When I make cornbread, I usually bake it in my cast iron skillet. I made some for dinner today and wanted to add melted butter to it. I also needed to butter the pan before pouring in the batter. Aha! I measured out the cold butter INTO the pan on medium/low heat on the stove, melted it, swirled it around in the pan and then poured the melted butter into the batter. Wow. I felt so smart! :)
This little post is linked up with Simple Lives Thursday #51 !
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
July 4th in the Garden - 2011
Independence Day - The Fourth of July, as we call it here in the USA, is today. For me, it is a day to reflect on the Founding of our Nation, of all those brave men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice so that we can live in a land of Liberty. I am more grateful than I can express to those who have served, and those who serve now.
Today I was privileged to visit a friend who is hospitalized following surgery. Her husband stays with her as much as he can, so he was there. He is a Navy veteran and I was able to thank him for his service. He was touched. He served nearly 30 years ago, and yet he was obviously moved by what I said.
This evening I took a walk in the vegetable garden and will give you a quick tour.
In the foreground you can see the lovely flour corn growing. Mely from Mexico in my Kitchen shared the seeds with me and I am so excited to think I might be able to make my own hominy and masa this fall!
The lovely zucchinis!
You can tell it is humid here. This is the potato patch:
Some green tomatoes!
Green snap beans with sweet corn in the background:
Sweet potato vines:
My Finnish garlic. I have a friend in Finland. She sent me some seeds and so it takes two years to grow them to bulbs. I am looking forward to digging them up!
A sweet little cucumber:
Onions!
Sweet peppers:
See the little honey bee visiting the leek blossom?
Baby pumpkin:
We are already eating zucchini, onions and cucumbers. I even "robbed" the potatoes and we had a few "new potatoes" with our supper tonight. :)
Today I was privileged to visit a friend who is hospitalized following surgery. Her husband stays with her as much as he can, so he was there. He is a Navy veteran and I was able to thank him for his service. He was touched. He served nearly 30 years ago, and yet he was obviously moved by what I said.
This evening I took a walk in the vegetable garden and will give you a quick tour.
In the foreground you can see the lovely flour corn growing. Mely from Mexico in my Kitchen shared the seeds with me and I am so excited to think I might be able to make my own hominy and masa this fall!
The lovely zucchinis!
You can tell it is humid here. This is the potato patch:
Some green tomatoes!
Green snap beans with sweet corn in the background:
Sweet potato vines:
My Finnish garlic. I have a friend in Finland. She sent me some seeds and so it takes two years to grow them to bulbs. I am looking forward to digging them up!
A sweet little cucumber:
Onions!
Sweet peppers:
See the little honey bee visiting the leek blossom?
Baby pumpkin:
We are already eating zucchini, onions and cucumbers. I even "robbed" the potatoes and we had a few "new potatoes" with our supper tonight. :)
Friday, July 1, 2011
Family Reunion
We returned last night from a 3-day family reunion. 13 children, ages 3 - 15, 12 adults, all stayed in a very large and very beautiful cabin in the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. We had a wonderful time. All of our family was there except our youngest son and two granddaughters. They were sorely missed. I thought I would just share a few pictures.
Here is "Uncle Jason" playing Barbies with Amelia:
A view from one of the many overlooks:
A few of the grandchildren (all cousins to each other!) having a quick lunch before going on to the next activity:
That's me. Everyone else had gone up on the observation tower above Clingman's Dome, which is the highest peak in Tennessee. I have acrophobia, so was quite content to wait at the bottom.
My favorite thing was to sit on the couch in the living room when everyone was in the cabin. The adults were all busy, talking and cooking and just enjoying being together. The children were running around playing and yelling and screaming and having a fabulous time. I would just drink in that marvelous family sound. Everyone happy, everyone together, I could recognize all of the precious voices. Oh, my... what a week I had!
This post is linked to Five Minute Friday :)
Here is "Uncle Jason" playing Barbies with Amelia:
A view from one of the many overlooks:
A few of the grandchildren (all cousins to each other!) having a quick lunch before going on to the next activity:
That's me. Everyone else had gone up on the observation tower above Clingman's Dome, which is the highest peak in Tennessee. I have acrophobia, so was quite content to wait at the bottom.
