I’m not sure my title makes any sense, but I’ll revise when I have a flash of genius later. Believe it or not, even I have those.
This morning, I harvested my watermelon. Long ago (roughly 4 months ago) I planted two baby watermelon plants in my backyard. Kind of on a lark, without much forethought, and it has been quite the saga ever since. Twice now I have had little watermelons begin to grow, and twice those little watermelons got to the size of a tennis ball and split open. They just couldn’t handle the pressure I guess. Well, a few weeks ago I noticed that a third watermelon had begun to make some progress. I was very nervous for it. I checked on it every other day (every day would just be obnoxious), and it seemed to just get bigger and bigger. One major difference between this one that has survived, and the two that burst at the seams, is where they began to grow. The two that split were growing on the ground. Partly because I placed them there, very gingerly and with love, and because I thought watermelon preferred to be on the ground. Around my small, er, quaint, garden is a perimeter of chicken wire fencing. This little watermelon decided to crawl it’s way up this fencing, and began to grow on the top of the fence. I decided to leave it alone, precariously perched atop the chicken wire fence. Lo and behold, it has matured. Granted, I haven’t opened it up yet, so there is a strong possibility that it is full of nothing, or something gross. With any luck, there will be just enough good stuff for me to have one bite and say it was worth it to grow watermelons.
I also got another yellow squash from my garden this morning. It doesn’t have a good story.
In other news, I made a new pie last night. New to me, perhaps familiar to others. Once again, I turned to Martha, my cooking guidance counselor, and I’m pretty sure she hasn’t steered me wrong. I made it because a friend of mine is in love with peanut butter. And chocolate. Really the combination I think. Who doesn’t love the classic pb & chocolate combo? If you don’t, I question your sanity. I think I want to dub this pie the “Frozen Tundra Peanut Butter Monster.” Too long?
I also peeled a lot of peaches last night. I quickly realized that once peaches no longer have their fuzzy skin, they start to brown rather quickly. Oh, and I wasn’t just peeling peaches for fun, it’s for a couple of peach pies I’m making in anticipation of a wedding this weekend. Anywho, the brown problem. I quickly looked online and found that lemon juice, or any citric juice is supposed to prevent that browning. I poured some lemon juice allover my peach slices, and I think it did the trick! Now I’m just trying to figure out how to counteract the lemony flavor I doused them in. Could be that I’ll have to buy a bunch of frozen peaches…or just dump a ton of sugar in there. This should be interesting.
Tonight, I will probably be peeling apples. Get excited!
UPDATE: (most of this post was written yesterday, 9-28-11, so this is an update as of today 9-29-11)
1. I broke into the watermelon, and I am sad to say that it was not done growing. I almost shed a tear.
2. I spent probably 3 hours peeling apples last night. No matter how many times I wash my hands, the smell of apples is still there. I’m in heaven.