Vanilla Icing

Wishes at Four AM

Oh, how I wish this picture was entirely true and I was happily snoozing in this puppy pile but it's only half true.  Sage, in the foreground, and Lily, in the background have fallen back asleep after our 3:30 am wakeup but Holly and I are both wide awake.  

I'm trying to get over the trauma of waking up because one of these three (and I have my suspicions as to which one) had an accident in my bed/on me.   Nothing like waking up realizing that your half of the bed has a very, very wet spot AND so does your cute little pajamas.  There's just no falling back to sleep after that.  

Holly is blissfully guiltfree and we've been playing fetch with her diminutive green tennis ball for over an hour.  She's full of energy.  I, on the otherhand, am drinking coffee like it's my job and resisting the urge to poke awake Sage the guilty party.

Blackberry Beginnings

 

I woke up early this morning and I padded quietly downstairs, just barely avoiding tripping over the tangle of three little dogs rushing downstairs.   They scrambled over one another to get outside when I let them out into the backyard and I shut the door behind them.   There was only a few minutes before they would be back at the door and like every morning I hastened  back into the kitchen and quickly set the coffee maker to grind and brew that precious first cup of the day.   I reached for my library book but before I could open it the dogs wanted back in.  

Once they were inside, they dashed about with sort of frantic energy only dogs and small toddlers have first thing in the morning and I returned to my library book, Ripe For Dessert by David Lebovitz.   The other day, when I leafed through it, a recipe had caught my eye and I had remembered to pick up blackberries the night before at the grocery store.  Berries out of season aren't a preference of mine but for some inexplicable reason I wanted to bake Blackberry Financiers  immediately and I didn't have the patience to wait the months and months that it would take for the berries to be in season again.  

Ground almonds, sugar, egg whites, and browned butter are the key components of this recipe; the miniscule amount of flour are so little that I found myself checking the recipe thrice to be sure I had read  the amount correctly.  Butter was set to melt on top of the stove and I poured the almonds into my food processor and tipped in the sugars, flour, and salt.  The grind of the food processor roared through the still house and I winced but only for a moment.  It was unlikely that it was loud enough to carry up onto the second and third floors of my house.   I fixed a cup of coffee and gulped down a mouthful quickly to appease my caffeine craving body but then slowed to sip and savor while the butter began to sizzle and pop.  A nutty aroma began to waft up from the pan and I grasped the handle to give it a swirl and prevent any one spot from getting too hot.

I poured the egg whites into the ground almond mixture into the still whirring food processor and sprinkled in a tiny bit of almond extract.   A little unwillingly, I set the coffee cup down and poured the browned butter into the food processor and then switched it off once it was mixed.  The muffin tin was dug out of the cupboard and the wells carefully wiped with butter before I spooned batter into each well.   Blackberries were poked in to tops of the batter and I debated pushing them in just a little bit farther.  I wish I had.

The Blackberry Financiers were slid into the oven and I picked up my coffee again and the library book and climbed up onto the stool at the kitchen table.   I had eighteen minutes before the financiers were due out of the oven and that was plenty of time to finish my first cup of coffee and choose the next thing I would make from Ripe For Dessert.

The last five minutes was sweet torture as a buttery almond scent filled the kitchen.  When I bit into a piping hot financier and a blackberry burst its scorching juices into my mouth was a different sort of sweet torture altogether.

Hot Yoga & Green Juice

 

I shared this on Facebook on August 28th...

This is a long story of how one day I craved hot yoga and green juice.

At the very beginning of June, I injured myself and with five days could not move. I did not know what the problem was and made an appointment with my primary doctor. It was for a week later and I called UPMC irate and they got me in to see a specialist the very next day. He took x-rays and discovered that I had mild scoliosis in my back and early onset way down low in the S-1/tailbone area. Nothing else seemed to be causing my pain. But then, not even two days later it got worse. My entire left leg from butt to foot had gone numb on the back and hurt worse than anything I had ever felt before. I was literally stuck on my couch, on my hands and knees and pillows under my stomach and did not move unless it was to get up to go to the bathroom or to the doctors.

