Late summer evenings in Big Mill B&B’s garden are filled with sweet scents

4 O’Clocks really do bloom at 4 in the afternoon.

The show begins in the afternoon at 5 o’clock, when the Four O’clocks start blooming. They are an old flower that my mother and grandmother raised and shared with their friends. It is a wonderful plant and each flower can have several colors. They are not edible, but they have been used in food coloring.

Just before dark the moon flowers open and smell as sweet as honeysuckle.

Moon Flowers bloom at night.

And as it is turning dark, the Devil’s Trumpet slowly opens with its fragrant perfume. Georgia O’Keefe painted this beauty – it is also called Jimson Weed. Now I want an Angel’s trumpet. I hear it is sweet smelling.

 Lingering from night into day, the ginger lilies perfume the air.

Ginger Lilies perfume the air.

So at five, six and seven in the evening, there is a sweet-smelling show every night in late summer and early fall in the Big Mill garden. Do you have any “blooming perfumes” in your garden this year?  Share in the comments below.

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast 252-792-8787

I first tasted Gazpacho in the sixties when I was a young student in Spain.

Gazpacho is perfect for hot summer days.

It was in a little cafe in Toledo and I still remember the cafe, the handsome young man and the Gazpacho.

It seems there are as many Gazpacho recipes as there are barbecue recipes. I finally found one that reminds me of that night in Toledo.  I have adapted my recipe from one in Craig Claiborne’s New York Times International Cookbook – my favorite cookbook. Did you know that Craig Claiborne – food editor for the New York Times  – was born in Sunflower, Mississippi?

Print Recipe

Gazpacho - Chilled Tomato Soup

Cold soup might seem odd to some, but it's great once you get used to it.

Prep Time10 minutes mins

Total Time10 minutes mins

Course: Soup

Cuisine: Spanish

Keyword: gazpacho, tomato gazpacho, tomato gazpacho recipe

Servings: 6 servings

Calories: 151kcal

Author: Chloe Tuttle

Ingredients

• 4 cups tomatoes with cores removed 2 1/2 to 3 pounds* or 1 28-ounce can whole tomatoes
• 1 1/2 cups peeled cucumber cut into large chunks
• 1/2 cup cucumber diced into small pieces for garnish (reserved)
• 1 green pepper seeded and cut into chunks
• 1 small clove garlic peeled and minced
• 5 Tablespoons olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar or white vinegar wine vinegar is more distinctive
• 1 1/2 slices bread or 2 slices French bread

Instructions

• Place tomatoes, 1 1/2 cups cucumber, green pepper, garlic, olive oil, vinegar and bread into a blender. Blend until pureed.
• Pour through a kitchen sieve and press with the pestle to extract the liquid. Discard the seed and skins - they make great compost.
• Chill and serve in flat bowls with the reserved, diced cucumber as garnish.

Notes

*You can also make this gazpacho with one 28-ounce can of whole tomatoes.

Nutrition

Calories: 151kcal | Carbohydrates: 9g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 12g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 43mg | Potassium: 343mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 4g | Vitamin A: 925IU | Vitamin C: 31.1mg | Calcium: 26mg | Iron: 0.8mg

Fresh tomatoes grown on the Farm

The basket in the photo (above) is very special – it was a gift from Miss Sadie, owner of the original Big Mill grist mill.  Years ago she used it to take three dozen eggs up town every week to trade for coffee and sugar and things she couldn’t grow. It still has the cotton seeds in it,  They were used to keep the eggs from breaking.

I grew these tomatoes in my Big Mill Cook’s garden. The garden is in my orchard where our livestock used to graze under the apple trees.

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast 252-792-8787

This original salsa recipe is a crowd-pleaser and a cook-pleaser -It only takes 5 minutes to make.  [continue reading…]

Sweet cucumber pickles are as southern as iced tea

Chloe’s Sweet Cucumber Pickles are worth the trouble.

Not just any pickles either – they must be homemade and preferably homegrown. It is alright if someone gives you the cucumbers, or you pick them up fresh from your local Farmers Market.

We all have a family recipe that has been passed down and it usually involves days of work for our pickles to have just the right crunch. My mother, Chloe, had several pickle recipes, but this one is my favorite.

FYI – I also have a pickle fork in several different sterling patterns. It’s a southern thing.

