The Time I Died and Went to Heaven

Spiff planted a garden for us this year.  It was his baby.  He bought the pots, dirt, seeds, starts, and recruited Gunner to help him plant everything.  I stepped back and let them do that work, feeling that I had enough of my own regular things to worry about.

Then I watched them work, and I watched the plants grow, and the process has been so fun, and it has been so much fun to watch Gunner get so excited about growing things, that I even joined in a bit.  (I may have watered it a few times, and I always cheer when Gunner points out a new tomato blossom.)  I also began dreaming about the end-of-summer joy of fresh garden tomatoes and basil.

Sadly, over the Summer, we have watched our little garden be...well...not so awesome.  We apparently have a lot to learn about gardening.  Personally, I'm irked that we aren't automatically and naturally good at ALL things.  Some of the seeds they planted grew, along with a whole lot of "other" things that Spiff ended up weeding out, including about 1 million maple trees.  (I am never again having maple trees in my yard!)  We ended up with two smallish basil plants and a decent little crop of oregano.  I'm thrilled with those, but left wondering whatever happened to the cilantro he planted.  Gunner grew some small carrots.  He was overjoyed!

The tomato starts grew, too.  And then they stopped growing.  We have a few little green tomatoes on our plants, but nothing like our next-door neighbor's tomato crop.  Gunner thought she had planted pumpkins!  She has So Many Huge Tomatoes on her plants!  I am admittedly jealous of other people's tomatoes, and feeling down about our sad little unproductive tomato plants.

We did get to enjoy two of our little tomatoes this week.  And when I say little, I mean it.  They were about the size of golf balls.

So, I have given up on my dream of home-grown tomato salads, and relied on Costco to fulfill my wishes.  Apologies to my poor little tomato plants, but oh boy, Costco tomatoes can deliver!

Yesterday, I made this:

Good golly, if there is food in heaven, it most definitely is this Caprese Salad, made with basil and oregano from my own little patio garden.  You can't beat delicious and beautiful, in my book!

Caprese Salad:

1 fresh tomato, sliced

1 large avocado, sliced

1 small package of fresh mozzarella, cut into ¼ inch slices

Arrange tomato, avocado and mozzarella slices by layers in a circle on a plate or serving platter.  Pour dressing (below) over salad, and serve chilled or at room temperature.

Dressing:

2 T. balsamic vinegar

1 t. bottled minced garlic

1 t. olive oil

¼ t. salt

¼ t. dried basil, or 1 T. fresh minced basil leaves

¼ t. dried oregano, or 1 t. fresh minced oregano leaves

Combine all ingredients in small bowl and stir well with a whisk.  (If using fresh herbs, it works best to combine first 4 ingredients, then sprinkle the minced herbs on the salad before pouring dressing over salad.)