Dinnertime: Ham Steaks with Green Beans, Baked Potato and Sliced Tomatoes

Warm days are settling in, and lighter meals are the rule of the day! We found some very nice ham steaks a few days ago, so we fried a few up today and served them with a small baked potato, green beans sauteed in butter, and sliced tomatoes. How good is that?

Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato & Potato Sandwich

Remember a couple of weeks ago when my sister was coming to visit? I decided to serve Bacon, Lettuce, & Tomato Sandwiches because she and my dad love bacon so much. I didn't get the chance to post pictures, but we're having BLT's again today, and this time... I'VE GOT PICTURES!

The basic layout for this sandwich is, of course, bacon, lettuce, and tomato on white bread with mayonnaise. Toasting is optional.

To kick this sandwich up a notch (thank you for that concept, Emeril) you add a large, thin slice of onion at the bottom of the sandwich, underneath the bacon.

But here's something else to consider when building your BLT...

Add french fries!

Have you ever had a French Fry Sandwich? Just a pile of french fries on bread with mayonnaise, and the condiments of your choice. Yuuum!

Once or twice a year I crave a French Fry Sandwich. I think it's a Southern thing. If, by chance, I can't get my hands on french fries, I choose a corrupted version made with potato chips, but the crumbled chips are always falling out!

Well, about a week ago I was eating a French Fry Sandwich (We use curly fries, and I like mine just with mayonnaise.), and my husband asked me how it was. I said, "Great! But it would be better with bacon!" So I knew the next time we had BLTs I was going to add french fries!

So today I had a Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, & Potato Sandwich, and it was fantastic! But guess what. I was so excited about putting the bacon and potatoes together, I forgot to put onion on anybody's BLT, including mine!


Next time, if I remember the onion, I'll bet my Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, & Potato Sandwich will be over the Moon!


Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato, & Potato Sandwich

Ingredients:

4 strips bacon (cooked to desired crispiness)
1 thick slice of a large tomato
shredded lettuce
1-2 thin slices of onion
mayonnaise
2 slices of white bread (toasting is optional)
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Spread plenty of mayonnaise on two slices of bread.
Put french fries (regular or curly fries, or fried potatoes) on bottom slice of bread.
Add the onion.
Add the bacon.
Add the tomato.
Season with salt and pepper.
Add the lettuce.
Add second slice of bread.

Serve with additional fries and/or several slices of bread and butter pickles.

Mixed Blessings

The rain has been falling almost continuous for weeks. Considering, however, the fact that I live in a state that has been experiencing severe drought for some years now, I can't complain. But I will say that the blessing of rain brings with it a fair share of problems as well. Take, for instance, the following problems:

• It won't stay dry long enough for us to mow the grass.
• There isn't enough time for me to work in the yard or garden between rains and other obligations.
• We've got slugs for the first time ever!
• The humidity is uncomfortably high.
  

But, as I said, there are blessings:

• Everything is growing at high speed right now!
• I don't have to be standing out there with a hose trying to figure out how much water to give everything.
• The bird baths are staying full
• The car is staying washed!

There was a brief, non-raining (but still wet) period yesterday, but the sun was too intense and the humidity too high to be out in it for very long. Although the weather report called for more thunderstorms today and through the rest of the week, it was actually dry and comfortable enough to get outside and work on my container garden for a little while today.

I had to do some major rearranging of containers to move old plants out and new ones in.

By tomorrow I will have harvested all the remaining lettuce, though some roots are resprouting and I might leave them out to see what they produce. I do have 3 trays of young leaf lettuce, endive, and head lettuce, and a tray of spinach that I never transplanted. I like clipping the tender young leaves and adding them to the salads I prepare each night. It seems to me to be decadent to have baby lettuce leaves in our salads.

I've planted 3 bush cucumbers in large pots, and put them in the best sunny spot on the deck.

I've also planted 6 sweet potatoes in 2 very large pots, and put them in a sunny spot as well. I really hope we get some sweet potatoes from them, even if they are small.

I've got 2 Sweet 100s tomato plants on the deck, as well as 3 patio varieties of tomato.

I've got 2 banana pepper plants that are 3 feet tall now and filling up with large peppers. They both need to be staked to stay upright. John's working on that for me. There are 2 banana pepper plants John brought me back in March. They wintered over in the greenhouse, and John wanted to see if they'd do anything. I didn't think they would, but to my surprise, they are loaded with small to medium sized banana peppers.

I'm going to give up on the radishes. I planted about 100 in two shoe boxes, and they've never bulbed. I couldn't get bulbs last fall or the spring or fall before that either. I'm learning from other gardeners that this is a common problem. I understand from one gardening friend that this never happens with French Breakfast radishes, so I'm going to try some of those in the fall if I can find them. My radishes aren't a total loss. I've learned that the young tops are delicious in a salad.

I have a large tray with 6 strawberry plants that are now flourishing. There are nice sized strawberries everywhere, still green, but one has turned a beautiful deep red, and I'm waiting for just the right moment of ripeness to pick it and give it to my husband.

