The last of the garden

Some of the butternut squashes are starting to spoil; others are wrinkling up, although so far this hasn't seemed to hurt them. I brought the worst-looking ones in from Cliff's shop; little by little I'm microwave-cooking them (after cutting off any spoiled portions) and saving the cooked insides for pies, cakes and muffins.

It takes about twelve minutes in the microwave to cook one squash.

This is the end of the potatoes from last summer's garden.

I made this crustless squash pie using the pumpkin pie recipe that's on the can of Libby's pumpkin. When making a pumpkin or squash pie without a crust, I add about a half-cup of flour to the ingredients to give it some body.

Of course, the potatoes and squash aren't really the end of my summer garden, since I still have lots of canned tomatoes, relish, and pickles.

Creamed peas and new potatoes

My mom and all her family knew how to make vegetables fattening... and delicious! Mother put cream on turnips, carrots, and peas; she wasn't above sneaking a little sugar in those, either. Every year in June, the peas in the garden would be ready for picking, and we'd have creamed peas and new potatoes.

Cliff only planted a small row of peas in his experimental garden... "Just enough for a mess or two," he said. The rabbits did damage to some of the plants, but today I found enough for a couple of meals for me and Cliff. I told him to pull up a couple of potato plants and get our other vital ingredient, new potatoes.

Now my mom used real cream, taken from the top of a jar of un-homogenized milk, for the cream sauce on veggies. We only use cream on special occasions here, since Cliff's heart surgery, so I used low-fat milk and thickened it a little with corn starch. I did, however, add a tablespoon of real butter so we'd taste a little bit of fat.

My four-month-old Jersey heifer is waiting in the wings, and in eighteen months or so, she'll be providing us with real, honest-to-goodness cream so thick it heaps up on the spoon if you dip into it. We'll still only use it occasionally and with discretion. See her future udder?



I had a cup-and-a-half of cooked chicken I needed to use, so I also made chicken gumbo. That's store-bought frozen okra, by the way.

I suggested to Cliff he plant a few okra plants. He'll love watching them grow!