I saw my primary doctor and he prescribed pain killers, muscle relaxers, and a round of steroids to bring down muscle swelling as he suspected muscles were pinching the sciatic nerve. It didn't help. I was back in just a few days as it had intensified. He upped the pain killers, changed the muscle relaxers, and at Rick's request because I was not sleeping prescribed me sleeping pills. I tried a second round of steroids and then moved onto PT which only aggravated the problem even worse. At long last, I was finally referred for an MRI where they found an hourglass shaped spine, three bulging discs and one herniated disc. It was the herniated the L5-S1 disc that was crushing the nerve and causing all the pain and numbness. My surgeon repeatedly referred to my back as "your junky spine."

I had a microdiscectomy within the week. The surgeon went in and removed the expelled disc matter that was on the nerve. It wasn't a very long surgery nor a complicated one (compared to other surgeries) but it left me with a two inch long incision just about where my tailbone is and so many weak and sore muscles. The pain from my leg was gone immediately following surgery and the numbness was about 50% receded. Over the next week, I couldn't do anything but lay very carefully on my back. I wasn't permitted to bend, twist, lift, or even reach my arms above my head and I don't think I could really have done any of those things anyways the first couple weeks.  

Everything healed well but for the six weeks after surgery I had those restrictions but was permitted to walk. My first walk was maybe 100 feet and I had to hold onto Rick and by the end of it I was dripping in sweat and exhausted. It hurt and ached to hold up my torso. The incision hurt. My left leg wasn't very co-operative and it seemed I now had a limp. The numbness seemed to have increased by the end of the walk especially in the outside bottom of my foot and the heel.

I was determined and walked a little bit more each day and by six weeks after surgery I was walking 5-6 miles a day (a couple of walks a day) and was faster than I had been at the start of this all but still with numbness and limping and not at the speed I once used to be able to walk at. I didn't care so much--I was walking. I wasn't permitted to run and being unable to lift my left foot properly I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to run again but I could walk. And soon, perhaps use the elliptical or ride a bike for a little bit--or as long as I could bear to sit. (As of today, I can only manage about 45 minutes before it feels like a spike is being driven into my tailbone)

I began PT last week. I had an evaluation on Wednesday and had my first official session on Friday. It wasn't terribly difficult and I decided that I would continue PT as prescribed at the two sessions a week. The therapist remarked that despite my injury and my left leg being weaker than my right that I was still pretty strong and flexible compared to the average person. I laughed and asked him if he was joking and told him that he should have seen me before--that I was much stronger and much more flexible and still that was nothing compared to those I had practiced yoga with and what I aspired to be myself.

Yesterday, exactly seven weeks post surgery and about thirteen weeks since I got hurt, I woke up and knew that today was the day that I must return to Bikram Yoga Pittsburgh I don't know where the thought came from as through all the pain I expected never to be well enough to return but come it did. As the day went on, I became more and more sure that I HAD TO GO. I went to PT and then went home and put on my yoga clothes and gathered up all of my things.

I went to the 4 pm class.  

The studio looked almost exactly as it had did when I had taken my last class on May 28th. I was so happy to walk in that door and so excited to put my mat down in the hot room. The heat felt GLORIOUS. There's no other word for it. Many, many times over the weeks post surgery when all I wanted to do was stretch out and wasn't allowed to I thought of how wonderful it would be to come to the studio and just quietly lay in the corner of the room and allow the heat to soak into me and relax my poor muscles.

I had no expectations for class; I did the positions as best as I could and was incredibly cautious and did not push a single thing. I did less than I thought I could and let my body re-learn the movements. Listen to the words of the teacher and allow them to sink in. Class was difficult physically because everything was so sore and tight. It was difficult because I had to remind myself that it didn't matter what I could do before. I was here now and this is what I could do now.  

