What's for Dinner, Sun., Apr. 24, 2016

[NJCher]

Pasta (bowties) with vodka sauce and chicken sausages with spinach.


Cher

[japple]

1. Beautiful day, here in the Southeast. Perfect weather for grilling.

We had grilled pork tenderloin, grilled portabellas and zucchini. Also had buttered red potatoes, roasted asparagus, and tomato/pepper/radish salad.

Strawberries are beginning to ripen in our garden and it will soon be time to stop harvesting the asparagus. We are getting radishes and romaine now and will be setting out squashes, tomatoes, and planting peas and beans next week.

[NJCher]

2. ooh!

It was fun to get the garden/what's for dinner report.

I look forward to getting asparagus! I have one stalk up now. One.

I put out my first containers of tomatoes and squash today. I am starting off in pots and moving on to my raised beds. I have lots of seedlings up! Dill, red ruffly lettuce, escarole, butter lettuce, spinach, peppers (red jalopeno and mixed peppers--red, purple, green, yellow, and orange). More leeks, plus flowers, like delphinium and sunflower.

I saw this fabulous pepper in Whole Foods today. It was red with yellow streaks. The produce kid told me it's a Dutch pepper and called flame. They're a new strain, I think:



Planted last year and already up in the raised beds are leeks, garlic, kale, horseradish, marjoram, sage, and lemon balm. I have turnips planted in the raised beds that are seedlings, but my beets that I planted still haven't come up.

Your meal sounds wonderful--love pork tenderloin with portabellos.


Cher

[japple]

3. Those peppers are drop-dead gorgeous! Will have to look for them, although

there isn't a Whole Foods within 40 miles and there are no high-end grocery stores in my little town.
Maybe I can find seeds for something more exotic than what we already have started in cups. We transplanted our seedlings into larger cups last Thursday and wound up with a majority of Mortgage Lifter tomatoes, a few Black Plum and San Marzano, and a couple of Cherokee Purple. They should be ready for the garden in a few weeks. This year, we are hedging our bet, planting some in pots and placing them on the south side of the house. Last year was a terrible year for tomatoes and I want to be able to can at least a few jars this year.