Late Summer Camping - Part 1

Soo... a few days ago... OK... a few weeks ago... OK... in early September! (Sheesh)... We went camping for a night. We went to a friend's place down by the water.

They have a huge property with a fixer-upper house on it...

They also have a couple of dogs... That's Stetson on the left and Ivy on the right...

Ivy looks friendly...  or is she just trying to get a taste of me to see if I'm edible?

Oooh... the ocean!!

 Heh-heh... on such a big property... you need an outside outhouse of course... with solar lighting too.

Vroom! Let's back this zodiac into the water and take it for a spin, shall we?

Huh... backing up a boat trailer is beary hard apparently... and I am not qualified for this... but it would be nice to go out on the boat.

I could hang over the edge and watch the salmon go by.

Or not... a bear can dream though.

Alright then... let's eat!

In a bit... first it's time to chill on the Muskoka chairs (Adirondack chairs in the US).

Such is a bear's life...

 Heh-heh... can you read that sign? "On this site in 1897, Nothing Happened"! hah!

So... are we fishing for dinner?

Catching salmon?

Maybe they're not running yet?

Sigh... no salmon... but a nice picnic spread with all sorts of options.

 Nom-nom...

And a fresh beer... (hic)... cause (hic)... I'm camping!

Chef Sandy cooks Eggplant Parmesan

Hullo, Chef Sandy here. If you are following this blog regularly, you know that a few days ago I showed you our beautiful eggplant growing in the greenhouse. Well... today we harvested it and are ready to make something delicious.

(Belated Drool Alert for all Vegetarians)

It is a beautiful eggplant... it seems a shame to eat it but... such is the life of plants.

Today we are going to make Eggplant Parmesan. We have used this recipe before and it is super duper yummy.

And this from two humans who never liked eggplant (that was before they tried it of course)...

Right, first you need some olive oil and crushed garlic...

Then you slice the eggplant into 1/4 inch slides...

And then you peel it...

Why do you peel it? Apparently the peel is bitter...

You paint the slices on both sides with the olive oil/garlic mix and put in the oven for 15 minutes... or so.

While that was baking, Dr. Sandy was called in to bandage a sliced finger. This is why little bears do not cut vegetables... right? So humans are the ones who get cut up... right? As you can see, the bandage isn't doing much sooo...

So we put another bandaid on top... there we go... This is field triage you know... no time for something fancy!

Grate some mozza cheese and slice a tomato...

 Then some fresh basil. This is key... you can use dried basil but it never tastes as good...

 There are our eggplant slices... mmm... You take them and start layering them into a pyrex... with parmesan and basil and tomatoes and mozza and more eggplant and more mozza...

Bake it again...

And voila... eggplant parmesan. This batch was sooooo good!!! The humans scored it 10/10. Last time it was 9/10 so we figure the fresh basil put it over the top.

Chef Sandy signing off. Thanks for joining us on today's show!

Another Garden Update

Hullo again. Wow, time flies! I have been a beary busy bear of late... Today we are taking another look at the garden, because it has moved along quite a bit.

We have some squash that we planted in mid-summer, a bit later than normal but... it's taken off!

And somewhere in here... under all these leaves.

We have a big squash. We think it's a Pink Squash... or maybe a French Pink... or something.

There's another one growing back there...

We planted some late scarlet runner beans in August and they've been going gang-busters too.

The humming birds love these!

And on the other side of the runner beans... we have some bush beans.

They were a mix pack of purple, yellow and green. They are doing well too.

We did try some zucchini early in the season but it has been beary slow... there is one little zucchini... Not sure if it will get bigger or not. Our overnight temperatures are getting close to freezing... brr!

Our tomatoes in the greenhouse were crappy so we tore them out and put some of our potted tomatoes in there... they've done quite well but are reaching the end of their life too.

And cucumbers... well... they've done really well! These are lemon cucumbers... and they were much later than the long English but... we have several of them.

And now... drum roll please... our piece-de-resistance... an Eggplant!!! Yes!!! An actual, normal sized, lovely purple eggplant. Only one mind you... despite dozens of flowers but... it's a beautiful one.

Isn't it cute?

 Basil... well... it did OK. We are still digging basil pesto out of the freezer from last year so we didn't go hog wild over basil this year.

The broccoli... still producing like wild and we can't keep up. so we are letting it go to flower. If you look closely, you can see bees munching down on the flowers!

Still lots of beets...

And carrots and scallions...

But... finally... we are here to dig out the potato box. We tried potatoes in here as well as in a regular bed. The potatoes in here didn't seem to do all that well...

Let's dig it out and see what we got.

Are you ready?

Yup... that's it! Five German Butterfly potatoes and two tiny, itsy bitsy read potatoes. You have to look really hard to spot those.

I don't know about the potato box next year... Maybe we should plant zucchini in there instead!