Dinner and A Possum?

We have been having such bird activity this past week.  The other day I had a female Summer Tanager on the railing of the deck.  Of course when I got the camera she had flown into the trees.

 While looking for her I saw the male nearby.  I am happy to see these songbirds in the garden.

Wait, this isn't dinner or a possum!  Time for that Food Setting on the camera again!

Dinner was amazing!  When the kids are here we enjoy lots of good eating.  Charlie has a smoker in addition to a grill.  We had mega meats....lots for dinner tonight, the next night and the next night, half frozen for later on in the fall....once the coals are hot, might as well take advantage and smoke a lot.

Beef brisket

 Pulled pork....oh man.

We make our own BBQ sauce for the pork... 1/2 cup yellow mustard, 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 3 TBS brown sugar, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/2 tsp Worchestershite sauce, 1/2 white pepper, 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper, 1/4 tsp black pepper.  Put in a jar and shake... done.

Smoked brisket and smoked pork shoulder and/or boston butt is out of this world!!  To accompany the grand smoked meat we had Beer Bread (easiest recipe ever-- 3 cups self rising flour, 3/4 cup sugar, and a bottle of beer. Pour into greased loaf pan.  Mix and bake at 350 for about an hour, remove and brush with melted butter) I like using hearty beer for this recipe-- a Black and Tan or a Bock beer, lots of flavor.

If you have barbeque you also need to have coleslaw----we don't do the mayo based one, ours is vinegar and oil.  Shred cabbage and carrot, chop onion and green pepper.  Mix 1 cup cider vinegar, 3/4 cup oil, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp celery seed, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp dry mustard -- bring to a boil and pour over cabbage. 

It isn't summer without some melon..... we have been buying yellow and red watermelons from our local farmer's market...very tasty.  I don't seed the melon....you are on your own.

Come and have a seat....

Dessert?  Well, yes, my little baker is home and we have been eating some yummy desserts. 

 Lemon bars.... five lemons worth.

Wait, did I mention a possum?   Why yes I did.  As we were letting the dogs out at bedtime I thought Newton, the bunny hunter, had found a bunny.  Well, not exactly-- think a juvenile possum made its way into my garden .....my hope is that it doesn't return. 

And speaking of gardens....
Prince Charles my newest Clematis, is blooming.  It is in our family garden. 

And, the Phlox 'Robert Poore' that Racquel gave me is finally blooming.  I love it!  What a great color in the garden.  thanks Racquel!

With hope we will have a break in the weather and will have more blooms to share!

©Copyright 2011 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.

My Camera Has a Food Setting--- Who Knew?

Summer dinners are so wonderful, tonight's is probably top of the list.  We had veggies from the Uptown Greenwood Farmer's Market, Parisi Farms.   A gift from one of my world travelers was a nice Italian olive oil that begged for some dipping bread was on the menu.  

Dinner was ready as soon as the bread was done.  I found a great dipping bread recipe online.  I have a large variety of herbs on the deck, so we were set!

Becca made some Ratatouille with the fresh veggies and more herbs.  Included in the dish was zucchini, yellow squash, white eggplant, thin purple eggplant, a red pepper that is in the banana pepper family, onion and garlic...and of course tomatoes! Recipe from Smitten Kitchen-- super blog!

Isn't it pretty?

 The Ratatouille was served on Couscous with a dollop of goat cheese on top.....oh man!!!

An additional side dish was Braised Celery with Parmesan Cheese.....hadn't had it in ages!

Chicken breasts lightly marinated in Italian dressing.

 Doesn't this plate just glow???? 

 Some very nice olive oil from Sorrento Italy. 

And some bread to dip it in!

Dinner's ready, come and sit!

Hope you all are enjoying the bounty of summer's harvest.  Me?  I am binding my time until it is time for the homemade chocolate chip cookies.... :-D


©Copyright 2011 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.

Poison Ivy with A Twist

This spring I had posted some fun plants I had found in my wooded area, mentioning I would not go into the little ravine to retrieve them because of the poison ivy.  It was suggested  I do a posting about poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans.

 

Leaves of three, let it be....

We have a good deal of poison ivy in our woods.  The little saying above makes it clear...three leaves.  The leaves are irregularly toothed.  The leaves can be very small or very large. Next to the poison ivy is Virginia Creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, a five leafed vine.  When Virginia Creeper is small, sometimes only three leaves are present....easy to confuse the two. 

The leaves are glossy on top and lighter color on the underside.  It is a woody stemmed vine. When it climbs up a tree the vine stem has hairy roots all along the stem-- easy to identify.  It can take the shape of a shrub or climb a tree or be a ground cover.  It is a tricky plant. 
 The photo below was taken by a former neighbor from Seaford.  She found a great specimen in flower.  You can see the woody stem and the shiny leaves. 

 I am including a number of photos of poison ivy because the leaves are so irregularly toothed, one might think it is a different plant.   This follow photo, while a bit fuzzy, shows how large the leaves can be.  Next to it are the leaves of a Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua. 

Notice how little the toothed ridges are on the one below.

In many of the pictures you can see a bit of red.  In the fall the poison ivy turns brilliantly red.  It is quite pretty.  

Poison ivy is of concern to those of us in the gardening world because it contains the toxic oil called urushiol.  For many of us it causes blistering rashes.  The oil can remain for a long time on the skin as well as our clothes and shoes!  Urushiol can be found in other plants in the Cashew family, Anacardiaceae, of which poison ivy is a member.  I am sure you know of a few others....poison sumac and poison oak.  Listed below are a few great web links for all three.  Poison oak is very similar in appearance to poison ivy, but it has a velvety  pubescence on the stems. 

Duke photos for ID of poison sumac

Duke photos for ID of poison ivy

Duke photos for ID of poison oak

These three plants are not the only toxic urushiol laden plants.  Cotinus, smoke trees are included in the family.  Cashews of course and pistachios are also in this family.  Roasting the nuts makes the nuts edible, no problem. 

But, here is the twist.....Mangoes are also in this family.  The urushiol is in the peel and into the flesh about 5mm deep.  How did I come across this information?? 

Check out these lips..... they look like they are collagen filled movie star lips, until you see all the water blisters. 

 This is as wide as she could smile........

We did a Google search for allergies...thinking she might be allergic to a new lip balm or to her own saliva.  Finally the search led us to this posting...
Food that destroyed my face--- where the blogger said she had eaten a mango.  What??!!? Yes, darling daughter had eaten a couple mangoes in the last few days-- the last one she ate over the sink, eating it out of the peel.   BINGO!  Then we found this website--Food for Thought  more information about mangoes.  Who knew?  And yes, she is severely allergic to poison ivy.
Well, a trip to the urgent care clinic to get some prednisone and more antihistamines made for a great start to her visit to South Carolina!
So, as you go out into the garden be on the lookout for poison ivy.  And when you are in the market, keep your eyes open for those scary mangoes!

©Copyright 2011 Janet. All rights reserved. Content created by Janet for The Queen of Seaford. words and photos by Janet,The Queen of Seaford.