Today I'm talking with Christi at Tee’s Kitchen.

If you'd like to support me in growing this podcast, like, share, subscribe or leave a comment.

Or just buy me a coffee

00:00
listening to a tiny homestead. The podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers and crafters. I'm your host, Mary Lewis. Today I'm talking with Christi at Tee's Kitchen in... Oh no, I forget. Where are you Christi? I am in South Louisiana. So I live just south of Lafayette. Yeah. was thinking for some reason, Missouri popped in. like, no, she's not that close to me. I know she's not. If you were, would come see you. I know, right?

00:29
Yeah, Christi's been a guest on the podcast twice already and I absolutely love her voice and her accent. She is just the sweetest sounding woman I've ever heard. So welcome, Christi. How are you? Thank you so much. I'm doing great. How are you? I'm good. How's the weather in Louisiana? The weather is hot. It's getting hot. it's like the heat index is like 85, I believe.

00:57
This week we're getting a lot of rain, but it doesn't really cool everything off. It just kind of steams things, if you know what I mean. I do. Minnesota has been very, very hot for, well, it's now June 2nd or 3rd. June 3rd. Something like that. Close enough. But the last two weeks of May were kind of a little warmer than we would like it to be. It's supposed to be 84 for the high today. Oh, really? But we don't have the humidity.

01:27
Building yet. Thank God right right. It's the humidity that makes everything so So gross yeah, so gross. Yeah, I don't even know so gross Yeah, when you step outside and it feels like you're walking through a mist it's not a great feeling No, it's not Now if you're in Maine at the ocean and you get up in the morning with your warm cup of coffee and step outside And the air feels like mist it's because it's mist coming off the ocean

01:54
And that's a beautiful feeling, but that's a great thing. Sticky grossness is not okay. Um, it is sunny here. My panties are blooming like crazy. My whole driveway, the edge of the side of my driveway looks just beautiful right now with all the pinks and corals and burgundies and whites. It's my favorite time of year. How gorgeous. Oh, I'm going to have to go check out some pictures on that. It is beautiful. I've posted a few.

02:22
I will post I'm going to have to check that out. Oh, I bet it's so pretty. We have our summer garden going and like I'm friends with some people, you know, through TikTok and all that. And they'll message me and say, I cannot believe you already have cucumbers and tomatoes. And yeah, we've been in full swing for a while. So that's always nice. Those summer gardens, know? Yes. Yes. And you get them so much. You get produce so much earlier than we do up here in the North. Yeah.

02:49
So when did you plant your tomatoes and cucumbers for this year, this season? Well, I say we. I am more like the supervisor. Yeah, me too. I'm a brown duck. So my husband planted, gosh, it pretty early March, I believe. We usually plant around Mardi Gras, but we planted a little later this year because for some reason it stayed cooler.

03:16
a little bit longer. So I think it was March, maybe late March that he planted. Um, and yeah, that's his thing. I just reap the benefits from it. Yeah. My husband is the gardener too. And I never take credit for actually anything that's the gardening. I take credit for cooking the things that he brings in from the garden. Exactly. And we are, yeah, we're about two months behind you. My husband started planting, I think,

03:44
the first weekend in May. And our tomato plants are looking real sad. They've got the early blight. It's the first time this has ever happened to us. Oh. So he's trying to figure out what to do to cure them. And he hasn't quite figured it out yet. And I'm afraid that by the time he does figure out how to save them, there won't be anything safe or saving. I don't know yet.

04:08
Oh, my no, my husband went and picked a few tomatoes from the garden and he picked them early because they had holes in some of them. So we just put them on the window sill. That's all you can do. And it's better than, you know, them just sitting there and rotting, you know. Yes. Yes. And we're used to the blight that comes at the end of the season. That's fine. Yeah. But we've never had early blight before. And the saddest part is that there's over 100 tomato plants in the garden that are sick with this. Yeah.

04:38
So we don't know how that's going to go. Luckily he still had some plants in the greenhouse, so he planted those and he made sure that the bottom leaves were off of them, so not touching the ground. that's nice. So maybe we'll have some to eat. I hope so. Yeah, this gardening thing is a crapshoot. It is literally gambling. It is. Last year I feel like his garden didn't do as well and then this year it seems to be doing great, but

05:07
Here it only lasts for a little while and then the bugs just completely take over, you know? Yeah. Gardening is like, it's so good for your soul, but when things don't go right, it's painful. Yeah. All that hard work and I really feel bad. I feel for him, you know, because he puts so much work into it.

05:31
But he did downsize a little bit. Normally we do a much bigger garden and this year he was like, I'm only gonna plant. I'm not gonna do so much this year. And it's working out good so far. Good, I am very happy for you and I'm very envious that you get to pick tomatoes and cucumbers right now. I would love some tomatoes mixed with garlic, some mozzarella cheese, and some basil, and some olive oil, and some...

06:00
balsamic vinegar or toasted bread. That would be lovely. I actually had that this morning, like right before we came on. I fixed avocado toast and then I sliced some of those tomatoes on top and did, um like I put some garlic butter seasoning and what else did I put? Oh, I did a little salt and pepper and then I love hot honey. I'm into hot honey. And then I also put a little drizzle of balsamic glaze and man, it was so good.

06:28
Yeah, I have to acquire some things to make the thing I just explained and I can't think of name of that this morning either. Bruschetta. I'm getting to the point where I haven't had it in probably four or five months and I'm like, know, bruschetta sounds really good. I posted a... We always have an abundance of basil, so I make basil oil, which is, you know, most people comment and they say, that's pesto. It's really not because it doesn't have...

06:58
pine nuts and it doesn't have the Parmesan cheese, but I make a basil oil and we just, I'll make homemade bread and we dip that in there, but I'll also make, I use it for my caprese salad. So I'll do the fresh uh tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, and then that basil oil. then if I, sometimes I put balsamic vinegar and sometimes I don't, but I just did a video on it and made myself hungry again for it.

07:24
When you make the basil oil, it olive oil and basil leaves or how do do it? Yeah, it's olive oil, basil leaves, you put a little bit of garlic, a small amount of water. It's pretty simple, you know. Do you crush the basil leaves so the oils come out? Yeah, I blend it all up. Okay. That sounds fabulous. We might have to do that. We have some really nice basil growing this year, so we're going to have enough to do some fun things with it.

07:53
Yeah, always uh one year I gave it as like a gift and I made homemade bread and I with a little jar of the basil oil and I gave it to some teacher friends and they still request it, you know. Yeah, that's the danger of sharing your creations with people because you think you're making it for them once and then they come back and they're like, do have any more of that? oh That's when you turn into a business. Yeah.

08:20
Well, fun fact, I used to do that. used to run a little small bakery out of my home. Oh, okay. Yeah, but it just, got to be too much, you know, because we have a camp in Pecan Island and so people would request cakes and things on the weekends and I wanted to go to the camp. So we just cut that out, but maybe one day I'll ge...