Class was amazing. My body may be slower to respond than I would like, but my mind and soul were soaring with happiness. For the first time in over three months, I felt like the body I was in belonged to me. It was changed, yes, but with practice it would change again. I walked out of the studio with my spirits high and treated myself to fresh juice from The Pittsburgh Juice Company. Surprisingly, I wanted the green juice and it has never tasted better. I picked up Power Berry for later and one of Rick's favorites for him.  

I am so grateful for this yoga. I think it is because I practiced this yoga so steadily through out the winter and early spring (every day for 100 plus days! and then several times a week until my injury) that my strength and flexibility are as good as my therapist says and coming back at a good rate. I think it is because I practiced this yoga, that when I finally was allowed to walk and it was miserable that I kept going. I remembered the saying about the thing you hate most is the thing you need most. I think it is because of this yoga that I will heal the damage done from the injury and subsequent surgery.

I am so happy to be back to class...and if you made it this far...I bet you are glad to be done reading this!!

Tofu Scramble

 

A few weeks spent recovering from a reoccuring SI Joint Issue that decided to make things even more fun by causing the sciatic nerve on the opposite side have excrutiating pain and numbness (how can both of those things even happen at the same time?) is an excellent time to really appreciate one's friends and family.  I've been couch-ridden nearly a month with a few more days at least in sight and Rick has been doing everything to keep our little family of four humans and a handful of furry people running smoothly.   He's taken kids to band practices and orthodontist appointments.  He's taken me to doctor's appointments and physical therapy appointments.  All the shopping (and there's a lot of it when you have a 15 year old boy!) he's done all alone.  

Rick doesn't cook but he's kept our house stocked with plenty of easy to prepare things that the kids could make for themselves or make for me and he's even done very well at accommodating my 6 month vegetarian status.   He's made me little snack plates with fresh fruit, cheese, and these amazing brown rice with salt and pepper Triscuits and kept my little coffee pantry well stocked.  I've tried more flavors of hummus than ever before and found a new favorite one and I finally got to try some of those frozen vegetarian Indian meals that I always eye at the grocer's.  And you know what?  They aren't half bad!

My friends have been wonderful as well.   They've sent little cards and notes to cheer me up and stopped by and kept me company even though I know it had to be awkward talking to me when the only position that gave me relieve was on my hands and knees with several pillows shoved under my abdomen and my cheek pressing against the cushion of the couch.   Some have brought lunch from some of my favorite take out places --vegetarian massaman from Curry Away and paneer mekhani from Udipi, yum!-- and others have brought me raspberry mochas from Starbucks and candy.   I've been very, very spoiled during my convalescense! 

After several weeks of eating delicious things some that are healthy and quite a few that are not so healthy especially so often I've been really looking forward to when I could stand up long enough to prepare myself a simple meal.  Today was that day!

I sauteed some onions, garlic, orange pepper, and kale in a small pan.  I added some crumbled soft tofu and a chopped mushroom veggie burger and sprinkled the whole thing with some paprika, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper.   It only took me about ten minutes to make but I was a little worn out after even that little bit of time and happily sat down to the first thing I've cooked in nearly four weeks!

 

Peanut Butter Cup Crackle Brownies

It's a habit of mine to look over the Internet while I'm sipping on a cup of coffee to find inspiration and new things to try.   One particular day,  I made one of those crazy leaps from Instagram-to blog-to blog-to pinterest-to blog and found myself drooling over Cookies & Cups Peanut Butter Cup Crack Brownies.  I had to make them.  That very night!

When one works with their mother-in-law and several other women older than oneself,  it doesn't seem particularly nice to use the word 'crack' in a recipe title.  I thought a slight name alteration was in order to better suit the possible sensibilities of those at my office so I could bring the brownies in the next day to share.   

I made a few other alterations along the way because I don't particularly care for a brownie box mix and I'm a little crazy for my peanut butter.   Certainly, if you prefer a boxed mix either for taste or ease, please go ahead and use one.   The original recipe found HERE uses a Ghiradelli box mix and also less peanut butter and incorporated in a slightly different way.

