Musings

I’m sparing you the comparative picture from this morning, but if I were to eat a mushroom I found in the lawn, this one looks perfect. I’ll stick to morels, however, and this is not a morel.

The sour washcloth season continues. We did enjoy our evening ration of ice cream* sitting in the yard as the indoor-outdoor temps once again equalized, this evening at 81°F at 7:50 pm.

Have you tried the Turkey Hill vanilla bean Philadelphia style ice cream? Kroger carries the brand, and it’s like Breyers—lacking in additives of the obnoxious variety, if you can overlook a gum or two—and far cheaper. Go marketplace!

Posted at 8:15 PM | Comments Off on July rain…brings August mushrooms

Saturdays the routine changes just a bit.

Here, we left routine behind and had sloppy joes (the S version) for dinner. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever made it.

Posted at 9:16 PM | Comments Off on The guys loved it

Slightly fewer green beans today, but I still put a full cookie sheet into the freezer for later consumption. Gad, I’d be exhausted if I had to do a bit of canning every day to match the daily production. Blanching/freezing is not so bad in comparison to wrestling the jars and lids, and listening for the pop-seals.

Posted at 6:49 PM | Comments Off on They keep coming

Whilst (how often can you toss that word into your blahg?) KW is off on early-morning walks, I have been out picking green beans. This morning I finished the row (yes, just ONE row) at 6:35, and that was late enough given the humidity/temperature combo.

Another current dietary accent is the tag end of the raspberries frozen last year—the berries are already forming for the current crop. Let’s hope this heat wave—expected to continue through the weekend—doesn’t cripple the harvest.

Posted at 7:02 PM | 1 Comment »

Word to the wise: when you decide to make pasta for the first or second time, stick to to just a pasta dish. We, perhaps, got carried away. We made ravioli (that is, stuffed pasta, undeniably f-a-h-r m-o-h-r complicated) for our first pasta-adventure.

Short summary: oh, my gosh, yumm!

I just want to add: sage (mmm) and mushroom (also mmm)…infused…cream for the…sauce.

Posted at 9:50 PM | Comments Off on Hanging out with the good stuff on a platter

Note the sleepy insect pretending to be…a blemish?

Our most productive plant right now is the Thai basil. I’ve been raiding it at least twice a week (with a heavy hand), and it continues to get ahead of me. But, wow-ee, we are enjoying it in curries, with lots of veggies and rice. Mmmm.

Posted at 9:47 PM | Comments Off on Spice-o-life

Our volunteer yellow pear tomatoes are way ahead of the expensive greenhouse specimen that’s gotten special soil pampering, etc. In fact, I’ve eaten two of the sweet teardrop-globes already!

Posted at 9:26 PM | Comments Off on Squirrel bait (unfortunately)

I held out such hope for my peppers this year, but apparently a crop is not to be.

Shrunken raisiny-wrinkled, olive pit-sized fruit do not edibles make.

I had wondered if we had enough bees to pollinate the flowers, but apparently that’s not the problem.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments Off on Pepper promise diminishes

Totally different celebration this evening, this time at our place. So, long story short, we celebrated with a friend temporarily holed up at our place, with a version of this cacciatora.

Posted at 9:08 PM | Comments Off on Roasted veg plus turkey, herbs, garlic & salami

One of The Most Elegant birthday cakes I’ve ever had—strawberry-whipped cream white cake. Oh, yum.

Posted at 10:59 PM | Comments Off on A big one-niner