Merry, Merry Christmas to you all! I hope your season is bright as a wonderful new year approaches. My best to all.
It’s been a wacky fall and holiday season with way too many distractions and stresses. I’ve dropped the blog for too many weeks, and hope to be back on track come the new year.
Finally!! Gardening is always such a lesson in patience. You’d think I’d know that by now. I’ve had a few snippets of herbs and a strawberry or two, but this is the first picking from the vegetable garden. The garlic was planted last fall and today I picked scapes, the flower stalk. Not only does cutting them help the plant to direct energy to the root–which is what we are really after, but also is a very nice addition to soups and sauces.
I’ve been busy. Long time, no post….but check this out. There are funny looking things growing in my house. On purpose. With an assignment for an article about growing mushrooms on your kitchen counter, I’ve got 5 little habitats of fungi sprouting from bags or boxes and hopefully some day from a log. Still waiting on that one!
The most interesting, and so far the most successful, has been the lion’s mane. I’ve never seen or tasted this one before.
This is the salad Michelle and I made the other day. The dressing turned out quite nice, taking on a bit of the shrimp flavor, but having enough bite to spark up the mixed greens. Red bells always add that bit of color I’m looking for, and the crunch and antioxidants they provide are an added bonus. The perfect spring and summer salad that will be made up again and again after a long day in the garden or a hectic day with tourists….
The true meaning of windfall became apparent to me last week. I was working in the kitchen and kept hearing a pounding sound going on outside. Thinking it was someone working up the street, I didn’t pay much attention, until something hit the house a couple times. Time to investigate. It was a blustery day, one of those beautiful fall moments when yellow, orange, and an occasional red leaf swirled through the air.
In my real life my husband and I have a tea shop.Since we celebrated the 30 year anniversary of the shop very silently (even we can’t remember the exact date!…middle of May sometime), we decided it was time to do a little cookbook of afternoon tea. Actually I think it was JIm’s idea of how to get me to test all those scone recipes, so he would have a ready breakfast every morning for days on end.
One of the summer jobs that was available when I was a teenager was “walking beans.” Now you may not know what that is, but it involved a bunch of kids with hats and hoes sent out into the soybean fields to eliminate weeds. It was hot work and much to be grumbled about. I didn’t go out with the crews, as my Dad thought my sister and I could work in our own fields. These were
Yellow tomatoes have overrun the little garden. I was really hoping for red. For some reason I’m rather traditional that way. The red ones are just not doing as well, so the predominate tomatoes that come into my kitchen these days are yellow and gigantic. The catsup will just have to be yellow. Guess what…as it cooked and reduced it slowly turned orange. Perhaps those red tomato genes are hiding in there and just had to
They started out innocently enough…nice little plants, healthy and strong. Spring was cold and wet, and there wasn’t a big hurry to get them in the ground. I planted 3 in the community garden the end of May. Since I only get there a couple times a week, if that, the growth seemed amazing. Kind of like only seeing your nephews every few months—they grow like weeds! Now they have almost taken over my little 10 x 10 plot, escaping the cages and sprawling into
It’s time…it’s finally time! I received my first box of veggies this week. Community Supported Agriculture has hit the mainstream. I remember a time perhaps 15 years ago, a local couple put out ads and articles about this new concept of CSAs. They were trying to recruit people to give them a bunch of money in March to buy
Someone once told me that the key to a good balsamic vinegar is one that you can actually just drink. Well, I think I finally found the best one I have ever tasted that does not come with a hefty price tag. It is truly sweet with deep tannins so to say.
