Men at work

A quick stop by the garden yesterday morning yielded this snap of Larry and his colleague filling the fall garden beds. Larry thinks they'll be ready by the end of the week.

These new beds will mostly fill up the Harvest of Hope garden. They represent a lot of work on the parts of several people, but key among them are Larry and Paul, as well as the members of the Men with Tools group from First Presbyterian. Thank you, thank you, thank you, gentlemen.

We had a lovely meeting last night of the garden steering group. Note to any of you gardeners who've not turned in applications -- please let us know/get them to us. It's important to our continued funding that we have a bit of paper trail. Also: harvest celebration date to soon be announced! Good stuff! I took some pictures of the garden at our meeting, too, but I'll save them till tomorrow. For now, another gardenesque recipe. I tried this last weekend and it's yum:

Summer Squash Casserole
From Southern Living farmers market cookbook

1 1/2 lb yellow squash
1 lb zucchini
1 small sweet onion, chopped
2 1/2 tsp salt, divided
1 cup grated carrots
1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of chicken soup
1 (8 oz) container sour cream -- I ended up using lowfat plain yogurt and some plain Greek yogurt mixed together, because I forgot to buy sour cream
1 (8 oz) can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
1 (8 oz) bag herb-seasoned stuffing (I used Pepperidge Farms)
1/2 cup butter, melted (I used a little less than this)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Cut squash and zucchini into 1/4-inch -thick slices; place in a Dutch oven. Add chopped onion, 2 tsp salt and water to cover. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, and cook 5 minutes; drain well.

2. Stir together grated carrots, next three ingredients, and remaining 1/2 tsp salt in a large bowl; fold in squash mixture. Stir together stuffing and melted butter; spoon half of stuffing mixture into bottom of a lightly greased 13x9-inch baking dish. Spoon squash mixture over stuffing mixture and top with remaining stuffing mixture.

3. Bake at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes or until bubbly and golden brown, shielding with aluminum foil after 20 to 25 minutes to prevent excessive browning. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.