Click here to get Chloe’s Sweet Cucumber Pickle Recipe

Big Mill B&B’s Watermelon Punch 
Refreshing libation for sultry summer days

Southerners love watermelon. If you want a real treat, make watermelon punch. And don’t wait for the party – serve it up for just the two of you – for romance or just for good friends.

Refreshing Watermelon Punch is the Perfect Summer Beveragel

(Photo credit: Chloe Tuttle)

Print Recipe

Watermelon Punch Recipe for Two

Southerners love watermelon. If you want a real treat, make watermelon punch. And don’t wait for the party – serve it up for just the two of you.

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Total Time5 minutes mins

Course: Drinks

Cuisine: American

Keyword: watermelon punch, watermelon punch recipe

Servings: 4 servings

Calories: 109kcal

Author: Chloe Tuttle

Ingredients

• 1/4 seedless watermelon  (6 cups cubed watermelon chilled)
• 1/2 to 1 can chilled lemon-lime soda to taste
• 2 Tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 2 slices lemon or lime for garnish
• 2 sprigs fresh mint for garnish

Instructions

• Place chilled watermelon in blender and blend for several seconds on medium speed.
• Pour watermelon puree into a pitcher. Add frozen orange juice concentrate and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Chill until ready to serve.
• When ready to serve, add chilled lemon-lime soda to the watermelon liquid. Pour into champagne glasses and garnish with lemon or lime rings and mint.

Nutrition

Calories: 109kcal | Carbohydrates: 27g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 7mg | Potassium: 305mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 24g | Vitamin A: 1325IU | Vitamin C: 28.6mg | Calcium: 16mg | Iron: 0.5mg

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast 252-792-8787

Our Evening Primrose, wildflower and beautiful
King’s cure-all, is often considered a weed

Evening Primrose photo by Chloe Tuttle

But here at Big Mill Bed & Breakfast, Evening Primrose is glorified, photographed, written about and touted as entertainer – watching it bloom is a great way to spend an evening in the garden. Take a look and you’ll see why folks who gather around to watch can’t help but “oooh” and “ahhhhh.”

The night pollinators are fascinating too – we have that funky-looking Sphinx Moth that joins us if the evening primroses are opening. Oil from the evening primrose has been used for centuries as a remedy for many ailments, including laziness. And the roots and shoots are edible – another edible odd ball plant here at Big Mill B&B!

It takes about a minute for each flower to open. Early in June, there will be 3 or 4 flowers that open right there in front of you. By mid-June, a hundred will open each night. It is magic.

We have other night blooming flowers here on the farm – in mid-summer our Moon Flowers perfume the whole area around the patios and garden.

Moon Flower photo by Chloe Tuttle

And just before dark, our Devil’s Trumpet (Datura) will bloom. They smell heavenly but, watch out!  There is a dark side. They are hallucinogenic and poisonous. DON’T eat it!

My father called it Jimson weed and some folks call it Loco weed. It is one of my favorites because of its jasmine-like fragrance, but I don’t plan to eat it. Devil’s Trumpet also has some medicinal properties, but Beware!

Devil’s Trumpet photo by Chloe Tuttle

All of our evening blooming flowers are show stoppers.  You must come and see this show.

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast 252-792-8787

Spiderwort – Big Mill’s “Canary in the coal mine”

Gorgeous Spiderwort is also edible

This wonderful blue flower that grows in my eastern North Carolina garden is Spiderwort (Tradescantia), pronounced  trad-ess-KANT-ee-uh. Each day in spring and early summer I am greeted with the vibrant blue of these odd beauties. Then about noon, they close. My mother loved these flowers – hence, so do I.

Years ago I read that spiderwort was used at nuclear power plants like the canary in the mine. If there is a leak, the blue flowers turn pink!  Well, my flowers turned pink. I immediately called my scientist friend John Umstead and proclaimed that I had a pink spiderwort.

John calmly asked me how many nuclear power plants were in Williamston. To which I had to respond, “None.” He then asked, “How many diesel tractors?” Hmmm, lots. So I think puffing tractors can also affect my blue flowers. I am still laughing. It is called “ionizing radiation” and who could imagine this was happening in my little garden?

Some  consider it a wildflower and some folks consider it a weed.

Edible Spiderwort is also a good cut flower.

I consider Spiderwort a joy and folks visiting Big Mill B&B will probably be served at least one spiderwort flower if they are here in the spring!

An added bonus: Spiderwort is edible – the flower, the stalks and the leaves. Check the video on “Eat the Weeds” about cooking with Tradescantia. I found that I have many edible flowers in my garden here at Big Mill B&B.

