SQUARED UP WITH THE WORLD

A couple of weeks ago my husband was looking at our vegetable gardens on Google Earth and realized they were not squared up (Neil Armstrong would have been sadly disappointed in the disarray). For those that know my husband you would not be surprised that he spent the next few nights squaring them up diligently off the existing sidewalks, streets and neighborhood structures into the evening darkness.

As silly as it is, it did get me excited about starting to grow all those vegetables again.  I really miss being able to whip up a meal from what was collected in the garden that day.

TOMATO AND BASIL

What a wonderful food pairing suggestion from my Facebook page (as well as the many others!).

Green Bean Casserole

This has become our staple at potlucks.  We grow and freeze a lot of green beans and can't possibly eat them all ourselves, so they are often shared with family and friends.

Two Onions

Just in the mood to draw some onions.

Zucchini

The zucchini are just popping out of the garden right now.  Oh, what to do with them...

For those wondering about how these paintings are made...each one is on a playing card, then I've glued on some antiqued paper (from an old thesis I found at university surplus), then finally I paint and ink the final image.  That's it.

Peas & Flowers

Another freshly, picked from the garden pattern...peas!  You can find this postcard here.

Toma-Gnome (tow-may-gnome)

Did you know there are gnomes that work in your tomato patch at night? Maybe they can coerce me to like tomatoes more.

Thanks to my 8-year-old daughter for the name of this gnome. If you have some creative ideas for foodie gnome names, let me know and I just might include it this month.

Oh, and I wanted to mention that these gnome illustrations are painted on some neat oval drink coasters...that my neighbor found at a garage sale {thanks Leila!}.

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Good for You

Americans obtain more vitamins from tomatoes than from any other vegetable (BellyBytes.com). Ugh, I guess that means I should eat more tomatoes?

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A Culinary Term

The word "vegetable" is actually a culinary term, not a botanical one. When cooking, the tomato is indeed a vegetable, but if studying botany it would be referred to as a fruit.

Does that clear it up for you?

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Fruit or Vegetable?

We've all heard someone say this at one point..."Did you know that a tomato is really a fruit?" Botanically speaking, tomatoes are indeed fruit, as well as, cucumbers, peppers, and anything with seeds inside it.

A broad definition from Wikipedia: a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.

The fleshy part is a trick to encourage animals (including us) to eat seeds and in-turn disperse them. You know, the plant kingdom has to survive somehow.

So what exactly is a "vegetable"? Check in tomorrow.

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Z is for Zucchini

I've made it to the last letter and, yes, it's zucchini (probably no surprise). I think my next project might be making a food alphabet poster. If I can just find the time... {print available}