 

Peanut But Cup Crackle Brownies

         adapted and inspired from Shelly at Cookies & Cups

 For the Brownies:

 1 1/2 sticks of butter, melted

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla

3 eggs

 3/4 cup flour

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

For the Peanut Butter Layer:

8 Reeses Peanut Butter cups, chopped   (I buy the little package of 8 individual ones as they go on sale often)

1/2 cup roasted and salted peanuts, salted  (example:  Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter    (I strongly recommend NOT using natural.  It’s too dry.  Use Jif or something similar)

For the Crackle Layer:

 2 cups of chocolate chips — Milk OR semi-sweet would do 

3/4 cups peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 3/4 cups rice krispie cereal

 ONE:

 1.  Line a 9 by 9 pan with foil (this will aid in removing them from the pan later) with at least a couple of inches over hang on a two of the sides.  Spray well with Pam or grease with additional butter being careful not to tear the foil.  Preheat oven to 350.

 2.  In a small bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.  In another bowl, combine the melted butter and the sugar.  Beat in the eggs and vanilla.   Slowly and thoroughly mix in the flour mixture.   Pour and spread into prepared pan.

 3.  Bake at 350 for 35 minutes.

 TWO:

 1.  Remove the brownies from the oven and sprinkle them with the chopped reeses peanut butter cups and chopped peanuts.  Return to oven for five minutes.

 2.  Remove the brownies from the oven and spread the melted peanut butter cups and peanuts across the surface.   Drop dollops of the peanut butter onto the top of the brownies and wait a few moments.  The peanut butter will start to melt.  Very carefully, so as not to mix the layers, spread the peanut butter evenly across the top.  

3.  Place pan in the refrigerator while you prepare Step 3.

 THREE:

 1.  In a double boiler, or a large bowl set over a pan of simmering water, combine the chocolate chips, peanut butter, and butter.   Let the mixture melt and stir it occasionally until it is completely smooth.

 2.  Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the vanilla and the rice krispies.  Take the brownie pan out of the refrigerator and careful pour the kripsie mixture on top.  Again, be careful not to mix the layers and and spread the krispie mixture evenly across the top.  Return to the refrigerator until completely cool and set (about two hours) and then cut.   

 The brownies can be stored well covered or in the refrigerator for a few days.  I think they taste best at room temperature so if you keep them in the fridge you might want to let them come to room temp first.

 

Cooking At The Office

The last five months I've been working full time at our family business and while it's not exactly something I enjoy doing, I've been finding ways to make it better.   It's a hard adjustment to be confined to a desk all day long staring at a computer and stacks of paper and I admire all of those who have been doing  this all along.    I'm much more used to getting the children fed, ready, and out the door for school and then having hours upon hours to do the chores at home, the errand running, working out and most importantly the baking and the cooking!

At the office for eight hours a day,  I haven't been able to figure out how to fit in all that I'm used to doing in a day.  The first few months I struggled a lot to get everything done and with some of the things--namely the chores and errand running--I'm still trying to figure it out.  But I have figured out two things:  working out and the cooking.

My dearest friend, Missy, who attended school with me from Kindergarten all the way through Highschool Graduation and now works at our office, has helped me greatly by being sweet and supportive of all of my griping.  We have decided to use our lunch hour wisely and spend either the first 30 or the second 30 of it getting in a walk.  Lucky for us, when we step out of the office there's a sidewalk for us to follow and if we keep our steps brisk, we can get two miles in and feel all the better for it.  There's something about fresh air that really clears the mind!

Missy doesn't really enjoy cooking but she's happy to wash dishes if I do the cooking so we make an effective lunchtime team.   Armed with a hot plate, toaster oven, and microwave I'm finding creative ways to cook healthy lunches with good wholesome food.   My attitude at work is already beginning to improve a little now that I'm not feeling confined to cold sandwiches, processed foods, and dashes to local-bad-for-you eateries.   

