Garden and Naptime Productivity

I had a bunch of zucchinis to use up and burned through one of them frying it seasoned with Kusina Gold.  It was delightful.  I saw Lidia Bastianich make these on her show and they're so easy and tasty.  You cut your zucchinis into thin slices, season with salt and pepper (or in this case with Kusina Gold), dredge them in flour, dip them in beaten egg and then fry them in oil til golden and tender.  While I was at it, I picked and fried two large green tomatoes.  Num num!

Whenever I go back to Iowa for our Girlfriend Get-Togethers, I always pick up more Kusina Gold Greek Seasoning whether I need it or not.  This is made by a Mason City-an and I rave about it all the time and for good reason.  It is DEE-licious!  If you like Cavender's Greek Seasoning (and I do), you will LOVE this.  I had Brenda pick some up for me because before I sat down to write this, I didn't realize she now has internet sales which is AWESOME!  If she could just get a spot in HyVee, that would be perfect!

Our garden has been slow to produce much of anything.  We've had a few cucumbers and the zucchinis are picking up but the tomatoes are not ripening in any hurry.  Dave's parents sent home this clothes basket full of fruit which was processed into quarts and quarts of sauce and marinara. 

We took another parcel of tomatoes from them this weekend and I canned salsa.  This little gadget is worth it's weight in gold and I spent the afternoon stripping with my curtains wide open.  I used this little tool to strip all the leaves off the cilantro.  I'm fussy and used to pick the leaves off before chopping because I don't like stems in my dish.  This thing cut the time in half and I was left with a pile of stems and a lovely floofy pile of cilantro leaves.  It reminds me of a diz for gathering combed wool for spinning.  I wonder if I could use it for that purpose?  Hmmmm....

I love the bright fresh colors of both the salsa and my kitchen tools!  I am also happy to report that I didn't wreck my flat top stove.  I vividly remember our childhood babysitter telling me that you could not use a canner on a flat top stove or it would shatter.  Granted this was in the late 90's and flat tops were still relatively new.  The stove manual said it was OK and I'd discussed this with my mother and sister in law as well as a few friends from work who'd never had issues, but I still held my breath with each pitcher of water added to the canner.

I wanted to share this little tidbit.  This was my favorite thing from the State Fair this year and we are totally going to do it next summer.  There was a living exhibit of Straw Bale Gardening and it bowled me over!  You can plant earlier, you can't over-water it and yet it retains moisture, there is not as much bending and hardly any weeding!  It was amazing and I'm sold!  They had a wire frame arch set up at the fair and it was tall enough that you could walk through it.  I wish I'd known about this in the spring.  Think of the produce we'll have next year!

As usual, this post was brought to you by...NAPS!  Thank goodness for naps!  Here is my first born Lopi and my second born boy watching Dave mow the lawn.  I love these two so very much!