Last year, I let my step garden be my trellis. The vines just grew down the "stairs" of my garden. I didn't have nearly as many vegetables planted so I just let the cucumbers go crazy. They took up a LOT of space, and the chipmunks thought it was great that food was just lying there on the ground for them. They ate half of my cucumbers. Rather, they at half of each cucumber they touched and then moved on to the next one. In the end I may have gotten ten cucumbers from my four or five plants. This year my husband built me a lovely square trellis. (Click on link below to see pictures from two months ago), and somehow the chipmunks haven't figured up how to climb up it. The cucumber vines are still going crazy. The trellis is right next to the side of the house, so the vines grew up the siding and wrapped themselves around the satellite and cable TV wires that are no longer in use. (We use AT&T U-Verse now.) The end result is I have way more cucumbers than I know what to do with. I love all the recipes everyone posted. I will definitely try a few. Even my husband, who doesn't normally eat cucumbers, seems interested in a few of the recipes. This is a good thing because he is a much better cook than me. Here is a link that might be useful: Trellis

I have bought a couple of indian cookbooks over the years, but I've found that the recipes often call for things that aren't available or contain steps like "take the unpasteurized milk and make your own raw cheese and hang for a week to dry." or even just, "now simmer for 24 hours." Gee, thanks, I'll get right on that. I have devised several easier-to-make versions of some Indian dishes, the one that has turned out the best is a version of what restaurants call either Saag Paneer or Palak Paneer. The recipe is: 16oz frozen chopped spinach 1 cup water 4 tbsp Pataks mild curry paste 1 stick butter 1 tbsp mint chutney 1 tbsp sweet mango chutney 4 oz feta cheese (cut into ½ inch cubes) Put spinach and water in large pot, heat uncovered over medium heat until spinach is thawed and simmering. Add butter, curry paste, mint chutney and mango chutney, continue to stir and simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat, add feta cubes, stir thoroughly and serve with basmati rice and/or lightly toasted pita bread. Also when I make basmati rice to accompany Indian food I'll usually add about 1 tsp of tumeric, 8 to 10 whole cloves and a bay leaf to the 1 cup of rice and 2 cups of water

Uh-oh! If you haven't been cooking Indian food on a regular basis, you soon will be. What Indian cuisine does with the lowly lentil is awe inspiring. Also vegetables. And the writer in the blog you linked is quite correct...the spices become addictive. My husband and I have been suffering from Honeymoon Heft...having a man to cook for inspired me and a year and a half later, we both sobered up and decided we'd better go back to eating reasonably. Neither of us can bear diets, so I have to be creative. I instituted a first course with every dinner...salad or soup...and leave off actually assembling the rest of the dinner until after that course is consumed. This gives us a pleasant interlude for conversation while I get the main meal together, and also time for our tummies to realize that they aren't really all that empty! :D Also, I decided I must quit employing the easy way out with vegetables...sauteed or steamed and doused in butter, salt & pepper and find ways to create tasty veggie sides without all the extra calories. Indian recipes to the rescue! And dals! Lentils and legumes are such healthy, inexpensive foods, and filling without being loaded with fat or calories! They make a wonderful side dish...plus, when you eat Dal, it just cries out for basmati rice...a starch side one doesn't need to load up with butter, cheese, or sour cream! Red Lentils with Ginger* (Masoor Dal) 2 c dried red lentils (masoor dal), picked over, rinsed and drained. 4 c water 1/2 t ground tumeric 2 T clarified butter (Ghee) or veggie oil 1 t cumin seed 2 medium red onions, cut in half and thinly sliced (Dunno what he considers medium, but I've played around and decided arbitrarily that his onions are smaller than ours...so I settled at 2 cups of not so tightly packed, sliced onions) 2 T finely chopped ginger root (slice it, smash it with a whap from the flat of your cleaver, and then mince it up...or, just use a microplane, it's easier) 3 fresh serrano chilis, crushed. (Do not do this, unless you have an asbestos tongue. Start out with ONE chili, and then work your way up from there...if it isn't spicy enough at table, one can add cayenne, but if it's too spicy, ain't much you kin do 'bout dat) 1 t salt 2 T chopped fresh cilantro Heat lentils, water & tumeric to boiling, and reduce heat. Simmer uncovered, 15 to 20 minutes, skimming foam, until lentils just sart to soften and most of the liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat. While lentils are simmering, heat the clarified butter or oil over a medium high heat. Add cumin seed, sizzle 30 seconds, add onion, ginger & chilies, stir fry 2 to 4 minutes, until onion is golden brown. Stir onion mixture & salt into lentils. Simmer uncovered 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until lentils are tender. Serve sprinkled with cilantro. *From Betty Crocker's (believe it or not) Indian Home Cooking, with Raghavan Iyer

I read both fiction and non-fiction. usually have one or two of ech type going at the same time. Often a fiction book will get me to go into more depth of a subject-- ie i read a bio of jos. banks while reading patrick o'brian's sea-adventures that master and commander movie was based on. just one to many references to banks, made me dig up a bio to fit him into the books i was reading-- that lead to reading the botany of desire. right now i'm working on wincheseter's book about the 1906 san fransisco earthquake that i came a cross while looking thru the 'new non-fiction' section at our library. I read the horatio hornblower novels to compary to obrian's and edded up reading a book about tamenny (sp)hall in new york which caused me to read a bio of john adams, and because we were going to washington a read a history of 'clover' adams too. strange on how books will lead you on a thread of reading. I'm finishing peter tremayne's mystery series of sister fidelma in 7th cent ireland, no idea where that will take me, but it prompted me to pick-up books on celtic knotwork. so i read and read and read, obscure references lead me from place to place. diggerb