here, and I have already been a little lazy about writing with the kid home from school, and then I got completely off track with my husband home for a week of vacation. With this lazy mindset, it’s the time of year perfect for pulling that salty snack, right off the shelf, ready to…
Gazpacho – My Salad Smoothie
It took a year or two of dealing with an overflowing garden for me to stumble upon my salad smoothie. But this is now one of my summertime staples. As summer is quickly fading away. It is a great way to use up some not-so-perfect vegetables and get a dose of vitamins at the same…
I’m not a writer, but I play one on the Internet.
What’s the point of this blog anyways? As I have begun to attempt to document a part of my life here, the first question should have been why am I doing this? Since Rancho Piccolo closed, I have been able to evaluate, what I enjoyed most about my work there. And, without a doubt, writing the…
Would you eat this?
I was helping out at Wellspring Charitable Garden this week and we came across this summer squash. After a brief discussion about what we were going to do with it, I got to take it home, there was a lot of squash and no need to let anyone see it and pass judgement. (Although, now…
The Season of Summer
Summer is here today, but what does that mean? In the valley, we think that we have at least 6 months of summer. The temperatures can warm up to the 90’s in April and it seems to go on through October. But, the dates on the calendar exist for a reason and when I get…
Fermented Ginger Carrots
Carrots are one of those ubiquitous vegetables at the grocery store, that no one really knows that they actually have a season. Here in California, in the spring we have carrots that just don’t have the same sweetness that winter carrots have. Like other root vegetable the cold makes the roots sweeter and winter is…