Olive Food and Recipes! A place to share and exchange recipes! Right now we’re looking for great nutritious and tasty recipes perfect for a summer picnicor BBQ.

Can a gardener experience road rage…or should I call it “garden rage”?  Is it okay to chase fuzzy rodents from your garden with  overgrown zuchinni like it’s a baseball bat?  It’s okay, no need to call the Humane Society I havent’ won (yet) but you might want to call those people who come with those really cool  jackets that promise to take me for a ride if I agree to wear one of those “cool” jackets so I can hug myself all day.   I’m starting to believe that the garden critter chaos is  causing THIS gardener to go mad because I’m quite certain I’m feeding  every furry critter living in the same county as… MY garden? Ugh!  Darn furry critters hit the corn last night and pumpkins.  Of course the corn stalks are still standing pretty but the ears of corn  look like mangy stubs!  The perfect pumpkins look lovely if you don’t look at the bite marks on the one side. Grrrr! I have one neighbor who fenced her garden in just to keep her dog out and yeah, her veggies look pretty good but the rest of the neighbors have perfect gardens without fences and are furry critterLESS, why?!  Why do all of the animals in the surrounding area all congregate to OUR yard to wreak havoc on my hard work?  (Come to think of it we have this SAME problem with other people’s children! LOL! THAT I really don’t mind! *grin*)   I’ve decided something more than a fence needs to be done so I’ve assigned my family to garden patrol.  First shift started at 11 o’clock this morning with child #2. His job duties were to be THEE ROOT RANGER by making sure no animals enter the growing zone.  He was instructed to do whatever it took to ward off all furry critters.  At 11:27AM a crow landed in the corn – not furry but feathered. Tin pie plates were added to the garden.  No more birds.  The seven year old Root Ranger won.  At 1:00 pm child #1 was assigned to his post.  Just shortly after his shift started he spotted commotion in the corn again.  This time IT was a furry critter.  He squirted it with his water gun.  Lil’ fuzzy bunny was busted and sent on his way.  At 3:00 pm. I assigned myself to garden duty.  I spent the two hours weeding and straightening out the viny jungle.  While on duty nothing happened.  I was ready and waiting with a giant zuchinni strapped in its holster ( my garden apron) ready to spring into action if needed.  Darn buggers knew I meant business because nothing happened so I rummaged around and found a pile of mild banana pepppers.  Of course there wasn’t a bite out of ANY of the peppers.  So I came inside after my garden duty was completed and played Betty Crocker in the kitchen while whipping up a scrumptious recipe using some of the banana peppers I was able to salvage earlier.  This is what I came up with and I think it would be in your best interest to try this recipe out yourself because not only is it bad for you, it’s also REALLY yummy! *smile*  I’m not one for fried food – it typically doesn’t agree with me but I wanted to make the coating as crispy as possible.  If I’m able to salvage another batch of the banana peppers I’ll try baking them or broiling them to see if they turn out as tasty.

Here’s the recipe:  ”Seriously Stuffed Banana Peppers”

10-12 medium size mild banana peppers (the ones I used had a little zip to them but not outrageously spicy)

1/3 cup cream cheese

1 tsp minced onion

1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

2 turkey sausage patties cooked and diced

3 tbs shredded cheddar cheese

AND then some dashes and pinches of the following spices:

salt

pepper

garlic powder

onion powder

parsley flakes

Batter:

3/4 cup of a grainy pancake batter mixed with either water or milk so that it’s not runny but on the thicker side. ( I used Fiber One pancake mix)

1.  First thing you need to do is raid your garden or the produce section at the local grocery store for about a dozen mild banana peppers.  Wash them, cut the tops off and using a knife  remove the seeds.  Set aside to dry for a few minutes. (I forgot to take a picture of the pile of peppers before we ate them sooooo this is all that was left!)

 2.  In a small mixing bowl combine the cream cheese, onion, Worcestershire sauce, seasonings and sausage.  Mix ingredients until blended.

3.  Stuff each pepper with the mixture using a spoon.

4.  Next, dip the peppers in the pancake batter making sure to cover the entire thing.  Let the excess run off before placing in hot cooking oil.

5.  Carefully drop into hot oil to quickly deep fry.  Turn over to brown both sides.  Remove and place on a plate lined with paper towels to soak up excess oil.

6.  Let cool and eat.  Yummmmmmmm!

(The little round things are deep fried zuchinni – I was unable to capture  the critter so we ate the weapon…. *wink*)

Definitely not the way you should eat all of your veggies but it was fun to make and super tasty!  Tomorrow night we’re back to saute style!

