Home Grown Food

Home grown or organic food is gaining more attention. No wonder. Have you noticed the increase of food in your favorite grocery store lately? The price of the bread I usually purchase went up about 14 cents in the last two or three weeks. My bread machine is stored in our loft, but I think I'll get it out and get busy making my own bread again.

I grew up around gardens. My parents and grandparents planted vegetables, fruit, and flower gardens. My gardening job was to pick the ripe fruit off of the ground or the lower fruit tree branches and the vegetables ready for picking. When the peas were ripe and ready, my parents would take my brothers and me to visit both grandmothers. Each of us was given a bucket of peas to shell. I'd be all excited to go see my grandmothers in East Texas but would leave exhausted with sore thumbs and fingers from the pea shelling. I'll never forget the first time my husband shelled peas the first time at my paternal grandmother's house. He grew up in southern California and didn't know anything about purple hull or crowder peas. Didn't take him long, though. I don't know what tickled my grandmother the best - having the family home to help her shell all those peas or seeing that California boy learn what pea shelling was all about.

It's always a good thing to go back to the basics. That includes going back to growing your own food. Whether you're a vegetable garden pro or a beginner, you can grow a garden and eat foods that will make you more healthy. 

Previously, I've planted my vegetables the simple way - in the ground. But raised beds keep the weeds out easier I've heard. Another idea for planting vegetables is the square foot garden. To learn more about either of these, see my recent Southwest Cottage Designs post on gardening.


I find these websites helpful on home grown vegetable gardening. The information is helpful for gardening in your own backyard, gardening with kids, starting seeds and growing organic food.

• Vegetable Garden Coach
• From Your Garden to Your Table
• Parisienne Farm Girl

Start your own backyard home grown garden and enjoy more tasty vegetable recipes such as this soup:

Hamburger and Vegetable Soup
2-3 lb. lean ground hamburger (or ground turkey)
1 red or yellow onion, chopped fine
1 bunch of green onions, chopped fine
1 tsp. fresh minced garlic (or fresh garlic clove to taste)
4-5 tomatoes (or 1 can Ro*Tel tomatoes and green chilies)
1 pkg. frozen corn (or 1 can corn)
Seasonings of your choice


Brown meat with onions and garlic. Add the remainder of ingredients. The nice thing about this recipe is that you can add just about any vegetable you like. You can even start out with a couple of vegetables and add more after a day or so. This type of soup can be frozen and saved for a busy day. If you're a vegetarian, it's good without the meat, too. Serve with crackers, tortillas, or rice. To make it real juicy, add a very large can of V-8 juice. That's one of my favorite ways to make it. 


I love simple recipes like this one. It's easy to be creative with this one. The best soup is the kind with all home grown or fresh vegetables.

Note: A couple of days after I made this soup this last time, my husband and I went to the grocery store. When we came home and were putting the groceries up, we got quite a surprise. The can of Manwich Sloppy Joe mix I had seen the lady in front of us put on the counter ended up in our groceries! I mixed it in with the soup, put some butter on my griddle, put slices of bread on top of the butter, put the buttered bread in the toaster, poured the now-called Surprise Manwich Sloppy Joe Soup over the toasted bread for open-faced sandwiches. WOW! That was an unexpected, delicious dinner. Never had I thought to mix Manwich Sloppy Joe with my soup. It's amazing what you can come up with when you get creative with food. I love it!

Tasty and healthy. 

Mouth watering. 

Satisfying.
I'm linking to "this-weeks-cravings-linky-party".