Welcome to Caliann's blog

I love the outdoors, the beach, gardening, family get-to-gethers! This is a spot hopefully for anyone who is interested in giving me pointers on being a better gardener as I'm a beginner. Mostly learning from reading other garden blogs I'm finally going to give my vegetable garden a try.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Tomatoe Sauce



What to do with all those tomatoes? I finally put a batch of them together and made home made maranera sauce. Into a large pot cook: 1 large onion, about 6 cloves of garlic, and enough olive oil so nothing sticks to bottom of pot. Throw the tomatoes in to a food processor and pulse till it's really juicy. Pour into pot with onions and garlic. Then add spices like some italian seasoning, throw some fresh basil and bay leaves while your at it. Salt, just a dab of sugar and cinnamon. Cook on low and stir occassionally. Go about your business then come back and stir some more. The sauce will render down with just a lot of pulp in the pot (about a couple hours). When it's done you have to strain the pulp from the juice. I get another smaller pot and lay a large screen strainer on top then ladel the pulp making sure to squeeze all the juice I can out of each ladel full.
It should be very thin with just a little of the paste left on the bottom of the strainer. Be sure to scrape this off in to the pan. That's the good stuff.

Monday, August 18, 2008



Still getting lots of veggies. Weather has been warm as usual, although today was a nice break from the heat being only in the 80's. Seems like I have to water everyday too.

After I pulled out some of the squash (it was taking over) I'm not so bombarded now with an over abundance. And the Okra is almost as tall as I am. It's not bushy, just tall and spikey. I go out everyday and still pick a few, I just have a small row. I planted some more Sugar Peas the other day and their sprouting pretty good. I miss having them since my other crop died down from the HOT weather. I hope it will be a good time planting now for a Fall crop, we'll see.

Friday, August 8, 2008


My dwarf lemon tree is looking very nice this year. I have much more lemons than last year. They won't be ready for awhile though. The other picture is of my dried corn and the empty spot where I pulled out the squash. The Gourd plants are huge and beautiful. I have lots of gourds too. I think I'll leave the corn to dry real good so we can use them for Fall decorations.


My squash was taking over!! I had to pull up a couple of them. That's o-k, I've still got three left. Every thing I'm cooking in the kitchen seems to have squash in it... I'll miss it when the season is over. I know one thing, it has made me get more creative with different ways of cooking it, cause with the vast supply of it you just can't eat it the same way every time!

Sunday, August 3, 2008

I BEEN BUSY IN THE GARDEN




I've got great green beans, red bell peppers, and tons of squash. That's my beautiful Grandaughter poseing with the squash. We cooked up some Squash Gumbo.
Saute: onions, and minced garlic in some olive oil. Then add some chopped squash and red bell peppers. Just to al'dente then throw in the chopped tomatoes and there you have it. You can always throw anything else in that suits your tastebuds. Anything goes, when it comes to fresh veggies from the garden.

MS. POODIE

MS. POODIE