Green Beans Galore: Freezing Tutorial

Last week I posted about the 5 gallons worth of green beans we picked (90% was my mom's doings).
We decided to freeze our share. Freezing is a simple and quick way to preserve them, plus our family likes frozen better than canned.

 Step 1. Cut/Snap the ends off & into bite sizes.

Step  2.Blanch them ( place in boiling water, then into ice cold water) The beautiful bright green color is preserved. Drain

Step 3. Let dry on towel.
Step 4. When dried place in ziplock baggies and label.

Life's Blessings- A Bountiful Garden

A friend of mine asked me to house sit for her a couple weeks back. She has a lovely garden and was happy to share her produce with me and my family. My mom got really excited and decided to pick green beans. These pictures don't do it justice.

Check out this haul........
                                          
She called it quits after an overflowing 5 gallon bucket full.  I will be posting next week what we did with our share of green beans.

These are some of the biggest bell peppers I have seen. I wear a size 8.5 to give you a little perspective.

And finally, some of the cutest little eggplant looking peppers! Her husband calls them "Loco Peppers" I venture to say they might be a little warm :)

 

Hubbard Squash Bread

If you are like me, the first time I heard the word Hubbard Squash I had no idea what it was. Well I am here to educate and share a delicious recipe with you.  My uncle's friend grows them, so when he came to visit he brought us a squash. I decided to substitute the squash for zucchini in a recipe that I found while at an agriculture conference in Enid, OK.

Here is a picture of another Hubbard grown by our neighbor.

Compared to an 8.5 Anderson Bean(ok, maybe I just wanted to take a picture of my boot)

 First you must clean the squash,  and shred it, I recommend using a food processor.

The Recipe- Hubbard Squash Bread
Preheat oven to 350.

Cream the following ingredients:
3 eggs
2 c. Sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 c. oil

In a separate bowl mix:
3 c. flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Slowly add this to the creamed mixture.
Finally add:
2 c. shredded squash
1 c. crushed pineapple (DRAINED)
1 c. shredded coconut
1 c. chopped nuts(pecans or walnuts)

This will make 2 loaves (make sure to grease and flour pans) or 24 muffins

Bake for 1 hour for loaves and 25 min for muffins

ENJOY!

Crafters Resource

I ran onto this AWESOME company. It is called Specialty Bottle.  All you crafters and cookers will love this site. The best part is there is no minumum order. They have glass sauce bottles, plastic tubes for DIY lip balm, tin spice cans, and the list goes on. Anything you want to cook, craft, and create there is a container for it here at  http://www.specialtybottle.com/index.asp


If you order from here I would love to hear about the products. I will post when I order. Enjoy!

Gardening

Sunday evening my family went to over to a friends house. I was absolutely amazed by her garden. As long as I can remember we have always had a garden, we usually plant the "normal" items; cukes, tomatoes, onions, and squash. Well, this friend of ours goes ALL OUT!

I actually ate this after I pulled it up. It doesn't get any fresher than that!

Pepper is almost as big as the plant.