Summer Indulgence

Yum! Bananas with two flavors of gelato: milk chocolate and peanut butter cup.

Aubergine

I honestly prefer the British word for "eggplant"- aubergine...It just rolls off the tongue like a southern gentleman cooing to his sweetheart, "oh, Ber Jean!"

I picked up my lovely plant on a whim at the home improvement store. I went for cilantro, and left with $40 worth of plants. The sad thing is, the cilantro ended up rolling out of the bag, under my stroller in my trunk and was left there for two days. In the hot Florida sun, that is like tossing the plant in the oven!

I had fallen in LOVE with the pretty star-shaped purple blossoms on this lovely Ichiban variety (hehe, it sounds like "itchy bum!"). I figured that even if it didn't produce fruit, (I think it is a fruit- it has seeds inside, right?) I would have the lovely flowers.
Well, it did produce, and now I have one giant aubergine, and a couple little nubby ones. Seriously, look how ginormous it is next to my puny little stretched out hand!

However, I have to again admit that I can not recall ever eating eggplant. So how would I cook it to most enjoy it? I think Alton Brown did an episode on eggplant once.... I know I shouldn't pick it until I am ready to eat it, though.
The pretty flowers: as a heads up, don't eat the flowers, leaves, or stems- eggplant is a nightshade and could kill you!

More treats from my garden

I decided to go okra after seeing how pretty the flowers are. However, I have never eaten it before!
The leaves are HUGE!
My one lonely bell pepper- he's so pretty and yellow. What he doesn't know is that in a few days time, I will rip him off the plant, hack his body to pieces, and devour him while grinning from ear to ear!

I love that my patio has a great big area where I can plant lots of goodies. After the fiasco last year when everything died from irredeamable soil, I switched to container planting. However, it has been decided by the powers that be (aka our landlords) that this month they will be painting. Yes, it will take them pretty much a whole month. Thus, we had to pile all of our things on our patio in the middle of the patio (and take down our gazebo). However, I realized that by having all my plants consolidated, I could make my silly little garden look lush and full! So here is my garden earlier in the week (I have planted more today, but haven't taken pictures yet.)

I was even able to make my sickly little tomato look alive! I don't know what its problem is, it will look half dead, but it keeps giving me more 'maters. Oh well!