My favorite thing was to sit on the couch in the living room when everyone was in the cabin. The adults were all busy, talking and cooking and just enjoying being together. The children were running around playing and yelling and screaming and having a fabulous time. I would just drink in that marvelous family sound. Everyone happy, everyone together, I could recognize all of the precious voices. Oh, my... what a week I had!
This post is linked to Five Minute Friday :)
Saturday, June 25, 2011
What Happened in the Onion Patch
A few weeks ago, I planted a lot of onion sets. A week or two later, my husband ran the rototiller through the garden, and that is very helpful, but it doesn't weed up close to the plants. I was out there a day or two later, dealing with weeds, and by the time I got to the onion patch I was tired, and decided that since the soil was all nicely loose and crumbly, I would just sort of "hill" the onions quickly ~ just use the hoe and draw some soil up around the onions to smother the weeds. It worked very well, however, I was concerned because I've read that onions like to have their shoulders exposed. I was back working in there today, and lo and behold! I was just able to very lightly, with my hands, pull that extra soil off and that killed the little weeds that had grown in the meantime. I hope you understand what I mean. It saved me lots of effort. I don't know what it will do to the harvest, but then, weeds competing with the vegetables for light, food and water is not very helpful either.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Oyster Chowder
I was wanting to make some clam chowder for supper, but don't have any canned clams right now. I do, however, have lots of canned oysters, so decided to use those instead! Here are the oysters from one can and I sliced each of them into 4 pieces. Reserve the liquid from the can.
Scrub and cube 4 medium potatoes. Put them into a heavy kettle and add 1 small diced onion and 2 cups of chopped celery (mine came out of the freezer.) Add 2 cups of chicken broth, bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Next, add 1/3 cup butter, the liquid from the can of oysters, 1.5 teaspoons salt and 2 cups of water. ( I used unsalted butter, so if yours is salted, you might want to add less salt.)
Bring that to a boil and slowly stir in 1 cup of whole milk into which you have mixed 1/2 cup unbleached white flour. Cook until it is nice and thick, stirring constantly. Gradually add more water to make it as thick or thin as you like.
Add 1.5 teaspoons of salt and several cranks of pepper.
Just when it is done, stir in the oyster pieces. They are very soft, so you don't want to cook them very much at all.
It is delicious!
Scrub and cube 4 medium potatoes. Put them into a heavy kettle and add 1 small diced onion and 2 cups of chopped celery (mine came out of the freezer.) Add 2 cups of chicken broth, bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Next, add 1/3 cup butter, the liquid from the can of oysters, 1.5 teaspoons salt and 2 cups of water. ( I used unsalted butter, so if yours is salted, you might want to add less salt.)
Bring that to a boil and slowly stir in 1 cup of whole milk into which you have mixed 1/2 cup unbleached white flour. Cook until it is nice and thick, stirring constantly. Gradually add more water to make it as thick or thin as you like.
Add 1.5 teaspoons of salt and several cranks of pepper.
Just when it is done, stir in the oyster pieces. They are very soft, so you don't want to cook them very much at all.
It is delicious!
Our first zucchini of the year!
I was working in the garden yesterday and found this very small zucchini squash. I also found one nice onion left in the greenhouse so brought them in for today's breakfast:
Here they are sauteing in some butter and olive oil:
...and made into a lovely omelet!
I know (hope) that before long I'll have too many zucchinis to keep up with, but right now, this was definitely a very welcome treat!
I don't remember if I mentioned this before... "Do you know what terrorism is in Indiana?" ahem.... "It's when you leave your car unlocked and when you come back it is stuffed full of zucchinis! :)
Here they are sauteing in some butter and olive oil:
...and made into a lovely omelet!
I know (hope) that before long I'll have too many zucchinis to keep up with, but right now, this was definitely a very welcome treat!
I don't remember if I mentioned this before... "Do you know what terrorism is in Indiana?" ahem.... "It's when you leave your car unlocked and when you come back it is stuffed full of zucchinis! :)
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