I had a very productive weekend, foodwise....
Friday night, Joe was here & we made homemade pizza dough. Of course it was delicious! We made a margherita pizza with cherry tomatoes & golden tomatoes from the CSA box, and tons of basil & oregano from the garden. Made a yummy Hawaiian with fresh pineapple, too. Later, Kristin came over & brought dark chocolate chocolate chip ganache cupcakes for my birthday! They were crazy good. J & K sang Happy Birthday to me. :-)
Sunday, Jim & Justin broke in the new smoker:
Men with meat.
While that was being marinated/smoked/mopped all day (and, ahem, into the wee hours), Justin helped me make rosemary hoagie rolls:
Homemade Rosemary Hoagie Rolls
They weren't much to look at, but were shockingly good. They had perfect crunchy crusts and super soft insides. Mmmm!
Next, Justin & I went out to inspect the garden & check on my first red tomato:
Omigod! It's an actual tomato!!!
Then, I picked up one of the dozens of apples that are all over the ground & dared Justin to take a bite. So, being a 12-year-old boy, of course he did. And it was good! And I took a bite, and, yes, it was very very good! So then we went about trying to get only good apples down from the very tall tree. Most of the apples are defective in some way. And the ones that are perfect aren't really within in reaching distance. But we got some, even though I got bonked on the forehead by a wayward falling apple:
Justin with our first apple harvest.
Today, I also noticed that our grape vines (which are not trained, and which we have torn out in previous years) are producing grapes! Jessi, prepare your hammock & buy a train ticket!
And here is the adorable, lone cherry tomato that I picked today:
It was yummy.
Jim caught this critter red-handed in my garden today:
A big 'ole nutria lounging beneath our grapes.
Here he is, glaring at Jim's camera.
Looks like, before Jim spotted him, this nutria made a nice meal of my cucumber plant. The plant is big & vibrant, so it should survive. But I definitely need to get a fence put in soon!
I didn't see the nutria, but Jim said it was huge: 25-30 pounds. Yikes!