Gardening with Children

Even though we live in a townhouse, we are fortunate enough to have a garden. We have friends behind us that don’t use their back field, and they've allowed us to use it to plant a garden. I cannot even begin to explain how grateful I am that we have this opportunity to teach our children to work hard and see the benefits of their efforts.

We all work together planting, watering, weeding, harvesting, and composting. The kids get to help pick what vegetables we will plant each year, and they get to help pick what we use the produce for. We have yellow and green zucchini, tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, artichoke, asparagus, corn, rhubarb, raspberries, blue berries, strawberries, blackberries, and plums.  Most of the time, our kids wouldn't want to try some of these foods. But since it came from our garden, and the kids helped care for it, they dive in at eating it!

My all time favorite dessert that uses produce from our garden is my Raspberry Rhubarb Crisp recipe:

Raspberry Rhubarb Crisp

4 cups brown sugar

4 cups flour

3 cups oats

1 3/4 cup melted margarine

2 Tbsp cinnamon

5-6 cups rhubarb, raw and diced

1-2 cups raspberries

3/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp cornstarch

1 cup water

1 tsp vanilla

Mix first 5 ingredients until crumbly. Press half of mixture into greased 9x13 pan. Cover with rhubarb. Cook sugar, cornstarch and water until thick and clear. Remove from heat; add vanilla to syrup and pour over rhubarb. Sprinkle raspberries over the rhubarb, then sprinkle the remaining crumbly mixture over all and pack lightly. Bake at 350° for 45-55 minutes. Serve hot with vanilla ice cream!

(note: the "crisp" part of this recipe is doubled. I prefer it this way. If you half everything,  use 1 cup of butter.)

We've found some creative ways and new favorite recipes to incorporate our garden produce into all of our daily routine

Parmesan Crusted Zucchini

Zucchini

Olive Oil

Bread Crumbs

Parmesan Cheese

Coin zucchini. Dip it in olive oil, then bread crumbs, then parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes, or until Golden Brown.  Another variation is, instead of using olive oil, use a beaten egg. Also delicious!

Zucchini Lasagna

Recipe from HERE

3 pounds large zucchini, scrubbed

1 quart spaghetti sauce or thick tomato sauce

1 cup bread crumbs

1 pound ricotta cheese (more, if you like - the original recipe calls for 2 pounds)

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2 Tablespoons parsley, chopped

1/2 teaspoon each dried oregano, basil

Salt & pepper to taste

1 cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

1 pound mozzarella cheese, coarsely grated

Slice zucchini into long, semi-thin slices. Cook in boiling water just until limp, about 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels. (If you cut your zucchini really thin, don't boil for as long, or even at all. You can do this if you don't have enough zucchini, or if you want the zucchini flavor to be less prominent.)

Combine ricotta, eggs, parsley, seasoning and half of the parmesan cheese and half of the bread crumbs in a bowl. Set aside.

In a 9x13 pan, spoon a thin layer of tomato sauce. Sprinkle with a quarter of the bread crumbs. Arrange layer of zucchini over this. Spoon half of the reserved ricotta mixture on top of the zucchini. Sprinkle with half the mozzarella cheese. Arrange the rest of the zucchini over this, layer more tomato sauce and the rest of the bread crumbs and top with remaining ricotta mixture. Top with remaining mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 1 hour or until top is brown. Let stand 20 minutes before cutting. 

If you try these recipes, I'd love to hear how they turn out for you. And, I'm always looking for new recipes to try, that allow us to use our produce. If you have any recipes that you swear by, send them my way!