It's not so hard to do if you have a plan and do a few things ahead of time such as picking up your necessary ingredients and keeping that at hand in office kitchen.   Missy and I are still on the plan a day or two at a time but we have aspirations to work on a weekly meal plan for breakfasts and lunches. I'm cooking for three of us--Missy, my husband, and myself--but it would be just as easy to cook for one or a couple more.

Baked Potato at 375

1.  Two hours prior to lunch, toss a couple of foil wrapped fork pricked baking potatoes in the toaster oven and set for 375 degrees.

2.  Thirty minutes prior to lunch*, place chicken breasts on lightly greased baking pan.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper and/or choice of seasonings.  Slide onto the second rack of the toaster oven and go for a walk!

3.  Return from the walk, remove the potatoes and chicken from the toaster oven.  Brush some barbecue sauce on the chicken  and return to the oven for a few minutes while you cut open and fluff your baked potato.    Cube the chicken toss on the baked potato and top with a slice of low fat cheese and enjoy!    

If you don't want to bother with the chicken, skip this step and when you return from the walk, put a steamer bag of broccoli (plain, seasoned, or the sort that has cheese sauce) in the microwave and top your potato with that instead.  Or in addition!

The only step not completed during the lunch hour is putting the baked potatoes in the oven and that literally takes about two minutes if you haven't wrapped them in foil ahead of time.   No reason at all you can't detour by the toaster oven on the way to the water cooler or the coffee pot!  No excuses!

Halloween Makings

Maia asked for a Halloween party this year and I thought it sounded like a lot of fun.   She was in charge of the invite list and making the invitations but left the rest to me.   I asked a good friend of mine, Missy, and her sister Amanda to help me.   They both are very good at party planning and enjoy it thoroughly.  

Amanda was creative force behind the decorations, Missy was our logistics and miscellania pro and also used her creative talents at graphic design for various labels and signs.  Of course that left me with the treats!!    I also made the food and while it was cute--ghost pizza, spooky spider cheese, fried worms & spiders with vampire's blood--it's just wasn't as fun to make or photograph.

These vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting almost didn't happen.  I was determined to find a little spider to perch on the white chocolate spiderwebs but couldn't find teeny spiders anywhere.  I contemplated for a half minute piping spiders too but I didn't see how their legs would hold up and quickly abandoned that idea.  Lucky for me, Missy saved the day and found the spiders....in the button section of Jo-Ann Fabrics.

The chocolate dipped pretzels were a breeze to make but a few hours when I lifted them from the wire rack some of the drizzled colored candy came up.  I found this disappointing but luckily it wasn't too bad.  I'm not sure how to avoid this--perhaps spray the wire rack with Pam first?  Run a finger or a knife between the drizzled candy while it's still soft to help separate the drizzles from one another and prevent it being pulled up?   

Dipping things into melted candy coating always seems such an easy thing to me until I begin to do it. Within minutes, I'm having a melt down of my own as it's not going as well as I planned it to.   Things dip smoothly and then have a weird lump or swirl somewhere and it annoys me.   The candy overheats despite all of my precautions (lowest heat, double boiler, etc) and I have to stop and thin it.   

For this particular treat, it was the Halloween Oreos inside the pop that gave me such grief.   They simply were too heavy to stay on the stick.   The first one I tried plopped right into the bowl of candy coating leaving me dismayed and holding an empty stick.  The next one, I 'glued' the stick inside the Oreo with a bit of additional candy coating before I dipped it.  It fell off too.   And so did the one I glued and froze for fifteen minutes after I remembered how you freeze cake balls prior to making cake pops.   Finally, I picked up a small offset spatula and one by one coated the Oreos on their sticks and sprinkled each one with nonpareils before moving on to the next one.

It took me over three hours to do six Oreos for the party plus another 36 for the brass section of my son's high school marching band.  I'm still traumatized.

