Stakeout

 
My grandmother mailed me a Birds & Blooms magazine that included a simple suet recipe. I had all of the ingredients in my pantry so I gave it a try. I even sampled the treat myself. It tasted like cookie dough but with the wrong ingredient ratios.


I waited until Saturday to hang the goodie outside so that I could spend a few hours spying on the backyard wildlife. One thing led to another and I figured, if I was going to sit in front of the window, I should create a bird sanctuary.


First, I filled the bird bath.


Next, I plugged in the fountain for some inviting sounds.


Then, I set up five kinds of bird feeders. (This seems excetric, even for me.)


Mrs. Cardinal was the early bird.


She and her mate like safflower seeds.


This hummer was fun to watch and a challenge to photograph.


The blue jay was the cleverest guest. He could extract a peanut faster than I could focus the camera.


I'm glad I set up the other feeders because the only bird that I saw eat the suet was this sparrow.

The squirrel, on the other hand, wasn't picky. For him, my bird sanctuary was an all you an eat buffet.




Here's the suet recipe in case you want to try it yourself this weekend.
1 cup shortening (Crisco)
1 cup crunchy peanut butter
1 cup crushed dry cereal (I used Corn Flakes)
1 cup cooked oatmeal
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
Mix together. Line a food storage container with wax paper and spread mix inside. Freeze until solid.

Homemade Salsa

My coworker's mom used my tomatoes and jalapenos to make this delicious salsa. Biases aside, it was the best I've ever had. One of the first things I noticed when Diana delivered the jars was the salsa's bright red color. The red was much more saturated than store bought salsa. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought it was made of strawberries.


I have three serving dishes like this one that are overflowing with tomatoes. I've already given away as much produce as my neighbors and coworkers will accept so I'm going to try making salsa myself.

Here's the recipe.
Fresh and Easy Blender Salsa
6-8 ripe tomatoes, quartered
1 jalapeno, sliced
2 cloves garlic, diced
1 onion diced (optional)
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt to taste
1 handful cilantro, chopped (optional)
Blend or food process ingredients to the desired consistency.
Makes two 16 oz jars.

Veggie Harvest

There's nothing like home grown veggies to make you popular at work.

About every third day, we pick a basketful of cucumbers, tomatoes, banana peppers and jalapenos.


Travis is dwarfed by our tomato jungle. We have about twelve plants that are being supported by six Texas Tomato Cages. I highly recommend the cages. They are worth every penny. They're incredibly sturdy and fold flat for storage. Can you imagine if we tried to used the little pepper cages on the left for our tomatoes?


We trained our cucumbers on a four foot circular section of pig fence but they quickly outgrew it so we increased the structure's height by zip tying our overflow compost bin on top. The cucumbers love it. And by luck, we've found their ideal growing location in our garden. The plants are in full sun, but the fence shelters them from the baking late afternoon heat.


Tsatsiki is a Greek yogurt dip that is usually served with pita bread and gyro. It's one of the many cucumber recipes we've been experimenting with. Our version tasted good, very refreshing, but it was a lot thinner than the spread they serve at the Greek restaurant.

Tsatsiki - Greek Cucumber Spread
1 peeled, shredded cucumber - set in a colander to let the extra moisture drip out
1 cup plain yogurt
1 cup sour cream
1-2+ teaspoons chopped garlic
Fresh mint
Fresh Dill
Mix all the ingredients together with an electric mixer.