Easy Healthy Meal- Using your peppers and shallots

 I have been making sure that we actually eat the stuff that was grown in the garden last year. Sometimes when you aren't used to using all these new ingredients that you now have on hand, you just tend not to use them. Peppers is one of those ingredients for us but the other night Phil thought to put some in the fried potatoes he was making and tonight I put it into our subs. 
We really like subs made with this meat:

It is simple and easy to use and cooks up quick. Normally we just cook it put it in the rolls with cheese and mayo and that's it but today I was cooking....

I went to the garden and pulled a couple shallots. They aren't big but I use the whole plant and the stems are pretty long right now. I chopped them up and then added a bunch of peppers from my freezer bag of peppers from the garden (I have a lot more pepper seeds started for next year) and I added in some mushrooms that I got marked down (they needed to be used up or dehydrated). 

 So you cook them in just a few spoons of butter or margarine and then add the frozen meat. 

As the meat cooks it breaks apart into thin strips. 

Now I am not going to tell you that the salad came from my garden, cause I don't have any lettuce out there right now (there is lettuce growing in the greenhouse but not enough for a salad...yet) but it had tomatoes, snow peas (marked down) and carrots in with the lettuce mix cause that is what I had in the house and it was really good. 

So while this isn't the most self sufficient meal I have ever made, I am working on it here at the new house. This was just about using up some peppers and shallots from the garden. 

A New Garden Bed for Christmas

 This is my new garden bed that I got for Christmas. It is just like two other garden beds that I have. It is railroad ties filled with leaves, soil and compost. I love it....so, of course, some do-gooder had to come on my facebook post and tell me how they cause cancer. Well honey, guess what, everything thing does!

The facts are they contain creosote and studies have proven that plants do not take this up by the roots so it is unlikely to cause any harm. Not to mention that mine are really old railroad ties and any creosote has probably already leached out. I never see any black on them or get any on me when I touch them (which is pretty seldom). 

So anyway, if you are a do-gooder, you're barking up the wrong tree...so to speak. I plan on putting in at least three more of these beds as the years go on. And you wait and see if we aren't told,  later on. that all these metal beds with their plastic linings cause cancer too and then you can bother those people. 

Just so you all know, I have never had vegetables grow so well as they do here in these beds. Can't wait to show you what I grow in this one. 

Don't Grow What You Won't Eat!

 I watch a lot of gardening youtube videos. They are a great source of information but what you have to remember is that those gardeners are growing for their youtube channel. I see a lot of them waste a lot of garden space growing things they don't eat. 
For instance, I saw one recently that had a whole row of basil. What in the world are you going to do with a 15 ft row of basil? This person mentioned that they had made a lot of pesto from it but just how much pesto are you really going to eat in one year? What ingredients did you have to BUY to go with that basil to make the pesto? Plus when this gardener showed the basil again (going to seed), it didn't look like they had made much from it. This applies to most herbs. People grow them but don't know what to do with them. I grew some volunteer basil this year and I dried and saved a jar full. Probably will pull any that come up next year. I have one sage plant that gives me all the sage I need for the few times I use it in soups. I have an absolutely huge rosemary plant (just one) and I am having to learn new ways to use rosemary. So far I have fried potatoes with it, add it to noodles, on chicken and in my eggs in the morning. We also love thyme on potatoes. Plus I just had some peppermint given to me (it's in a pot) and I probably won't use it a lot but peppermint tea is great when you have a cough. 
Zucchini is another great example. How many times have you heard someone say, "We had so much zucchini, we couldn't give it away." So why did you grow so many? Do you even like eating it? For me one zucchini plant is probably enough. I like yellow and pattypan squash a lot more but even then, I only like it fresh so I am not going to grow more than can produce more than a few a week. 
Peppers is a third example that I see a lot. If you use them, that's great. I don't happen to use a lot of peppers. I especially don't use hot peppers. Anything with heat above a jalapeno is probably hotter than I will ever use. And although we like stuffed peppers, we don't eat them a lot. I planted two peppers this year and have a ziplock bag of them cut up in the freezer and I made stuffed peppers once. Now next year I may plant a few more but it won't be a lot. 
The point is, before you plant something in your garden ask yourself: Do I really like eating this? How much of this can I eat or preserve? This way you won't be wasting space growing stuff that you will never use. For some of us with just raised beds that extra space can come in handy.