Fresh Summer Veggies

I know I'm not alone here, but I love fresh vegetables. Growing up, we had them all them time. But since I don't have a garden of my own, I don't have them nearly as often as I would like. I actually even enjoy sitting down and shelling a bucket of peas, because I know how good they will be when they are cooked. So, last week, I got a hankering for some fresh vegetables and had to have some.

Betty, who works with me, has a sister-in-law named Zora Lou, and Zora Lou has a huge garden just outside of Northport on Flatwoods Road. It’s over by Flatwoods Elementary, if you know where that is located. She has a produce stand at the edge of the garden that she keeps stocked with whatever might be ready from her garden at the time.

It’s an honor system thing. She has prices posted and a scale. You bag your vegetables, weigh them, and put your money into a locked mailbox with a hole in the top of it.

Last Thursday I got some sweet corn, okra, purple hull peas, and some squash. I had plans of having a big fresh vegetable supper that night. I went straight home and started shelling peas. Now, I didn't even get started on all of this until after work, so you can imagine how late it was going to be if we were going to prepare and cook vegetables and eat that night. So I decided to get my peas done, and hope for vegetables Friday night.

Thursday night we did end up having cubed steak and squash. My grease was too hot for the squash though, and my flour started burning, and before I knew it, the whole kitchen was full of smoke and the house stunk like grease. So we opened doors and windows and turned on the fans, but it the next morning you could still smell a hint of that grease smell. So I opened the kitchen windows again, and Heather said that by noon the smell was gone. While I was at work, Heather silked the corn and cut some up for boiling and cut some off of the cob for skillet corn. She also washed and cut up the okra for me. She cooked the skillet corn, and the peas, and I fried the okra when I got home. I didn’t want to do the whole grease thing in the house again, so I took my deep-fryer and set it up outside on the deck and cooked out there. I also made a pan of cornbread and sliced us up a Vidalia onion. We had a feast fit for a king! My goodness it was so good!

Sunday I had peas and cornbread for an afternoon snack, and then I cooked the rest of the squash in a recipe that Mama had given Heather. It's a squash dressing, and we loved it! I used the rest of my pone of cornbread in it. Here's the recipe, if anybody wants to try it for themselves.

SQUASH DRESSING

2 cups of cooked squash, drained
2 cups of crumbled cornbread
1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup of sour cream
1/2 stick of butter
cheese

Mix everything but the cheese together and pour into a greased 9X13 casserole dish. Sprinkle the top with cheese & bake for 30 minutes at 350*.

Enjoy!