Winter gardening blues!

There is about a month that we tear things out of the garden and I sit back morning spring and summer!  During that time I get ready for Christmas for the family. Once the seed magazines start pouring in I can start planning and ordering seeds. My top places I order from are
Baker Seed

And Seed Saviors


I recommend you go check their web it’s out.

Gone skiing

We are in Red River New Mexico. This is our fourth time to travel here. It is not necessarily easily to get here from the Houston area. We usually fly to Amarillo and change planes in Dallas. However a massive thunderstorm caused our plan to be canceled in Houston and missed our flight in Dallas. When a flight opened up we took it to Dallas and rented a car from there and drove to Clayton, NM in the after math of a snow storm. Spent the night and drove to Red River from there. Red River is a small town with really nice people. You get to know the store owners.  There is a New Years Eve torch ski run and fireworks that we look forward to seeing every year. Going skiing!

Christmas Beignets

We have a running tradition of making beignets for breakfast on Christmas morning. It goes back to the year we were married. Four kids later we are still doing it. Our daughter came over for them.

Ingredients:
1 box Cafe Du Monde Beignet Mix
water
1/2 c sugar
3 TBS cinnamon

1. Put 6-8 cups of vegetable oil in pot and heat to near boiling.
2. Pour two cups of mix and 7 oz of war. I double this.
3. Stir until mixed. It will be wet and sticky. Add some extra mix.
4. Prepare a floured surface. I use more of the mix.

5. Pat out until even.

5. Cut with knife or pizza cutter.

6. Test oil by dropping one piece into oil. Dough should pop up to surface. If not hot turn up a little. 7. Dough will turn light brown. Turn over with slotted spoon.

8. When that side is done remove to plate lined with paper towels. 

9. Mix 1/2 c sugar and 3 Tbs cinnamon. 10. After beignets are drained dredge in cinnamon sugar mix.

11. At this point there is a hungry kid of any age waiting to devour them. Repeat procedure. Eventually you will get to eat some.

Merry Christmas!

From the Davis family to you! Wishing you a very Merry Christmas!

Key Lime Pie in the Instant Pot

My daughter, Melissa, and I decided to get together after church today and start cooking for Christmas Eve dinner. She made a low carb, low sugar chocolate chip cookie, and I made the Double Pecan Thumbprints cookie recipe from bon appetite magazine. While she and my husband liked it, I can honestly say its not my favorite. It did taste comparable to the Pecan Sandies that you buy at the store. We also cooked a Key Lime Pie in the instant pot, using the recipe from pressurecookingtoday.com. It is currently in the refrigerator cooling down. I am counting down the hours to sample it.

I enjoyed spending time with my daughter. What desserts are you making for Christmas Dinner? Picture from pinterest.com from Pressure Cooking Today.

Gardening on a city lot

We moved from a half acre lot to less than a 1/3 acre lot in the city. It is definitely easier to maintain here but it has its downfalls. There is not much all day sun. We have a massive pecan in our backyard along with the neighbor’s massive pecan. One whole side of our yard is shaded most of the year.

Even when it’s not, you have to deal with seedlings popping up and small branches dropping on your plants. You are seeing my son’s batting cage above, which is being taken down and sold. I have plans of putting some fruit trees back there.

The branches that get dropped everywhere! We don’t use roundup or amdro in our backyard, but it also means that our neighbors might. We are trying to encourage bees and butterflies but they maybe killing them. My butterfly bush is loaded with honey bees and butterflies in the spring but the bees disappeared in the summer. We have aerial spraying for mosquitos here. In the fall they were so bad that even I was welcoming the spray. I like where we live. It has an in ground sprinkler system which is really handy but forces you to be creative when building raised beds. We accidently put one too close to one of our beds and when it raised up it blasted the garden. How do you deal with gardening in the city?

Getting Ready for the Spring

Planting Tomatoes from Seeds

It is December and time for planting seeds for the Spring garden in zone 9b. I have some garden flats from They look like this.

They are really cost effective. You get the lids as well. I ordered my seeds from Baker Creek Farms and Seed Saver. I sowed three varieties per flat. I sow them close together as you can gently separate them to plant in 6 packs later. I never pinch off ones that are too close to each other. Here are a couple of examples.

In the second picture you can see at the top where I have already separated some of the tomatoes. My favorites are the Cherokee Purple and the Blue Gold tomatoes. What are you preparing to plant?

Growing Tomatoes in the south

Fall Tomato Gardening in the South

Garden years are a lot like life. Some seasons are good and some seasons are not so good. This year in south Texas, it rained every day from Labor Day until the end of October. Then it got down to freezing twice. I know people up north are saying quit whining but we rely on the fall garden down here to be our better growing season.

In the Spring, you gamble on how early to put your tomatoes in as they could freeze. If you wait too long they won't produce because the summer is so hot. This year, I planted 30 tomato starts in August. They were attacked by bugs. You know the kind that cut them off at the base? So I replanted some in pots and others in the ground with aluminum foil at the base. Then came the rain. Blight and fungus attacked. I was able to nurse through maybe 15 tomato plants. Then it froze! I covered the tomatoes and protected them. The ones in pots I moved to the garage. So here it is December and I have tomatoes because it is getting in the high 60's during the day. I have learned a lot about keeping tomato plants. Using baking soda dissolved in water, about a tablespoon, in a spray bottle, to apply to leaves of tomatoes and other plants to mask the smell of the plant. That is how the bugs are attracted to them. It changes the ph level of the plants. Also, you can use hydrogen peroxide on the leaves once a week to prevent blight. If blight starts, you just remove the leaves that are affected.

Bok Choy with Garlic

Bok Choy

2 tbs of diced garlic or two cloves of garlic
1 bok choy
2-3 TBS of soy sauce
1 tsp Sesame seeds

 Clean the bok choy and cut off bottom. Side note: if you leave a half inch on bottom of bok choy, put in saucer of water and regrow! Separate bok-choy and put 1tbs of olive oil in pan and add garlic and saute. When browned, add bok choy and soy sauce. Cook until wilted. Add sesame seeds. Toss to coat. Serve as a side to Chicken Fried Rice.

Fried Rice

2 chicken breasts chopped up in 1 inch pieces. 2 cups brown rice 2 Tbs Olive oil, Peanut oil, or Sesame Oil 1 cup yellow onion Soy Sauce 1 ½ cup water 6 baby carrots diced up 1 cup frozen peas 3 eggs A handful of Bean sprouts This recipe is very forgiving. You can add more or less of the veggies. Instead of bok choy, you can add cabbage. Set instant pot to saute and saute the onion and chicken in 1 Tbs oil until brown. Add rice and garlic and stir, sautéing for a minute or so. Add soy sauce and water, stirring to mix. Add carrots and peas.

My Instant Pot

I love my new Instant Pot!

For Christmas, my husband gave me an instant pot duo 8qt size. It will pressure cook and I am most excited about making yogurt!

Doesn't it look nice next to my KitchenAid mixer! I spent a week making suppers only in the instant pot. I absolutely love it. There are some recipes that I found required just as much time as cooking in the oven. My husband is diabetic and I work really hard on making bread free meals. Let me just say right here is that doesn’t always happen because I also have a teenager in the house as well. You do wait on the pot to warm up, much like an oven. Maybe I am biased, but I think food tastes better out of the instant pot. Since I try to cook 99% of the time and make it healthy, occasionally my family requests of all things, hamburger helper.