Rain and Cold

These are my garden gloves. They are washed and dried and waiting for me to go to the garden.

I awoke this morning with a start. Wow, what was that? The thunder clap must have been directly above my bed. When I recovered I looked out the window. It was just pouring. I wanted to go outside and shout, "This is May, doesn't anyone know that?" In fact this is the end of May and we are having winter cold and winter rain. On the TV the traffic reporter said streets were flooding, the weather man said we had half an inch of rain in an hour, we were 20 degrees below the norm and we probably wouldn't get to 60 degrees today. In my part of the country that is winter. We are having winter the last week in May. Something is wrong here.

As I fixed breakfast I looked out to to east, past the plants that needed to go into the ground, past the chive vinegar waiting for some sun, towards the Valley of the Moon. In the winter this wet window view would be pleasing, it would mean we were getting the water we need. OK, we can always use the water, but, and I am going to repeat myself, do we have to have it in May?

I stuck my head out the back door and looked to the west, towards the coast. It was pretty if you don't count the fact that I haven't finished pulling the the remnants of the Chinese Forget Me Nots. But it was wet, all wet. That orange flower in the left foreground is an aloe that blooms this time of year, sun or no sun.

Recipe

Since the weather has complicated my schedule I am not going to give you a recipe from my garden, but I will share a recipe that I tested this week. There is no picture because I hadn't planned to post it until my squash were ready to pick. I bought some yellow patty pan squash to test the recipe. I thought I would have to make it several times before I posted it and by that time I should be picking my own squash. It was so good the first time I thought I would post it now so when (and if) we get summer squash this year we will all be ready.

My original thought was to stuff the squash with a pork sausage based stuffing but my eyes lit on something I had not seen before, taco flavored ground turkey. I don't usually buy foods that someone has fooled with, but this intrigued me. I succumbed and here is what I did with it.

Stuffed Patty Pan Squash

1/2 pound taco flavored ground turkey

2 tablespoons oil

divided

5 yellow patty pan squash

Wash them well, cut off the tops. Scoop out the insides using a melon baller. Leave a 1/4 inch wall. Salt the inside of the squash lightly. Roughly chop the insides to about 1/4 inch pieces.

1 small to medium onion, white if available

Dice the onion to 1/4 inch

1/3 red bell pepper

Wash well. Remove any seeds or inner membrane and dice to 1/4 inch

1/4 cup chopped parsley

8 oz tomato sauce

1/2 can of water

Salt and Pepper to taste

Shredded Cheddar cheese as much or as little as you like

Heat a skillet with 1 tablespoon oil. When hot enough to make sizzling sound add the ground turkey which has been broken apart. Keeping the heat high, break up the meat into very small pieces. Season with salt and pepper. When just cooked remove to a bowl.

Add the onion and stir well. When the first bit of brown shows add the pepper. By this time you might need the rest of the oil. Stir fry until the pepper just starts to soften. Stir in the parsley and remove to the bowl with the turkey.

Reduce the heat under the pan to low. Stir the tomato sauce and water into the skillet scraping up all the fond in the bottom of the pan. When the pan is pretty clean add half the sauce to the meat mixture and mix well. Season again with salt and pepper.

Stuff the meat mixture into the hollowed out squash and set each squash into an 8 by 8 pan. There will be stuffing left over; place that around the squash in the pan. Poor sauce over all and shred cheese over that.

Bake in a 350 oven for 30 to 40 minutes. The squash shell will not get soft, but maintains an almost crunchy texture; the inside part of the squash all but disappears.

This dish might get the anti-vegetable people to eat them. You can hide a lot in a taco when you think about that.

The weatherman is promising nice weather for the weekend, not warm but warmer, but not wet either. Have a good weekend and hang a flag out.