This is the first year I have grown Swiss Chard, and I wanted it in containers on the deck where I could watch it. I transplanted 2 in the early spring, and they're tall and beautiful now. I've learned that they will do fine all summer, and I can harvest them a few leaves at a time for meals here and there. They will do well until the very cold weather in winter.

That's it for the veggies in the container garden. Everything else is flowers. I've never tried growing them before, and it's nice to see them flourishing without much assistance from me.
I can't remember all their names, but they are lovely, and I am enjoying them. I often forget they are on the deck, and when I step out the door and see them there in all their color, I am always surprised and pleased.

I've got more than 20herbs now. Most of them are on a table near the deck. It can't hold all of them, so I'll be trying to find a place on the deck for as many as will fit. Some still need to be transplanted into pots. The rain has delayed that project too.

I like having a garden bed out in the back yard, but I also love having a few veggies, flowers, and herbs on the front deck where I can get to them quickly for a small, needed harvest, or a brief visit with nature.

Dance As If You're Falling On Your Face

Well, I got absolutely nothing done yesterday. I'd pushed hard the day before, getting a lot done, and had no energy left for yesterday. But this morning, however, I was up and out early once more. I moved the chicken kite to a new area, fed the chickens, and sat for a few minutes watching the birds do their morning stretching and dancing. Then it was off to the garden.

This morning I planted 14 yellow squash (straightneck and crookneck), 2 okra, and a horde of peppers! I didn't get the chance to count, but I thought there were at least 24 jalapenos, 2 giant jalapenos, 3 red hot cherry peppers, 3 pimiento, 12 sweet banana, and 18 green bell. I also planted 2 Japenese vining cucumbers at the base of an 8 foot tall garden windmill. The next time out, I'll add several pickling cukes I've grown from seed. It will be great to watch them climb that windmill.

Everything was going really well this morning. My energy level seemed fine, the temperature was comfortable, there was a cool breeze, and the sun wasn't too intense. So I wanted to keep working. I took two short breaks to make sure I didn't over-do it, sitting in the rocker sipping a cold drink while I watched the chickens and petted the dogs who were gathered around my feet.

After my second break, just before I was going to finish planting the peppers, I decided to clean up some of the trash that had accumulated in and around the garden. You know, those plastic collars around peat pots and the multi-plant trays, empty soil and mulch bags, and other stuff (I've got to get a trash can out there). John had left a number of very long pvc pipes on the driveway near the garden gate. He's going to cut them into lengths and use them as tomato stakes. They'd been there for a couple of days, but they hadn't been in my way before this morning.

Well, wouldn't you know it, while trying to step over them, my short legs didn't reach and I ended up standing on them. Because they are round, and not flat, my "standing" s udde nly became a dance as they rolled and I tried to stay upright. It was an ugly dance, but it didn't last long. I was on my face, on the pavement in a heartbeat. I got up with two scraped knees, a scraped elbow, and a tearful sense of defeat. I really thought I was going to get the rest of the veggies planted this morning.

I went in the house and John cleaned me up. I was upset, and it came out in anger. I spent the next 30 minutes screaming inappropriately about the pipes and the trash, and the unfinished work, etc. I hate that about myself. I got my temper under control a long, long time ago; but the "perfect storm" of my hormones rushing to the edge of the menopausal cliff like lemmings, unearthed in me a new level of uncontrolability several years ago, and my generously patient husband was frequently the target of my upset.

Actually, my tirade this morning was nothing compared to what I could have done two years ago. So maybe that's a sign that the storm is almost over.

I returned to the garden and finished planting the peppers, but my knees, which don't do kneeling well anyway, were hurting too much to do anything more. I'll have to finish planting the rest of the veggies another day.

Overall, I'm very happy with how the garden is coming, and I hope we will have a large, healthy harvest. I'm looking forward to canning lots of jalapenos for John, enjoying stuffed bell peppers (a rare treat usually), freezing and drying lots of squash, pickling jars and jars of cucumbers, eating-freezing-and-canning tons of tomatoes, and slicing open ice cold watermelon and cantaloupe when summer reaches it's hottest point in August.

Once my anger subsided, I quickly apologized to John for my outburst. Good husband that he is, he had already forgiven me. My knees will heal long before my heart heals and I forgive myself for letting my temper get away from me once again, however. For the past several years, my hormones seem to have more control of me than I do, and I don't like that.

Angry and irritable is not who I am. It's not who I've spent my life becoming; but this someone I sometimes don't know, this angry me, that snaps so quickly and so brutally at the one person who loves me so dearly... I hope she will be gone soon. I hope the person I once loved being will have a chance to return and finish out the last of my days on this earth, held in the loving, secure embrace of my husband, whom I do dearly love. I hope she will return and bring back the peace I used to know, and the joy I always felt in living each day in the grace and blessedness of knowing Christ, the center and source of my sole reason for being.

We're off to a local, popular fish camp tonight to have dinner with my mom and dad. John has eaten there since childhood, and has gone on and on about it since we wed. Tonight will be the first time for me and my folks. I hear they specialize in catfish, and my dad can certainly enjoy a plateful of catfish! My mom will want shrimp, I'm sure. Me? I think I'm in the mood for oysters! Ooooh!