Oh, How Our Garden Grew

We had sooo much fun with our garden this summer! We are already planning on doing it again next summer, possibly with a few live and learn changes, but we are very pleased with how our first year went!

I found this DELICIOUS recipe online when I did a Google search for "green beans and chicken recipe". If you like lemon this is a great dish! Doesn't it just look sumptuous to you?! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I altered the recipe a bit the second time around to shorten baking time and keep the green beans from being totally withered at the end. (Quick fix, slice potatoes to 1/2 inch thick instead of quarter and microwave for a bit. Bake the potatoes without the green beans and chicken for about 20 minutes. Then use a store-bought rotisserie chicken instead of raw chicken breasts. I poured the rotisserie chicken juice right in the baking dish too. Cook another 20 minutes or so.)

Uncooked, ready to go in the oven.Right out of the oven (this was the first time I made it just like the recipe calls for).

We also had cucumbers this summer, LOTS of cucumbers. Yummy cucumbers! I can't believe the difference in store produce compared with garden fresh. We made cucumber sandwiches, creamy cucumber dill salad (with cucumber and dill from our garden), a creamy yogurt salad, and cucumber salsa (delish! made with cucumber, dill AND cilantro from our garden). The cucumber salsa was truly yummy! (Changes to the cucumber salsa, I used red and yellow pepper for color instead of green pepper. I used half the tomato because I'm not a fan of tomatoes, and 1/2 of the jalapeno to cut the spice a bit and make it mild. I also used 1/4 teaspoon of salt.)


And here is what Andrew refers to as his State Fair Prize Winning Cucumber. We discovered it hanging from the vine toward the beginning of summer and he left it there just to see how big it would get. Here it is with Ella holding it for you to compare size. We haven't cut into it yet. I'm sort of afraid to. I have a feeling it will just be filled with seeds and no good at all.

Okay, now that I'm starving I'll close this post. Stayed tuned next spring/summer for the return of the Isaacson Garden!