What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

Made homemade tomato soup for lunch. DIY cream of anything dry soup mix and home canned tomato sauce. Turned out good. A little salt and sugar. 2 loaf pans of fruitcake done. Cant seem to buy a good one anymore so I made it myself.

We have a local company that makes gang-buster ones. And they have a special going on now too ...
https://www.grandmasbakeshoppe.com/

 

[Sally PB]

Sadly, no results for "gluten free" at that site. My waistline is glad, my tastebuds are not.

 

[fuzzi]

Moon is out brightly now....oh well-we had aurora visible until thenView attachment 3696018
3pounds of short bread today for Monday delivery
Tomorrow I'll do macaroons and brownies and get those in the freezer.
Drywall pick up this weekend... plugging on with the bathroom. I love having the door gone.View attachment 3696019

Gorgeous! I've never seen the Northern Lights in person.

What did you use to take that photo? Love the clarity of the stars.

 

[fuzzi]

Bathrooms with no doors is a reoccurring nightmare of mine, I'm especially tormented by the nightmare where the toilet is in the middle of a crowded open space. *shudders*

I've had dreams where I really need a bathroom but can't find one!

 

[WthrLady]

Gorgeous! I've never seen the Northern Lights in person.

What did you use to take that photo? Love the clarity of the stars.

just my galaxy pro22

 

[akroberts1085]

I went out and looked at the plants in the pots today. I haven't had much time for the garden. We just had an HVAC system installed. I fed the girls and cleaned the rabbits cages. Other than that nothing. Too cold to get outside when it's not raining or windy. I did give a little girl an 18 pack of eggs 3 pomegranates and 3 cucumbers. Her dad worked on installing the HVAC and he came back today so he could fix my oven. The ground wire prevented it from working for 6 years. I almost cried I was so happy.

 

[saysfaa]

Dear Wife is a Filipina. She grew up eating bitter melons and loves them. They are too bitter for me, in general, but I have found that I like them in small portions in stir fry. They give the stir fry a little extra Bam! I grew the bitter melons for her, of course.

She can eat a dish full of bitter melons served with bitter melons.

We had a pretty good harvest of those bitter melons this year and Dear Wife was able to share some bitter melons with her other Filipina friends in our area. She likes to share what we can, so it's all good to me. Most of us American men don't care much for the bitter melons, so sharing a little means a lot to the girls who really enjoy it.

Dear Wife saved some seeds to start some bitter melon plants in the house next spring when the snow is still out in the yard. That should give us a good 2 months jumpstart on the growing season. Since we are trying to grow tropical plants in our northern Minnesota zone 3b, we need all the early start we can push.

As far as being healthy for you, I'll just link you to 6 Benefits of Bitter Melon (Bitter Gourd) and Its Extract. According to that article, "In addition to its sharp flavor and distinct appearance, bitter melon has been associated with several impressive health benefits." But you can read the full article if you want more information.

I found some fresh bitter melons at an international foods market. I bought some Indian style and some Filipino style according to the labels on the bins. The Indian style is more bumpy, less taggy.

Would you and/or your wife be willing to share some recipies? Maybe an into type (like you can tolerate), and a favorite of hers?

Possibly, I mixed up which is which style or the bins were mislabeled.

 

[Acre4Me]

Mid process pics…

The supplies

Some tree parts, stockings for eating, houses from kits

On left: homemade house parts. On right, tree parts. Will they ultimately fit together??

Gingerbread men

The mess of building and decorating. The stars are strawberry “fig” newtons

My teen has gotten this far. Grass today.

2 batches homemade royal icing, one more batch today. Good thing we have laying chickens bc each batch calls for 6 egg whites.

 

[jerryse]

We have a local company that makes gang-buster ones. And they have a special going on now too ...
https://www.grandmasbakeshoppe.com/

I bought a so called fruitcake recently. It was a cake with a few raisins. Not worthy of the name. The little rectangular logs are not very good but are absent this year. Thanks for the link.

 

[gtaus]

I found some fresh bitter melons at an international foods market. I bought some Indian style and some Filipino style according to the labels on the bins. The Indian style is more bumpy, less taggy.

Would you and/or your wife be willing to share some recipies? Maybe an into type (like you can tolerate), and a favorite of hers?

Possibly, I mixed up which is which style or the bins were mislabeled.

Yes, there are different kinds of bitter melon. I only know the ones we grew this summer. The ones we grew were pretty darn bitter to my taste.

What I liked, or could tolerate, was some of the bitter melon cut into smaller strips and adding a small portion of it to our soups. In limited quantity, it added a nice little kick to the soup. Fortunately, Dear Wife has a pretty good understanding of what I might like and can dial back the native ingredients so as to not overpower my American taste sensibilities.

Dear Wife prefers to cook up a big mess of bitter melon, stir fry style, with eggs and a bit of pork, salt and pepper to taste. She loves it. It's way too strong for me. She can eat that as a side dish, or even a main dish along with some rice, of course.

Frankly, I was happy to try to grow some of the bitter melon out in our raised bed garden for Dear Wife. We live in northern Minnesota zone 3b and the bitter melon we had is considered a tropical fruit. I did not know if I could get anything to grow, but we had a good harvest. Enough, in fact, to share with some of her other Filipina girlfriends. A taste of home halfway around the world for the girls.

Next year, I will be trying to start some bitter melon plants inside the house in late winter, to give additional weeks head start for the plants. Our growing season is just much shorter and cooler than that bitter melon plant would prefer. So, anything I can do to help it might improve the final harvest.

For those not familiar with bitter melon, here are some pictures I took this summer...