THE SUNFLOWERS HAVE SPROUTED.
I am very excited. Can you tell?
The sunflowers were the only crop I planted from seed in my little garden plot. And I know, I know, it’s a seed’s job to sprout, but the thrill of seeing little green leaves popping out of the ground never gets old.
With luck, in about three months these little sprouts will show their true colors.
Truly, something to look forward to…
Last week, I started a giveaway for a copy of The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook signed by Deb Perelman, the esteemed food blogger and author of the book! The book is full of recipes for every occasion, thoughtful commentary, and useful kitchen tips. I love my copy and am excited to share!
And the lucky winner is… Diane H, whose favorite breakfast is fruit pie! (Check your e-mail so we can arrange the shipping of the book!)
Thanks to everyone who participated! Get out there and get cooking!
Congrats to Jessica, the lucky winner of two awesome railing planters!
I’ve never grown my own food yet (Sad!), but when I start, I’ll want strawberries, green peppers, and peaches. How long it would take for a peach tree to fruit I have NO IDEA. But it would be delicious.
I’m not sure green peppers would be successful in these pots, and I’m 100% certain a peach tree won’t fit, but I wager strawberries might actually work!
Thanks to all who participated… the array of food you want to grow is intriguing and inspiring!
A little over three weeks ago, I put my first plants into my new community garden plot. The little seedlings looked small and feeble outside the comfort of their little black plastic starting trays, so all I could do was cross my fingers, water daily, and hope they’d survive.
And survive they have. My little plot is now blossoming into dozens of shades of green. Tiny, pale green orbs have appeared on my adolescent tomato plants. Deep green leaves rimmed in violet are bursting daily from my stems of okra. Anaheim peppers, jalapeños, cucumbers, and parsley are about to reach their harvest points. The basil is growing so quickly I’ve already harvested enough for three batches of pesto (recipe coming soon, promise). And remember the leeeetle baby sunflower sprouts?
Butternut Squash is a rather new ingredient in my culinary arsenal. Having really discovered its magic last fall when I cooked up a giant bath of Butternut Squash Soup, I’ve since been quite fascinated it. Harvested in mid- to late-fall, these squash can store unrefrigerated for months, which makes them an ideal winter staple.
I’ve seen this squash for sale in the produce section, pre-peeled and cubed. Like most pre-cut fruits and vegetables, it is wildly more expensive to buy it that way than to buy the squash whole. Plus, it requires refrigeration and will quickly go bad if not used. But it doesn’t take long to go from a whole squash to a beautiful mound of orange cubes ready for cooking, and without much special equipment. You can totally do this.
Here’s how it’s done:
The new year.
I used to think that it was a silly thing to celebrate. New Year meant we had to go back to school after some glorious days off. New Year meant it was time to tuck in the Christmas decorations for their eleven-month slumber. New Year meant it was time to address the extremely high calorie intake that started at Thanksgiving.
I have, however, grown to love this celebration of beginning. New Year’s Eve parties are fun, but I prefer the relative silence of today. The sense of a clean slate, of a chance to change things from before, to reflect on the year that has passed and to set goals for the year ahead.
Our societies have marked our revolution around the sun for thousands of years. The end of one cycle of growth, and the herald of the new one to begin.
I can’t wait to see what this cycle brings.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
It’s Monday!
To work, for many of us. But for one of you, it’s the day you win some hot chocolate sticks to get you through the end of January.
And after collecting the comments and new Facebook likes, that someone is…
Natalie! Whose favorite winter recipe, it turns out, happens to be one of my own favorite seasonal treats with a simple twist:
“My absolute favorite recipe is actually a drink! And it’s super easy to do, I feel guilty accepting complements for it at parties. It’s a simple Spiced Apple Cider. You take a bottle of organic apple juice (or cider) and add a few packets of Martinelli’s Apple Cider tea bags. Put them all in a sauce pan over medium heat and let it stew! Put a ladle nearby and people can help themselves. Of course you can add a few cinnamon sticks for flavor and decoration. The reason I like this so much is that it’s simple and a great base to build up from!“
Thanks to everyone who participated in my little contest! And Natalie, make sure to check your e-mail so we can get you your hot chocolate ASAP.
The time has come to announce the winners of my Homemade Mulling Spices giveaway! After sifting through comments and Facebook likes and crunching numbers with Random.org, the winners (and their favorite holiday treats) are:
Monika (Russian Tea Cakes)
Carrie (Caramel Apple Cider)
Amy Z. (Vanilla Eggnog)
Congrats! Please check your e-mail so we can work out the details for mailing your mulling spices.
Thank you to everyone who participated and for sharing your favorite treats. I am currently exhausted from cooking up a storm over the weekend for a holiday party of my own, but it was filled with some old favorites as well as some new delights I’ve only just discovered. Which I will definitely be sharing with you here as soon as I reclaim my apartment and my horrifyingly messy fridge. Stay tuned, and thank you so much for reading! I’m so, so happy you’re here!
I spent the whole summer being amazed at the fervor with which tiny seeds sprang into sunflowers so tall I couldn’t reach the blooms, basil so prolific I’ll eat pesto all winter, and okra stalks so thick I had to saw through them to prepare the soil for something new.
That amazement has turned into a jaw-dropping situation this fall.
Is this what you’re like when you have your first kid? Utterly astonished and fishing for a camera every time it does anything?
A couple of months ago, I adopted an additional empty plot at my community garden, and on the advice from a North Carolina planting guide, I skeptically planted not one but two garden plots. In September. I repeat. September. Where I grew up we often get snow in September.
My skepticism, as usual, was complete lunacy. The freshly-planted plot…
So here’s the gods honest truth: I used to boil the ever-loving crap out of eggs. To be fair, Easter was about the only time we ever boiled them growing up. After we’d dyed them, peeled them to reveal the tie-dyed ellipses beneath, and mixed the yolks with a generous amount of mustard and Miracle Whip (an ingredient I’ll defend to the death when making Deviled Eggs), the gray-green, sulfury halo around the yolks didn’t really seem to matter much.
On the rare occasions that I ate straight-up, un-deviled hard boiled eggs, I only ate the whites. And small wonder! I was, however, flummoxed: how come the yolks in some store-bought eggs looked so, well, appetizing? I decided to actually look up a recipe, and what do you know: other people have already figured this out. But since I was TWENTY-NINE before I actually learned to do this right, I thought you guys might want some tips too. The big secret? Hard boiled eggs don’t actually need to boil for more than a moment.
Here’s how to do it:
