Greenhouse and Tomatoes

These are Heirloom Tomatoes, and various other vegetation.  Some of these Tomatoes have very interesting shapes.  I've grown various Heirloom plants before, but these are the strongest ever.

This one has ridges.  I not sure of the variety, but it's looks like it be like a large Beefsteak variety.

 Then this one has Black splotches on the sepal.  I think one of the varieties I got was called Bob's Black.  There are thousands of cultivars of Tomatoes.  You can even cross your own species to make one your own.  Horticulture is a very advanced science, thousands of years old.  Explore it...

Swiss Chard

Swiss Chard is not something I cook very often.  I had a friend offered some Swiss Chard from her garden, and I thought OK, lets give it a try.  I'm going to treat them like Greens, something I do make fairly often.  Swiss Chard is somewhere between Celery, and Mustard, and maybe sort of like Spinach too.  It has thick Celery like Stalks, and big fibrous leaves.  It  wants a slow braise.

First you want to clean them thoroughly, then separate the stalks from the leaves.  I chopped the stalks into large pieces, and the leaves into one inch sections.  The leaves will simmer down to almost nothing, sort of like Spinach.  So you'll need a lot of Swiss Chard to make a batch of Greens.

Like with the other Greens I make, I'm going to start with Butter, Onions, Sea Salt, Red Pepper, and Black Pepper.  Let them saute a while in the sauce pan

Then I add the Swiss Chard Stalks, and keep simmering.  Both the leaves, and stalks of the Swiss Chard are relatively bitter when they are raw.  They can possibly be used in a salad if you like the bitterness, some people do.  But, definitely try them cooked as greens.  They could possibly be even better if I had made them as Southern Greens with a Ham Hock, and Cornbread.

I let those simmer on low heat for 10, or 15 minutes, then added a couple cups of Chicken Stock.  At this point cover the pan, and let the Chicken Stock come up to a simmer.  Then we'll dump in the Swiss Chard leaves, and let the Swiss Chard Greens finish off for about 5 minutes.

I maybe added a little too much Chicken Stock, and the Greens were a little soupy, but I don't mind.  You can add some filler as you are eating them.  I had these with some Garlic and Mushroom Egg Noodles, and a couple slices of Rustic Toscana Bread.  Great for an impromptu Monday Dinner.

Halo Q

I found this November 6, 2018...

Greenhouse Cleanup

I've been getting to work on the Yard, Fence, Garden, and also the Greenhouse lately.  Over last weekend I cleared out that crap that had accumulated in there.  I lot of it was just junk I had accumulated to work on, someday.  Well, it's in the way right now, so I pitched a lot of it.  The Scrapper guy was very happy.

This has been a work in progress over the last 15 years.  It has had many different objectives from sprouting new plants, overwintering mature plants, and ultimately a storage shed for my lawn and garden equipment.  Now I am changing its mission back to grown plants.

There is still a lot of work to do.  I want to add a gate between the Fence, and the Greenhouse to prevent Harley from going around the Greenhouse into the Garden.  Also, I want to replace the white door with a Cedar Gate that is stained like the Walls.

The Greenhouse is already integrated with the Garden Fence.  So, eventually the Greenhouse is an integral part of the garden.  If you haven't noticed there us a little problem with the top of the Greenhouse.  That plant that is completely covering the Greenhouse is a Trumpet Vine.  It is highly prolific, grows like mad, and I am beating it back continuously.  It is fixin to get a serious trimminz...

At one time the Greenhouse had a Plywood Roof.  The Trumpet Vine grew roots into the Plywood, and the also The Weather destroyed the Plywood Roof.  So now only the Trumpet Vine branches are the Roof.  I'm gonna have to fix that.  It looks neat at the moment, but leaks like a Colander.

All of the Frame of the Greenhouse is built with Pressure Treated Lumber.  So, the Bones of the Greenhouse are stable, and strong.  Most of the work I will be doing is superficial, and the structure is stable.  It's Springtime...  More Tilling Required, and Wood Werkinz...

Monster Flux Suckerz

The new 1.9 Amp fan motor is working great...  It's about 23 Watts, and 200 CFM...

Adding higher power fan motor caused the fan to walk around the table a little bit.  So, I replaced the Aluminum Baseplate with a nice thick piece of steel that weights 1.25 pounds.  Now it sits still.  I've also improved the regulator assembly a little.  There is a better switch pot, and better knob.

My Beta Testers are very happy with this one.  Looks like we have a winner...

Shrimp Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

I found some nice looking, medium sized Portabello Mushrooms at the store last week.  Hmmm, what can we do with them?  I don't think I had the idea of Stuffed Mushrooms in my head yet.  Grilled Portabellos seemed kinda of intriguing.  So they sat around a couple days waiting for an idea.

Then I also have a lot of Shrimp at the moment, panic buying, LOL!  So, I start pondering how I would make a Stuffed Mushroom.  I've never done that one before.  So, you gotta make stuffing, right?  Ponder that for a while...

Each one of those is a handful, big hand, full.  So, I found a recipe for Shrimp Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms to use as a baseline.  It's basically a Stuffing plus Shrimp.  You start with some vegetation, when a bread, seasoning, egg, and the Shrimp.

Remove the stems from the Mushrooms, and chop them up.  Dice some Onion, and Garlic.  Then add a little too much Butter.  This is starting almost like one of my Soups.

Gotta move everything over to the Cook Station, and throw the Butter, Onion, Mushroom Stems, and Garlic into a Fry Pan.  This is usually when I season, and flavor the vegetation with Red, and Black Pepper.

Let that cook down until it getting a little soft, then add the Bread Crumbs, Shrimp, and Egg.

Cook that until the Shrimp is starting to look a little cooked, season it a little more, and stuff the Mushrooms.

Then throw them into a hot oven for 15 minutes, and then Nom Nom Nom...  After eating them I felt like there were some things I could have done better.  I didn't use all of the recommended ingredients like cheeze.  I don't think Shellfish goes together with cheeze very well.  Plus I could have diced the vegetables, and cut the Shrimp finer.  Maybe next time it can take a ride in the Robot Coupe, LOL!

Heirloom Tomatoes

My Heirloom Tomatoes are showing a nice spurt of growth over the past month.  Maybe I'll get some funny looking Tomatoes this year.  I can't wait to see...