by Noel | Mar 30, 2022 | CobraHead
Judy and I spent the month of March in San Antonio visiting our son Geoff and his wife Queenie, and enjoying and helping with our new granddaughter, Ophelia. Since we’re not doing any gardening, we’ll talk about our trip to the San Antonio Botanical Garden. The gardens occupy 38 acres of donated property located about 3 miles northeast of downtown San Antonio. The theme of the gardens is truly Texas and San Antonio flavored, with most of the space dedicated to...
by Noel | Jan 31, 2022 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
January Garden While this may not have been the coldest January we’ve seen, it was still pretty cold. Depending on your gardening attitude, the frigid Wisconsin winter can be good, or not. I rate it very good, and other lazy gardeners are in my camp. There is absolutely nothing to do. Everything outside is snow-covered and the ground is hard as a rock. Who would want to be out there, anyway? Nevertheless, even lazy gardeners have to do some planning, and January...
by Judy | Jan 28, 2022 | CobraHead
Bean Nachos I’ve tried a lot of bean recipes over the years. I’ll keep trying new ones, but I always come back to my favorite. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with various heirloom beans, such as Buckeye, Santa Maria Pinquito, San Franciscano, and cranberry beans from Rancho Gordo. Although the seasonings are mostly the same for my standard black bean or pinto recipe, each type of bean has subtle nuances in flavor and texture. I notice it...
by Noel | Dec 21, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
I like to grow food. My partner likes to cook. Those complementary interests lead to great meals. This year we had another good garden and as every year, some crops grew better than others. The advantage of growing a lot of different food is that a singular crop failure will never put you in dire straits. I’ve been able to spend time pursuing my hobby, but I hardly live in the garden and I consider myself a lazy gardener. Trying to get the most output from the...
by Noel | Nov 30, 2021 | CobraHead, Gardening, Vegetable Growing
Most years I use the month of November to get my garden ready for the next spring’s planting. Preparation includes removing all the trellising I’ve set up, a thorough weeding of most of the beds, cultivating and shaping the beds, and covering both my garden plots with a thick layer of leaves. This November was different, and the garden is still a weedy mess, with only a partial leaf cover and most of the beds unprepared. I lost almost three weeks of work...
by Judy | Oct 27, 2021 | CobraHead, Recipes
Repurposed Chili Casserole a.k.a. Mexicali Bean Bake is a dish I’ve been making for well over 30 years. I first found the recipe in an old vegetarian cook book. It is now online at cooks.com. I probably made it once or twice following the recipe. Then I realized that you could just use leftover chili for the bean mix, while still using the cornmeal batter to complete the dish. I also thawed some garden corn from the freezer. Yes, the raccoons...
