Cooking and Gardening

I enjoy cooking and gardening quite a bit but haven’t really blogged about it. Grow Your Own is “is a monthly food blogging event that celebrates the foods we grow or raise ourselves and the dishes we make using our homegrown products.” and has inspired me to blog a bit about my cooking and gardening efforts. I’ve been following a couple of food-related blogs, including Andrea’s and A Year of Crockpotting.

Given the rising cost of food lately, I’m glad I decided to plant my meager veggie garden. My yard is tiny so my space is limited, but my mom has a nice sized garden and she likes to share. This year I planted cilantro, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, and zucchini. My oregano plant managed to survive the move and the winter, but my chives did not. Mom grows artichokes, spinach, figs, raspberries, strawberries, Marionberries, zucchini, cucumber, tomatoes, basil, and rhubarb and lettuce. I LOVE rhubarb.

Cliff recently went on a fishing trip in the Queen Charlotte Islands in British Columbia, Canada and came home with 43 pounds of fish, which promptly found its way into *my* freezer. Included were Red Snapper, Ling Cod, Sea Bass, and Halibut. Lots of Halibut. So, my challenge has been to find new and interesting ways to prepare all this fish. Last night, we had the first of the halibut. I made Grilled Halibut with Cilantro Garlic Butter. I used fresh cilantro from my garden. I served it with steamed green beans. A nice hearty bread would’ve been good too, but I just wasn’t that ambitious. It tasted quite good. The sauce was not too heavy and allowed the flavor of the fish to come through. Ethan only had 2 bites, but I’m hoping that by the end of the summer he will love fish.