Hershey Bats were a breeze to make in comparison to the Halloween Oreo Pops.   I printed off a bat template and traced it onto black construction paper.  A few minutes with scissors, some dabs of glue for the googly eyes, and a white out pen for the toothy grins and the bats were finished.   The fun sized Hershey bars are held onto the bat with a strip of double sided tape.

A Hershey Bat, a Ghost Peep, and a graham cracker was nestled in a small bag and then this adorable label (also by Missy) was attached to the top.   The party go-ers later oohed and aahed over the Spooky S'mores which was satisfying but then I must admit it became somewhat horrifying as six s'more's craving girls ripped into the little bags around little fire in the chiminea on the deck.  Labels and bats with their bellies torn out went flying every which way.   I guess since it was Halloween it was pretty appropriate.

A small glimpse of Amanda's decorating:  In the foreground is a string of lights that has hand tied fabric ties up and down the length of it and then it was illuminated by a black light.  In the background, there are handcut bats, sticky spiderwebs, candles, a skull, and a handmade burlap banner.  

The dining room, foyer, and kitchen were well decorated too but the best pictures are the ones that have all of the girls in them and I wouldn't want to share pictures of other people's children without prior permission.  There was another burlap banner, a spooky miniature Halloween town on the victrola, more spiderwebs and lights, mysterious potions and a spell book, a broomstick next to a smoking cauldron, and so many other little touches that I don't think I could list them all!  The girls spent a lot of time looking at all of the decorations and even the next morning when they had pancakes by candlelight they were still getting up to look at this thing and that.

The games were of the more traditional sort.   They bobbed for apples, made mummies (teams of two and each team gets a roll of toilet paper to see who can make a mummy the faster out of the entire roll), dropped clothespin bats into a jar, and were blindfolded to listen to a creepy story that had disgusting things to touch like eyeballs (peeled grapes), windpipe (cold, cooked manicotti pasta), and a clammy hand (rubber glove filled with cold sand) to name a few.    Amanda also brought a glitter tattoo set and the girls painted their nails in Halloween colors while waiting their turn to be tattoed.  

A three hour party goes by quickly when there's plenty to eat, see, and do.   Maia thanked me over and over and over later and said she had an 'awesome time.'  I think the other girls did too because Missy, Amanda, and I got plenty of thank yous as they left and they all seemed to be very excited, happy, and tired when it was time to go.   I know the three of us adults were!   

I was very grateful for all of the help I had in planning Maia's party and again I want to say:  Thank you Missy and Amanda for all of your help!  I really appreciated it!  And....if you need someone on the treats and sweet team for that baby shower and that Santa's Breakfast I now you're planning you know who to ask!

Lemon Boy Tomatoes

Early this summer I purchased a few tomato plants to try out in large containers on my front porch and chose a few standards--Better Boy, Early Girl, a cherry tomato plant of some sort, and also a grape tomato plant.   However, when I got home and began to transplant them to their new homes I discovered that that the grape tomato I had picked up off the shelf was someone else's discarded Lemon Boy Tomato.  

A yellow tomato!

I must say I was a little bit annoyed to find that I wouldn't have grape tomatoes this year but as the Lemon Boy grew and the first hard little green tomatoes began to show I began to get curious.  What would a yellow tomato taste like?   I've seen them on occasion at farmer's markets but I've never bought one and now, here, was a chance!  The first Lemon Boy tomato seemed to ripen unusually slow but finally, finally!, it's ripe and ready to slice into tonight.

Arugula & Avocado Salad

Two steps forward, one step back.  One step forward, two steps back.  Another step forward, a great big hopeful leap forward, a tiny stumble.   This song, New Soul, by Yael Naim brings me a gentle hopefulness and though sometimes it may be sad, a smile to my face.  

There are plenty of flowers and now, even though my Lemon Boy tomatoes are ripening painstakingly slow, there are vegetables and herbs.   Not as many as I'd like but each year I slip a seed or a plant into the ground teaches me a little bit more about the best way to grow food where I can in my extremely shady city yard.  

