Cooking Competition

Will be competing in the Al Pollard Memorial Foundation Chef Signature Dish competition tomorrow night at the Roanoke Country Club! Wish me luck and I hope I win! Will fill in all of the details this weekend!

News and Notes

Nothing much to report over the past month. Things at work are well and the home front is great too! Roasting BBQ tomorrow at church and that is about it. I have started a new blog. I am currently working on trying to eat healthier and exercise more. Check the link on the right for more info. For now, will be putting most of my blogging efforts into this. Check it out and watch me lose some weight and try and become a healthier chef!!

Garden Woes...

I try and think that I am not a demanding person and do not ask for very much. I enjoy the simple things and it really does not take much to please me. I try and be "green when I can", try and be nice to other people and treat everyone with respect, and I love our furry little friends out in the wilderness.

So I go out to the garden the garden this evening to water the tomatoes and my single pepper plant and ALL of my tomatoes are gone, no sign of them anywhere at all. Did a person come by and pick small green tomatoes or was it a dreaded groundhog?

I try and have faith in people and can not think why anyone would want my 8 or 20 tiny tomatoes so I am leaning towards the groundhog theory. I am just really ticked off right now and could really spit nails if there was such a thing. Usually when an animal eats vegetables, they take a bit and move one. So partially eaten parts so I still wonder!

I may not even try a garden next year. Not that I put much into it this year, but this has happened in years past; the groundhogs eat everything. Guess I need to invest in some pest control. There looks to be some interesting solutions out there but do they really work? I wonder!!

Peaches Final

So I finally pulled the peaches off of the tree on Monday. The birds were starting to eat them and that left me little choice. 50 came off total and to be honest, they were not the best peaches in the world but still better than what I have seen in the grocery stores. They were really juicy and slightly tart, not very sweet but sweet enough.

Next year, I will cut back the crop to 25 and see what happens. I hope good weather will grace us next spring like this year. Last year, we had a hard freeze and wiped out most of the peach crops in the south. My little tree was no exception.

I made a peach trifle with the harvest. Concocted a peach filling, cross between a cobbler and jam, and layered this with cinnamon cake, vanilla custard, and whipped cream. Shared this with my church today and most seemed to enjoy. A great flavor combination for sure.

There it is, my peach story for the day! They were good and looking forward to what happens next year! Next on the list is tomatoes. One is almost ready to pick!!

Best movie of the summer?

I saw "Batman" today and just wanted to give a shot opinion. This movie is breaking records left and right and it is pretty good. It was a little bit long for me, mostly towards the end. I enjoy Christian Bale as Batman and he is great in this role. The late Heath Ledger was tremendous as the joker and he would be difficult to replace if the continue this series! I do not think his performance was Oscar worthy. This movie is worth saying but not sure if it lives up to all of the hype. Some of the scenes in the movie are just breath taking!

I feel the best movie of the summer is "Iron Man"! What a ride this movie was and is plus Robert Downey Jr. is great as the reluctant hero and the writing and story is just excellent! What is your favorite movie of the summer so far?

Will have some more peach pictures and stories the next few days! Ciao for now.

Fruit

This post is going to be a little fruity, literally. Just because I finally took some pictures of fruit growing in the back yard! Please enjoy!

This is a peach which is going to make a fine pie, cobbler, or jam! Maybe a month to go before ripe?


My peach tree, so full of peaches and I have already removed more than 50 fruits.


My first tomato of the season. I have 4 plants down but they all went in late, so it may not be a great tomato season for me and Sherry. If we can just get one great tomato!


Finally, blackberries. Have a bunch of fruit but they are taking their time turning. These are the first two ripe ones and it is hard to make something great with only 2 little fruits.


That is my fruit story for today! Happy cooking!

Red Red Raspberries...

I can only remember raspberries being honored as the king of berries in all of my culinary travels over these years. All berries are great and nothing beats a great strawberry, a dark sweet blackberry, a nice and tart blueberry, but for some reason, raspberries seem to always creep to the top of that list. If you have looked at them in the grocery store recently, they are priced in the $4.00+ per 1/2 pint here in southwest Virginia (wonder how much of that cost is in gas since they are surely coming from California?).

Two summers ago, I planted a blackberry bush, 2 raspberry bushes, and a blueberry bush and that first year, there was very little fruit production. Last summer, I can remember picking 5 blueberries, 10 raspberries, and just a couple of blackberries so I was really looking forward to seeing what would happen this spring. Really started to see some great flower bud action a few months back and tonight, I was able to reap the benefits of 2 summers of patience.

Would estimate there is a good pint of berries in the bowl and many more to come. Now, what to do with them? They are really tasty right out of the bowl, and just super sweet. I let them get to the point on the vines where they are almost black in color, or at least blood red. When they turn that color, the flavor is so intense.

This year, I have adopted a more "green" approach to my lawn and garden. No chemicals on the lawn to prevent weeds; only organic pesticides and fertilizers on all plants, but I am trying to avoid all of these things if possible. My garden is very small this year with only 4 tomato plants, 1 banana pepper plant, and one zucchini plant, all planted at the beginning of June so, they may not do very well. My peach tree is doing awesome!! I have had well over 100 peaches on this little tree and it is to the point where I had to start thinning out the crop. More than 50 peaches have been removed over the past few weeks and every time I thin out the fuzzy fruits, the ones left on the tree grow with noticeable vigor. I guess this is like growing grapes for wine; prune back the fruit so the best get the most nourishment and produce the best taste and sugar. If the bugs to not get them all, there might be a peach cobbler in someones future!