Don’t forget – there are no nuclear power leaks at Big Mill.

Hover over photo to PIN FOR LATER

Big Mill Bed & Breakfast 252-792-8787

“Miss Sadie” James ran the Big Mill gristmill
for as long as I can remember.

Miss Sadie & Chloe at the Store.

In the 1940’s prior to when she and her husband, Columbus, bought it, it had been a water-powered sawmill. It was converted to a grist mill, the stones to grind the corn were shipped over from England.

Sometime later in the night, the dam was blown up. After that there was a long pulley attached to a tractor that powered the mill. It was a fascinating place where you could get the best ground corn meal ever.

The Old Mill in disrepair – sadly it is gone now.

I rode my bicycle there every day. Sometimes I played in the creek behind the mill, but more often I just talked to Miss Sadie. Often nephews Barney or Monk went with me – at times we rode a mule or drove an old pickup truck before we were legal.

Miss Sadie also had a small country store and sold things like penny candy and small Coca Cola in a bottle – she kept her drinks in one of those box-type coolers.

She lived in the store too. And she had a big gun…folks tried to rob her several times; but they were foiled.

Kristie, Chloe & Miss Sadie in Miss Sadie’s Store

Other folks thought she was odd, but not to me. She had one light bulb and no running water. She cooked on top of a pot belly stove, she wore her dead husband’s shoes. Fine with me.

Ben Roberson bought the mill and moved it to his farm. He and his wife Mary resurrected a great mill. It has all the parts, but it is different – still wonderful.

The mill had such fascinating parts.

(New photo, guess you can tell by the WD-40)

Ben’s Mill on Holly Springs Church Road in Williamston – made from gears and parts of Miss Sadie’s Big Mill

P.S. thanks to all the Chloe’s Blog readers who told me that I can’t spell “Dam.” Too funny.

from Innkeeper at Big Mill Bed and Breakfast 252-792-8787

These wonderful fried peach pies used to be served in every southern kitchen.

I remember eating fried peach jacks whenever I went to Dinner on the Ground at a small country church in eastern North Carolina. Dinner on the Ground all over the south celebrated the end of revival – they called it Homecoming. Like peach jacks, these celebrations are a fading tradition.

Print Recipe

Peach Jacks Hand Pie – a Southern Tradition

A great southern treat, these jacks are made from cooked dried peaches in a crust that is fried in lard.

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American southern

Keyword: peach hand pies, peach jacks hand pie, peach jacks hand pie recipe

Servings: 8 servings

Calories: 384kcal

Author: Chloe Tuttle

Ingredients

• 6 ounce dried peaches*
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups water Add water if it cooks out before peaches are soft
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup milk
• Extra flour for dusting cutting board and rolling pin.
• 1/2 - 1 cup lard for frying

Instructions

To make the filling

• Do this the day before and store in the refrigerator.
• Simmer peaches and water in a small saucepan for 45 minutes to an hour until peaches are soft. Be careful, they tend to stick. Add water if needed. Add the sugar and cook 15 minutes more, stirring often. Remove from heat and refrigerate overnight. You will have 2 1/2 cups peaches

To make the dough

• Stir together the flour and salt. Using two forks, cut in the shortening. Add milk and stir. Separate into 8 to 10 portions. Using the extra flour and a rolling pin, roll each dough piece into a 6" round. Roll dough as thin as you can without tearing dough.
• If you are using canned biscuits, roll each biscuit on a floured surface or waxed paper. Roll as thin as possible; each round should be about 6 inches across.

To Cook the Jacks:

• Put 2 Tablespoons cooked peaches in the center of the rolled dough. Fold the edges over to make a half circle. Crimp edges with a fork. Trim off excess dough.
• Melt lard in a medium-size frying pan. Grease should be quite hot before you fry jacks. Fry jacks until they are golden in color. Turn and brown the other side. Remove from heat and drain on paper towels. Continue until all jacks are cooked.
• The sweet, tangy taste of Peach Jacks is a treat. They are good cold but, oh, so good when they are hot. Yum!

Notes

Or you can use canned biscuits. Friend Nancy uses canned biscuits and her peach jacks are fabulous.

Nutrition

Calories: 384kcal | Carbohydrates: 63g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 14g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Cholesterol: 2mg | Sodium: 306mg | Potassium: 265mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 35g | Vitamin A: 485IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 31mg | Iron: 2.3mg

Click to learn how to make these Southern Peach Jacks