• In the Garden,  Let's Eat,  The Art of Beautiful Living

    Homemade Spaghetti Sauce From the Garden

    Homemade Spaghetti Sauce From the Garden Our garden is bursting.  It has overrun its beds like a river rises out of its banks after heavy rains.  Ironically, those heavy rains are what has caused the garden to be so productive.  We are firm believers that, even though it was “free” food, we don’t want to waste it.  Our new favorite meal from the garden is homemade spaghetti sauce with grilled eggplant.  Of course, the Italians call it sugo con melanzane e pomodori.  That sounds so fancy. Making the Homemade Spaghetti Sauce I usually grab the tomatoes that are the ripest and blanch them so that removing the skins is easy. …

  • In the Garden,  Let's Eat,  Uncategorized

    Mustang Grape Jelly: A Family Tradition?

    They Grow Wild and Free As far as wild ideas go, the decision to make wild Mustang grape jelly fits the bill.  Wild idea.  Wild grapes. Texas is blessed with abundance, usually, and I do wonder about what my great, great, great grandparents thought about Texas when they emigrated here from Scotland in 1851.  They had been promised that Texas was a land where things grew easily.  Where life would be easy.  Abundance.  You know, the typical stuff you would say in order to get people to move half way around the world.  My great, great, great grandmother, Isabella Wood, wrote a letter back to Scotland and told a different…