Frog and Goat

The infusion has begun:

The better-half had a great idea on Sunday to use an old Maker’s Mark bottle to infuse vodka. So, we cleaned up the bottle, ran it through the dishwasher and started the Jalapeño infusion today. We’re using triple distilled Smirnoff and five Jalapeños from last year’s garden.

Yes, that was a hella big bottle of Maker’s Mark.

In addition to the asparagus and strawberries, we’re growing tomatoes, peppers (hot and mild), green beans, corn, eggplant (ichiban), yukon gold potatoes, lettuce (mesclun mix), basil, sage, thyme, horehound, mint, french tarragon, oregano and rosemary.

Some of these plants are in the garden proper. The herbs and one tomato plant are in beds at the back door. The tomato plant at the back door is a cherry tomato and is coming along nicely. Of all the tomato plants, we only have one plant that’s blooming right now. Hopefully with the recent feeding and watering, the plants will kick into high gear. We have an Anaheim pepper coming along but the plant itself needs to grow a bit or the pepper will soon be larger than the plant.

The lettuce in the garden has gone crazy and we have a ton to eat. The lettuce we had growing in a pot at the back door is nearly done and we’re planning on trying to grow another batch out there this summer. We’ve only grown lettuce in cooler months so trying it during the heat of the summer should be a good experiment. We’ll keep it in a pot, but move it to a spot that’s a little less brutal. Having it right at the back steps means the pot gets a lot of sun but the summer heat may prove to be too much. We’ll see.

Last night we made chicken tacos for dinner and we used some of that lettuce in the soft tortillas. Additionally, we made a chunky tomato salsa using Roma tomatoes from the store. They looked really good and ended up tasting pretty good too. I just wing it when it comes to making salsa and this time around the salsa contained tomatoes, red onion, green bell pepper, jalapeno (out of the freezer and from our garden last summer), garlic, cilantro, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, lime zest and lime juice, salt and black pepper.

We also bought an avocado while purchasing those Romas. I looked at one recipe for the guacamole as a guide and then improvised. I mixed the avocado with one of those tomatoes, a jalapeno, some green bell pepper, garlic and red onion. To it, I added some of the lime zest and juice, cilantro, cumin and salt and pepper. I also added a little of the apple cider vinegar.

The chicken breast was marinated in tequila, ancho chili powder (which we made ourselves a few months ago), olive oil and salt and pepper. The better-half grilled it and then seriously chopped it up. We were able to stretch a regular-size chicken breast into four soft tacos.

In addition to the tacos we also ate a plate of simple nachos—just cheese, spices and pickled jalapeno. We joked last night as the plate of nachos sat a bit that we never had a time in our childhoods where we were commanded to finish up our snack food before we could leave the table, but last night it did take us a little longer to eat those chips than usual. The tacos were just so damn good.