Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Garden goodness

I planted some new crops this year, alongside the standby crops of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and potatoes.

Watermelon (not ready yet), corn (more than ready), and lima beans.

I grew up on canned lima beans and thought they were one of the world's nastiest vegetables, and then a few years ago, we got a small bag of fresh limas at the farmer's market.

Those were a whole different vegetable.

I put in 4 small starter plants in May, and they've now covered their trellis to the point where I have to climb inside it to pick beans. But it's worth it.

Also, I now know why they're so stinking expensive at the farmer's market - there are only 2-3 beans per pod, so it takes a lot of picking and shelling to get enough for a side for 2 people.

As an illustration, the bean photos here - it took 3 bowls of pods to get that single bowl of beans for dinner.

But again, worth it.

And fresh corn, picked right before dinner, is a revelation. Since it's been really hot, I haven't wanted to heat up the kitchen with cooking, but I've found out you can quickly steam corn in the Instant Pot. Also the lima beans. Also the stuffed peppers I made the other night. Instant Pot, where have you been all my life?

4 comments:

Summer Flies said...

Your crops look amazing. We call lima beans broad beans, when Mum grew them and they are fresh off the vine, we boil or steam them whole and dress with olive oil and lemon juice and pinch of salt. You can also put corn in the microwave in the husk for a few minutes and steam it like that. Yum! Congrats on the book!

Summer Flies said...

Oh sorry to clarify... we eat the whole broad been in the pod.(is it a pod for a broad bean?)

patsijean said...

We have had an InstaPot for over a year. I haven't taken it out of the box yet.

Lynn said...

My aunt and uncle had a big farm in Illinois where they grew a patch of corn for themselves next to corn and soybeans grown to sell. Their rule was to never eat corn harvested more than an hour before dinner.