The sage is even more abundant than past years and Maia asks often for pasta with browned butter and sage.  I've even whirred up packed cupfuls of leaves in the food processor to make sage pesto and used it to top grilled porkchops.   I haven't tried tossing it with pasta yet but I plan to and soon.   There's plenty of basil and I often chiffonade handfuls of it to toss on salads, pastas, and other dishes. The thyme has doubled in size as has the rosemary and even if the oregano withered it was the only thing that didn't make it.   The flat leaf parsley happily reseeds itself wherever it will and I never give it a thought except to note where it has gotten itself to this time.

I have four tomato plants in pots and two of them are happily giving me fresh tomatoes every day. Several times a day I urge the other two plants to catch up...but not too fast lest I be inundated with tomatoes faster than they can be eaten.  All four pepper plants have peppers dangling from their leaves and I've already helped myself to a jalapeno.  Unfortunately, my part of the world decided it wanted to have a monsoon season and the pepper plants got a little waterlogged before I moved them to a drier location.  The leaves aren't as deep of a green as I'd like and I can't help but think that might mean less peppers than I'd like.  Peppers in pots do best on the porch tucked under the roof.  Lesson learned.

My cat scratched up ALL of my spinach, butter lettuce, and spinach seedlings but left the arugula alone. I think the arugula felt sorry for me and grew extra well because I seem to have twice as much as I planted.  The zucchini plant I've been giving a few sideways looks because I've seen plenty of flowers on it but no appearance of wee baby zucchinis yet.  The cucumber plants are threatening to take over the entire garden bed and are studded with bright sun-gold flowers to the point that I'm feeling a little alarmed at the thought of all of those little blossoms turning into cucumbers and having to eat them all!

Inexplicably, there appears to be a broccoli plant growing out of the pot my lemon tree is in.  It's a scraggly looking thing and I don't expect much from it, if anything, but I don't have the heart to yank it out and instead I let it be.  'Benevolent Neglect' seems to be the style of gardening  that works best with the little bit of earth I own as evidenced by my strawberry patch being past the berrying stage and in the Take Over the Entire Yard stage.

I've noticed a funny habit in myself now that I've managed to get so many tasty things growing.  I find myself wanting to save the food--as in not pick it!--for some 'perfect' date but of course that can't be done because it will eventually begin to rot and then I'd be very sad.  I have to remind myself that the perfect date to harvest a fruit or vegetable is when it is ripe and that the next day another one will be ripe and the day after that and so on until its season is over.  I think it's because of two things that I do this:  One, I've grown this perfect little bit of food that doesn't get any more local or organic than several dozen feet from where I sleep and I can't bear the idea of destroying it.  (I'm a plant softie.  What can I say?)  And two,  I don't have nearly enough plants of each thing I'm growing to have all that I could want of it and that makes me miserly.  This second was made clear to me when I realized that when one has a strawberry patch bigger than a queen sized bed, one has no compunctions about picking strawberries as fast as one can that are only washed by the sun and greedily gobbling them down.

If you don't count the strawberries, the habit is easily broken once I've made something with the first tiny harvest of the season.   I broke the habit with a salad that incorporates many of the 'big' summer vegetables  and now I'm outside glaring at my plants every day trying to intimidate them into stepping up production.  I'm sorry to report that I must not be too intimidating becuase it hasn't worked yet.

This salad is easily tweeked if you have more or less of a particular ingredient and can be made a few hours ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator.   However, I suggest gently folding in the arugula leaves right before serving to keep them pretty and crisp.

