Even without fresh herbs (a next-year wish, once again), these rosemary-spiced potatoes are memorable

Also on our garden "bucket" list for next summer is a great desire to grow more fresh herbs. So far, mint is the only one we've had success with--to much success, in fact, as a previous Newfangled Country Gardener column reported.

I wish I could report that the rosemary contained in this delicious potato recipe was snipped right from the "herb bed" near the back door. (Hopefully next summer it will be.)

It was poured from a spice jar instead.

But even with dried instead of fresh rosemary used to spice up these potatoes, the outcome was flavorful and terrific. I'm always looking for different and unusual ways to cook spuds. This recipe was furnished by a Kroger circular and was totally wonderful.

What's more, I didn't wreck a cookie sheet in the process this time as I did with the Roasted Potato Medley recipe of a few days back. I used a glass baking dish; the olive oil that the potatoes soaked in before they were cooked was adequate to keep anything from sticking to the bottom.

Oven-Roasted Rosemary Potatoes

5 pounds new potatoes

1/4 cup fresh rosemary, chopped

1 cup olive oil

1/4 cup garlic, chopped

salt and pepper, to taste

Cut potatoes into 1/2-inch wedges. Toss with all other ingredients. Roast in 350-degree oven for 45 minutes until potatoes are golden brown and fork tender. Refrigerate any leftovers. Serves 6 to 8.

Roasted potato dish evokes memories of long-ago campfire cooking

It was part of my hubby's trousseau--a skillet-potato dish that he brought into the marriage with him. I learned to love it because of his mantra, "Love me; love my potatoes."

Actually the skillet-potato dish was something that usually was cooked on the grill at his family's campouts. Since I had never been on a campout until I married Hubby, this was certainly not something in my radar screen. It featured cut-up potatoes and onions and "a little bit of outdoor dirt", the joke always was, to make it taste like something cooked around campfire should taste.

This new recipe, which took the last of our garden tomatoes, was all about the indoors (although I imagine it could be adapted to an outdoor cookstove as well). Furnished by my handy booklet, "Celebrating a Healthy Harvest" by the Chickasaw Nation Nutrition Services, it was designed to be oven-cooked on a cookie sheet (be sure to oil the cookie sheet well or line the sheet with foil and then spray it. I managed to lose a cookie sheet in preparing this because I had not prepared the sheet properly; the food baked on so severely that it wouldn't scrub off during cleanup.)

"Roasted Potato Medley" featured a mixture of potatoes, onions, tomato, carrots, and zucchini. Other than chopping up the vegetables, this has effortless prep and yields beautiful, colorful, healthy results.

Roasted Potato Medley

2 medium red potatoes

1 large onion

1 large tomato

1 large zucchini

2 carrots

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 cup salt-free tomato sauce

2 tablespoons olive oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Use spray oil to generously grease cookie sheet. Wash all vegetables; cut them into 1-inch pieces. In a large bowl combine vegetables. Combine garlic, tomato sauce, and oil. Pour over vegetables; toss to coat. Spread vegetables in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour or until potatoes are tender. Turn once during baking. Makes 4 servings.

To avoid the drab, even farmwives of yesteryear needed help with recipe inspiration

What do I do with all this stuff?

You've had an exhilarating day at the farmer's market and returned with a backseat-load of produce--colorful, healthy, and diverse.

Or, your trip to your garden plot has yielded a potpourri basketful of bits and pieces--some random okra, a few corn ears, a handful of tomatoes, an onion here and there--not enough to stock a cellar with canned goods but never-so-fresh-as-now and calling to be prepared and eaten.

What to do? Where do you go for inspiration?

Farmwives of the past, believe it or not, faced the same dilemma.

We tend to regard women of bygone days--when gardens were a necessity and when frugal food preparation meant the difference between survival and starvation for some families--as born wise in the "how-to" department. We tend to think of granny ladies of that era as people who hatched out mature and well-versed in automatically knowing how to use their garden produce.

Enter our Aunt Frances and her first job out of high school.

As a young woman entering the work world in Delta County, TX, Aunt Frances was hired by the county extension agent as an office helper. Her job was to type the recipes that the agent then carried to rural homes throughout the region. The recipes were welcome helps to farmwives who were stumped about how to use their garden pickin's so they didn't have to fix the "same-old, same-old" for supper. (An entire chapter, "Downtown", is devoted to this in my new cookbook, Way Back in the Country Garden.)

An example of the kind of recipes Aunt Frances would type--and also tuck away for the eventual day she, as a married lady, would be queen of her own kitchen--is today's feature: Sauteed Okra, Corn, and Tomatoes. A few evenings ago, when we brought in just "a bit of this and a bit of that" from our garden, this dish was a perfect medley. As I mentioned in my blog post, "Fresh vegetables unadorned make for some delightful seasoned greetings", Hubby and I always are incredulous how the fresh vegetables season themselves--with only limited salt and pepper recommended to be added--yet how immensely flavorful!

