Lori's BBQ Chicken or Meatballs.

This is my wife's recipe for Bar-B-Que chicken or meatballs.  It's delish and I serve it over rice with the sauce on top.  She is canning some of it right now in quart jars for the pantry.  Here's the sauce recipe.

10-12 pounds of chicken thighs, boneless, skinless are better, or frozen meatballs.

2 cups soy sauce
2 cups sugar
2 cups ketchup
1 tsp garlic
1 tsp ginger

In a large bowl mix the soy, sugar, ketchup, garlic, ginger.  When the sugar is dissolved place in a large pot and add the chicken or meat balls.  Cook until done!

Serve over rice and spoon a little sauce over the rice.

If canning, 6 lbs of meatballs makes 6 quarts.  16 pounds of chicken thighs makes 10 quarts.  Place in pressure cooker for 90 minutes with 10 pounds PSI. 

In the pot cooking away.

Time to can it.

 

 YUM!  Cooling and then ready for the pantry!

With these noses a twitching it has full approval!

No thirty second rule in this house.  If it hits the floor it don't stand a chance with these hound dawgs!

Potato Bins!

OK, lets make a couple of potato bins for this year! I'm making a stackable one so I can make the potato's grow upwards instead of all around.  Perfect for the backyard.  Small space but I expect a good harvest.  Some folks use tires stacked on top of each other.  This one will have more room in it and no chemicals that might leach out from a tire.

First find a suitable container.  In this case I'll use a 55 gallon drum that I'm replacing as a rain barrel.  Its the wrong color that lets to much light thru so algae grows in it.

This one also has molded ribs that will allow stacking after cutting.  That way as you add dirt they will stay together better.

Drainage is important so drill a few holes in the bottom.

Now cover the holes with 1/4 hardware cloth to hold in the dirt.

Add dirt and ready to plant. 

One has red pontiac and one has kennebec's.  As the potato's grow I'll add the other rings, more dirt until its all full.  Once the vines die off I can harvest a ring at a time, keeping the rest in the ground until needed.

Peace,  Ken

Raised beds.

We just had a major storm go through here a few hours ago.  After it stopped raining and the water had a couple of hours to drain I went out to check on the quail and my garden.  The rain gauge said 2 and a half inches.  I still have standing water that will take some time to drain.

This is a common problem in housing subdivisions.  My land used to be grass fields, so the soil is heavy clay.  My raised beds on the other hand were drained and my plants survived well!

Strawberries doing great.

Two beds of green peppers.

Three beds in the back of romas, one bed with red pear tomato's, yellow pear tomato's, and tomatillios

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So far so good.  Now if we get consistent rain this year i should get a great harvest.

The Garden is in!

Howdy, All!

Well spring has sprung here in SE Texas.  The rain has let up long enough for my beds to dry out and be worked, so worked they are!  That fresh tilled soil looks so pretty.

A word on fences. Protect your gardens from the critters!  Make sure that they are  strong enough to repel your likely invaders.  I had to totally redo my strawberry bed when a dawg got under the flimsy fence that I had and dug up them all but a few that I could salvage and re-pot for planting.

 

She denies it of course, but she got caught in the act. Off she goes to protect the quail, yeah right.

Now its time to plant the plants,  Strawberries, peppers sweet and hot ones, small red and yellow pear tomato's, Roma tomato's,  and corn. 

Yummy looking and after a week all are growing great!

Ken