 

Arugula & Avocado Salad

                       by Michelle

2 cups of loosely packed arugula

1 avocado, diced

3 ears of corn steamed or grilled 

1-2 cups cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

1/2 jalapeno, seeded and finely chopped

handful of chopped flat leaf parsley

extra virgin olive oil, approximately a tablespoon or so

lime juice, approximately a tablespoon or so

red wine vinegar, approximately a tablespoon or so

salt and pepper

 

1.  Use a serrated knife and slice the corn off the cobs into your serving bowl.    Drizzle the lime juice over the avocado and toss gently to coat.  This will help prevent unsightly browning.  Mix the avocado, tomatoes, jalapeno, parsley, and arugula into the bowl with the corn.

2.  Drizzle the salad with the olive oil and vinegar and gently toss the vegetables to thoroughly coat them.  Salt and pepper to taste.

Finally, Flowers.

A few years ago, Rick and I experienced some losses that left me uninterested in a lot of the things that I loved to do.  Baking, writing, and gardening were just of a few of the things that I left by the wayside as I struggled to accept what had happened.  I'm still working on regaining those lost interests and this year was the first year that I was ready to dig my hands into the soil.

It felt good.   

I was happy to see that many of the perennials I had planted years ago were still growing: peonies, roses, moonflowers, foxglove, mexican-something-or-other, and my sage plant which had easily quadrupled in size and was waving purple flowers at me.  The strawberry bed has grown immensely and today I ate the first strawberry of the season from it!

It was delicious.  Maybe this year will be the year I have enough not only to have some for eating and strawberry ice cream but also the year's strawberry jam?  My fingers are crossed.   I discovered my poor dead blueberry bush isn't dead at all--it was sending up shoots!--so that means anything can happen.  

It's hard to believe that from one bedraggled strawberry plant Maia brought home in a Dixi cup five years ago that I hurriedly stuck in the ground so it wouldn't die that I now have a strawberry patch that is about 3 feet by 8 feet.  I've also given people cuttings from it, transplanted more to other parts of my yard, and finally just whacked up great armfuls of plants that were trying to take over the lawn and heaved them in the trash.  Lately, I've wondered--do you think my neighbors would mind if I let them take over my entire front yard?

A few days ago and then again today,  I went to the store and I think I might have gone a little bit crazy. I picked up a some vegetable and fruit starts: cucumbers, squash, zucchini, four different types of tomatoes and four types of peppers.  The tomatoes and peppers are in containers for growing on my front porch as it gets the most sun.  I don't expect a high yield but if I were able to make a batch or two of salsa?  I'd be very happy.

I picked up a few annuals that were on sale: lobelia, geraniums, petunias, and French marigolds but mostly I brought home perennials which are my favorite.  Astilbe, Pink Swirl Dianthus, Delphiniums, Iceland Poppies, Snow Fountain Gaura, and a red flower that is on long, long stems that looks as if it would be fitting in a Dr. Seuss book that I unfortunatley don't know what it's called.  I hadn't ever seen it before which is part of the reason why I purchased it and the tag seems to have gone missing.

Call these what you will--violas or pansies but I will always, always call them Johnny Jump Ups.  I had these a few years ago, and sure enough for a couple years it seemed a new little one was jumping up in the most unexpected place!  These were the only flowers that disappeared from my garden and I couldn't bring home a new one fast enough.

Of course, I picked up a few more herbs to supplement the ones I brought home from Quiet Creek Farm.   I  have purple and sweet basil, rosemary, oregano, mint, and creeping thyme all tucked in here and there.  On a whim, I brought home a raspberry cane last Saturday but I have no idea where to put it or how much sun it needs.  I mean to look it up, find a home for it, and hope for the best.

Rick says at our new office there's a long swath of grass that if I want, I can dig up and plant it with all the vegetables that I want.   It's a little late in the season to get started on such a project because I think the wall will have to repaired in one spot and I also need to chart the amount of sun that reaches the ground.   Then, I'll have to prepare the ground and decide what I want to plant and where exactly.  I think I'll take my time with planning and preparing this plot and have it ready for next spring.   If it's suitable it would be perfect to supplement what I can grow at home with my extremely limited sun.

I'm so glad to planting and planning again!