Hope you get a chance to try it out!  If you have any fabulous tasting recipes you’d like to share please send me photos and the recipe!  I’d love to feature you on my blog!

Oh!  I suppose you’re wondering what happened to my husband on his garden duty shift today.  I have no clue, I sent him out the door with a flashlight and sleeping bag.  Hmmm….the door’s locked, what’s with that? If the furry critters don’t carry him away in the middle of the night we’ll continue this conversation tomorrow.

Olive a great recipe, don’t you?

xKim

***********************************************************************

“Get Your Groove On Sweet & Spunky Refrigerator Pickles”

Mmmmm-Mmmmm!  There’s nothing better than homemade pickles fresh from the garden during the warm summer days in July.  It’s July and we’ve had a pretty hot, humid and wet June here in Illinois which has made our garden transform from sick looking helpless seedlings to a gargantuous jungle in a mere five week period.  Our garden is literally  bursting with activity…. Bunnies are hopping around madly crunching on lettuce leaves and zucchini, crows are shredding the corn and the chipmunks  are spotted continuously munching on string beans and beets.  I’m so glad to know that my hard labor has gone to the birds and the bunnies. *groan*  BUT, there is some good news – the wildlife visitng my animal veggie stand aren’t too partial to watermelon, canteloupe and acorn squash (yet!)- I think we’re going to be taking bids on the final size of these monsterous fruits the way things are growing.  Maybe I’ll be able to pay for my kids college fund this way…?  The stuff is growing so fast you literally have to wade your way through the plants.

I was also able to save the pickles.  Okay, honestly, I think humans are the only living thing that eats these things because not even the insects are touching them.  Every day my boys run out to the garden to see what miracle they’re going to find.  They’re hoping for a two ton pumpkin but continue to find pickles and zuchinni – so many pickles and zucchini that I’m starting to wonder if I’m growing mutant plants because they’re growing a little too quickly in or garden to be considered edible.  In fact, I have so many I’m starting to drop them in my Etsy and Ebay orders as a special ” when you’re in a pickle” you’ll actually have a pickle.

 This is what you need to make these delicious pickles:

1.  First you need pickles….the fresher the better!

 

2.  Then you need a few ingredients…

1 cup white vinegar

1-2 cups onions sliced

2 cups white sugar

1 tbs. salt

2 tbs mixed pickling spices

1 tbs dehydrated hot peppers

4 cups sliced pickles

clean jar(s) with lids

saucepan and spoon

a small piece of cheesecloth if you don’t want the pickling spices to be all over the pickle slices (but otherwise their fun to spit at each other.  I didn’t really say that did I?)

3.  Now you’re going to measure out all of the ingredients and mix them all together in a saucepan and stir on med/high heat until the syrup/marinade comes to a boil.  I didn’t have any cheesecloth handy since I used the last of it to make some darling little ghosts for Halloween so we went cowboy style – we roughed it by pouring the spices right in the marinade.

4.  Once the marinade comes to a boil, you need to remove it from the heat and let it cool completely.

5.  While the marinade is cooling, work on washing your pickles and then slicing them into 1/4″ slices.  Cut enough to fill 3/4 of jar.  The photo shows a 1-gallon size glass jar which took A LOT of pickles and I had to triple the marinade to make sure all pickles and onions were covered.

6.  Once the marinade is cool, pour it over the top of the pickles and onions. Place lid on jar and shake the jar up a bit to mix ingredients.  Refrigerate for 24 hours before eating.  These pickles are supposed to last for six months or longer in your refrigerator BUT good luck with that because our pickles are lucky to last a few days because they’re THAT good! 

7.  See the jar in this photo and note how the jar is NOT completely full.  Uh-huh…see?  I told you….these babies are so darn good you’ll have to put a padlock on them because they start disappearing before they’re even done marinating.  We can fix that problem by adding more sliced pickles and mixing in.  Just remember to keep adding more fresh sliced pickles as your stash starts to diminish.  After the first few times of doing this you will notice the pickles don’t have as strong as a flavor.  There’s a pretty easy fix – add fresh marinade by following the recipe above.

 

Mmmmm!  So good you can’t stop!  This marinade can also be used to pickle zucchini slices (very small zucchini works best), summer squash, bell pepper slices, banana peppers, green beans, brussel sprouts, small children (haha!  I couldn’t help that one because I think I will have a pickled seven year old  soon if he keeps stealing my pickles!)

Enjoy and happy cooking!

Olive a great recipe, don’t you?

xKim