What the county extension office did in Aunt Frances' day is the same kind of help the Chickasaw Nation Nutrition Services office provides today to help Chickasaws learn to cook more healthily and to use homegrown produce. My hubby and I stand amazed each time we visit our closest Chickasaw offices in Ardmore, OK. The nutrition-services building has free recipe cards on display in its entry. Live food demos are scheduled several times a day; they feature test kitchen and personnel to show how recipes on the freebie cards are prepared.

(Of course in today's Internet age, merely "Googling" the names of ingredients you have also can turn up a wealth of ideas as well.)

Hubby and I enjoyed our Sauteed Okra, Corn, and Tomatoes for dinner alongside Sauteed Zucchini and Fettuccini (featured in Wednesday's blog). The fact that we had this okra medley recipe in our collection (thanks to Aunt Frances, who by the way died a year ago at age 102) made us really happy that those farmwives of yesteryear needed a little help now and then!

Sauteed Okra, Corn, and Tomatoes

2 pounds fresh okra, with stems and tips removed

3 pounds tomatoes, skinned and seeded

8 ears fresh corn

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons oil

4 cups onions, coarsely chopped

1 tablespoon salt (we used salt substitute)

freshly ground pepper

Cut okra into 1/4-inch rounds; discard tops. This should make about 6 cups of okra. Put tomatoes in stainless or enameled pan and cook slowly for about half an hour. Do not scorch. Drain any liquid. This should make about 2 cups of tomatoes. Use sharp knife to cut corn from cob. In a skillet heat butter and oil. Add okra and onions. Cook until onions are wilted and okra has begun to brown at edges, about 10-15 minutes. Turn often; add reduced tomatoes and salt; cook 5 minutes. Add corn and cook 3-4 more minutes. Add salt and pepper; season to taste.

When with Romaine, do as the Romaines do . . .

Our spring/summer garden 2010 is making its debut. From early observations it seems to be shaping up to be our most prolific in years--certainly since the Texas Deluge of 2007 practically wiped it out and stripped the soil of nutrients.

(My new book, Way Back in the Country Garden, contains a chapter, "Peach Trees and the Wedding Plywood", that details exactly why that garden was so memorable.)

My hubby was determined that this year, he would get back in the full swing of things for the first time in those three intervening summers. Early on he applied a high nitrogen fertilizer after he visited with the wise folks at Roach Feed & Seed (an institution in Downtown Garland. They can help with anything!). Already the cornstalks are high and green, the tomatoes look as though they'll be lush, and the okra looks promising. And that's just the beginning.

Anyway, this year, we got so carried away, we decided to grow romaine lettuce--our first attempt at this food item. The first crop arrived a few weeks back. We picked our first bunch and COULD NOT BELIEVE we simply could walk a few steps out our back door and haul in a crunchy head of lettuce that would last us all week. Absolutely NOTHING like fresh romaine on a sandwich.

To celebrate our first romaine pick, we just had to have a special kind of sandwich. I had just read the latest issue of Southern Living and had seen a recipe for Old South Pimiento Cheese. I am a pimiento-cheese addict from the word GO--loved it all my life and am always looking for new ways to prepare it. No one will ever fix pimiento cheese like Betty Ewing, for years the society columnist for the Houston Chronicle. Betty's work cubicle was next to mine during my days as a writer for the Chronicle's Lifestyle section. Probably once a week Betty, who was generous to a fault, brought in a giant jar of pimiento cheese spread and shared it with the rest of the office as we made our lunchtime sandwiches. Again and again she would disclose to her co-workers what was in her magic recipe, but her ingredient list always varied a little each time she described the mixture. I would try to write it down, but the next time she would recite it slightly differently than she had the previous time.

This recipe in Southern Living (it appears below) seems the closest to Betty's that I've run across. It was absolutely perfect with my fresh-beyond-fresh romaine from our very own garden.

If you want a gardening treat that will REALLY make you feel as though you accomplished something, put a little romaine in your gardening life. We did and are thrilled with our romaine crop!

Old South Pimiento Cheese

1 cup chopped/broken pecans

1 (8-ounce) block extra sharp cheese (grate on small side of cheese grater)

1 (8-ounce) block sharp cheese (grate on large side of cheese grater)

1 1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 (4-ounce) jar chopped pimiento, drained

1 teaspoon worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon grated onion

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper

Set oven to 350 degrees. Toast the 1 cup pecans for 8-10 minutes. Stir halfway through the toasting. Mix the grated cheese, mayonnaise, pimiento, worcestershire sauce, onion, and red pepper. Add pecans. Spread on bread.