Spring Gardening, Missouri Style

It's been a wonderful spring in my opinion, for gardening. Who knew you could get such beautiful crops this time of year.?! I took the extra steps to cover my cole crops, such as my cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower, and the cabbages are doing beautifully.

The potatoes shot up like weeds, so I may get two crops if I do this right. Although you can't see them, on the hill behind the potato plants are raspberry starts. My goal is to have a single row, up against the fence, so I don't have the major weeding I dealt with in Oregon.

My garlic is getting the scapes, so harvest time is coming soon. I look forward to sauteed garlic scapes for dinner. Garlic scapes are the seed pod bearers that come up from the center of the plant. once they reach a certain length they start to curl. After you get the second curl you can harvest them, and should so you garlic plants put all their energy into forming the clove bulbs. You can saute them and add them to all sorts of stir fries, or eat them by themselves, or you can pickle them. They're delicious!

We're getting some peas this year, yay! So far the beets and carrots are doing okay, but they do look like the need a bit of nourishment. All in all though, the garden is looking pretty good! How's your garden growing? What are you planting this year?

Springtime Asian Style Bean and Ham Soup

Nature guy and I are heading to the temple with Annie this morning, but we wanted to make sure Mom and Dad had good food to eat today so I threw together a healthy and tasty soup this morning. I was the recipient of a bag of Asian veggies and they need to be used so I created an East meets West sort of soup perfect for a rainy day. This is a good time of year to get those spring time veggies started such as bok choy, spinach, carrots and so on.

I started off with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, heated up over medium heat in my soup pot. I then added 2 cups of diced ham, 1 very large onion, chopped, and 2 cups chopped cabbage., and 3 peeled and coined carrots. I cooked them until the vegetables were tender. I then added 1 inch of peeled, grated ginger and 4 crushed garlic cloves.

I also added to large bok choy leaves and stalks, chopped and 1 and 1/2 quarts, or 6 cups of water. To that I added 2 chicken bullion cubes and 1/3 cup barley.

 

I let that simmer until the barley was almost done and then added 3 cups chopped spinach and 1 1/2 teaspoons of lemon pepper. To that I added two 16 oz. cans of great northern beans, draining only one can. Here's the finished result! Just an FYI, don't leave out the lemon pepper, it really rounds out the flavor of this soup. I've listed the ingredients below. Let me know if you try this.

 

 Springtime Asian Style Bean and Ham Soup

2 T. Olive oil

2 cups diced ham

2 cups chopped cabbage

3 carrots, peeled and coined

I very large onion, chopped

1 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated

3 garlic cloves, crushed

6 cups water

2 chicken bullion cubes

2 bok choy leaves with stalks, chopped

3 cups chopped spinach

2 - 16 oz cans great northern beans, drain one only

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon pepper