Gardening + Nature

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monster cookie

Sunday’s homemade ice cream, walnut and chocolate. I made the walnut with the green walnut liqueur, like the delicious variety I made ages and ages ago, but since there are no green walnuts to glean in my neighborhood, I resorted to purchasing a bottle. I suppose it ought to go without saying, but the ice creams were both fantastic!

locavore

Juniper does her sweet beggar best to convince the hubster to share his smoked BBQ chicken, corn, and ranch dressing topped salad.

Another stellar batch of green chile and a new recipe for homemade tortillas from Ford Fry. So. VERY. good.

Farmer Greg tends the carrot and onion patch. No sprouts, yet, but we do have two teeny tiny lettuces leaves going. Baby steps!

plum blossoms

Tags:

pasque flower
service berry
golden currant
choke cherry

Hello gentle reader. As I write, a bluster of wind sails snow beyond the window, the outlook for our afternoon dog walk very grim. My belly is brimful with curried cauliflower soup, a rainbow sprinkle sugar cookie, and Irish breakfast tea. Satisfied.

I enjoyed a long stretch of time when I thought not one bit about COVID-19. Thirty minutes of bliss.

We’ve spent much of the last weeks sunny weather clipping away last year’s growth, with monster piles of beyond parched plants in tidy compostable heaps, ripe seeds sprinkled delicately, eager for birds and dewy soil. The best moments, however, coming afterward, in the bath, when my skin, heady with dust and sweat, disperses sweetly into the air. What is the word for it? Not quite petrichor but just as intoxicating.

We made fine use of mushrooms with protein noodles and an omelette. I also tried my hand at no-knead donuts which were baked not fried because I don’t care for the hassle. I am known to cut sugar from just about every recipe I make, but these I followed exactly and found them seriously wanting. Darn cute, though! The hummus and pita continue to be a hit, but nothing in comparison to the Dutch baby. I used half blue corn flour for the usual all purpose and was positively delighted. The hubster, too.

Basically chugging along, with every hope for better days. How about you?

crocus + Juniper
fern bush
orange horned poppy
sedum

Looky there – a whole post without a photo of food. It IS possible. Maybe not probable, but possible.

The landscape is coming to life, a millimeter at a time, with great texture and color! And our best girl is out and enjoying the sunshine every time it’s offered.

Hoping you and your best loved are keeping well. So far so good around here!

Our very orchestrated Sunday supper. If you hadn’t noticed, I really love to cook, but I prefer a big bang for my buck in the kitchen. I don’t generally want to painstakingly create meals that will be gone in minutes.

That being said, I also like a little adventure and own cookbooks galore. Some of the recipes are of the painstaking, slow Sunday Supper ilk. I was feeling a strong pull toward my Teutonic roots and have a glorious German cookbook by Alfons Schuhbeck in need of a little mileage. So, I stuffed chicken breasts with ham and cheddar and topped them with a butter laden sherry wine sauce. The potato salad came from the same book, but it is sadly missing radishes because two grocers were out of them and dried tarragon! What the?

The bright colored salad is the closest I could get without the aforementioned tarragon to a carrot salad we rather enjoy at Uwe’s, one of our favorite local places.

And the cake, oh good grief! It is Christina Tosi’s Apple Pie Cake from Milk. Talk about laborious. So very many steps! Such deliciousness, though. My stars.

Our fab shed dolled up with icicles and wild bee house!
The light!

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