Grilled Corn

The sun is back in Seattle. Thank goodness summer did not come and go so quickly!

I had a pleasant surprise yesterday when I went to water my garden. I took a little peek inside the husk of an ear of corn and there lay a beautiful full ear of golden kernels! I have never successfully grown corn before, so I am thrilled.

My joy went up a few notches when I realized that those tall (taller than me!) green bean vines, that have wrapped themselves around the corn stalks, had gone from empty to dripping with beans since the last time I had looked. I picked the biggest and easiest to spot beans, and ended up with about a gallon. I blanched and ate them in a steak salad. They are more tender and more flavorful than the earlier producing bush beans that I have been eating since early July.

Next year, I will most defiantly use this year's method of growing both kinds in order to get a continuous supply for months. Also, the bean/corn companion planting eliminated the need to stake the beans! Now I just have to figure out a sturdier method for my tomatoes, which have pulled the cage right out of the ground and sprawled through the walking path, the bush bean patch and the neighbor's plot, despite my frequent and sometimes brutal trimming.

I am looking forward with much anticipation to many nights of corn eating over the next few weeks. I made grilled corn last weekend and had family asking for it again already. Bring a few ears of corn and a sauce to brush on them to your next BBQ and they will be at least as popular as the steaks!

Sauce for Grilled Corn:

Melt half a stick of butter. Juice one lime and add the juice to the butter. Add a large pinch of salt and pepper and between 1/8 and 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne powder.

Shuck the corn and leave the stalk attached.

Grill over medium high heat, brushing the lime butter sauce over the kernels as you grill. You want about half of the corn to be nearly blackened by the fire before removing from the heat. Use a page of newspaper, wrapped around the stalk, to pass out the corn to your guests.

this week's photos

Family is visiting this week, so I am getting the opportunity to see Seattle as a tourist. What a nice city! We watched Underwater 3D movie at the IMAX theater yesterday and played around in the Science Center. An annual pass is cheaper for a group than individual ticket sales, so now I have a family pass. If anyone comes to visit me, now we can go for free!

I am continuing to eat salad greens every day to keep up with what my garden provides. For lunch today, I blanched some green beans, halved some Sun Gold tomatoes, and tossed with sliced red salad onion, pesto, feta cheese and orzo. Everything except for the cheese and orzo came from the garden. Those Sun Golds are delicious! I am so glad that I planted some this year. Very sweet. My friend Cory and I fell in love with them (they are the only tomato she likes) when we spent a day (well, maybe it was just a morning) helping to harvest them on an organic farm in Northern California where my sister spent a summer.

Here is my sweet baby this evening. Okay, so you can't actually see the baby, but if you poke right there, above and to the side of my belly button, you will feel his/her little foot push back at you, then pull away and hide. We play this game a lot. I didn't know I would love this baby so much before the little one is even here!

Harvesting and Generosity

Cultivating a healthy garden is a reminder of the truth that the more we are generous in the world, the more the world is generous with us. As I pull zucchini from my plants as fast as I can, and harvest basil every few days to keep the plants from going to flower, I am reminded that there can be no hoarding in a healthy garden. As soon as I let the summer squash grow large and woody on the stalk, or I let the basil, cilantro or parsley go to flower, the plant will slowly stop producing. The more I harvest and share, the more there is to harvest and eat.

a few photos...

A few pictures from this week...

Here is my new haircut, courtesy of the talented Erin of Sweet Lily Salon in Ballard. I am very pleased with the more natural color she gave me, as well as the nice layering. Thanks Erin! If you go to see her for a new 'do of your own, tell her that I sent you.

I am still not tired of eating fresh garden salad nearly every day. The last few weeks have brought new additions to the salad bowl, including ripe tomatoes and lemon cucumbers.