My Bit of Earth

Poll: Gratitude

Looking through old family pictures tonight, and found this one.  Two very manly-men (my Dad and Grandpa) riding the "double-decker carousel" just to make me (a little girl at the time, riding the pony in back/center) very happy.

Today, what's making you grateful?

Barefoot Bloggers: Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes

This month's first Barefoot Bloggers recipe was the Contessa's Pasta with Sun-Dried Tomatoes chosen by Cat of Delta Whiskey. 

I didn't think I really liked sun-dried tomatoes.  I've always had the dried ones--rather than the ones packed in oil--and even when they're reconstituted they have a leathery texture that I don't care for.  But, while I was chopping up the packed-in-oil tomatoes for this recipe, I sampled a little bite of one...and then another, and another until I'd had half the jar....They're so tangy, just the right amount of crunchy, super tomatoey--in short, addictive!

The rest of the pasta was good too.  I cut the mozzarella cheese in half--that's a lot of moz there, Ina--but otherwise made the recipe as written.  Salty capers and olives, creamy cheese, nutty whole wheat pasta, basil, tomatoes (both regular and the sun-dried lovelies)--this one's so a keeper!  It was perfect for dinner in our "summer dining room", a.k.a. our screened-in back porch, or the only dining room that currently has chairs!  For the recipe, see the link above.

Would you like some tomatoes with those chairs?

As we were moving into the house (was it really less than a month ago?) Nice Mother-In-Law found this pair of chairs in the basement.  They were old and wobbly and kind of a nasty dark-colored wood.  I'll be the first to admit I was a little skeptical when she brought them upstairs and insisted on cleaning them up, but eventually they grew on me.  They moved from the porch to the living room, and, once there, I decided they were just the thing to flank our little chessboard table.  With some paint, of course.

I actually originally thought of painting our dining room chairs (not here yet, but on the way) this color, but, well, you have to be committed to have "Tangerine Peel" chairs as part of your permanent decor.  But since these guys were freebies anyway, it didn't seem like as much of a risk.  If I hate 'em in two months, I can put them on the curb and someone will gladly take them, I'm sure.  In the meantime--voila--cute chairs!

And what are those things on the chair to the right?  So glad you asked!  They are the first tomatoes of the summer!  A bit late this year perhaps--according to Nice Grandpa's "first tomato by the 4th of July" rule--but sampling proved that they are tasty all the same.

The "Fend For Yourself Little Veggies" Garden

Remember how excited I was that we were able to "pre-plant" a veggie garden at the new house?  I imagined myself moving right in and getting to spend evenings tending it right away.  Harvesting bushels of tomatoes and keeping it beautifully weeded....HA!

Poor little garden, other than one early Sunday morning weed-massacre-and-tomato-tying-up-session, it hasn't been touched.  No watering, no gentle evening tending, nothing.  (Really, I'm lucky we've had rain.  I don't even know that the amount of hose I have will reach.)  There have just been too many other pressing demands, unfortunately.

Nonetheless, there are some veggies fending for themselves pretty well out there....clockwise....some okra that's getting way too big (Recipes anyone?)....a pumpkin....lots of almost ripe tomatoes (YAY!)....and a butternut squash.

The Hacienda del Hosta

The other night Sweet Husband and I were out for a walk, when I joked that our little house needed a name.  Every house needs a name, right?  I mean, "Tara", "Ingleside", "Orchard Slope", "The Burrow", "Bag End"--really, all the good stuff happens in houses that are loved enough to be named.  (Bonus points if anyone can name the stories all of those houses were in, by the way.)

As we were brainstorming, we were trying to think of some sort of architectural or natural feature that makes our house unique.  We weren't coming up with anything, when Sweet Husband said something along the lines of, "The only thing we have are hostas."

And that we do.  The former owners of our house loved hostas.  I am not quite as fond of them perhaps, but I have to admit they work quite nicely in the shady parts of our yard. 

 

So I started playing, "House of Hostas....Maison de la Hosta....Chez Hosta....Casa del Hosta.....Hacienda del Hosta....wait, maybe that's it....."  

And I think it just might be, because--like it or not--it's stuck in my head now to the point that it would take something way catchier to get rid of it.  Henceforth, there you have it: The Hacienda del Hosta.

Living the Dream

I keep a list of ten things--some serious, some silly--that I want to do before I die.  I update it once every couple of years, or whenever I think of it.  I like to go back and giggle at the stuff that was important to me way back when.  

For several years running, one of the things on the list, among chickens and learning to play violin, has been, "Have a whole room full of bookshelves, all full of books."  I'm now checking this one off because, as of Tuesday evening I have--if not an entire room--at least a really big wall full of bookshelves that are (mostly) full of books. 

This wonder was built by one of Sweet Husband's art school friends, Mr. Jeff McGee (who has also made the coolest life-sized "puppet" I've ever seen, as well as lots of other beautiful stuff).  I initially thought it might not be enough space, but (as you can see from the sparseness on some of the shelves) I think the "one in, one out" rule I was planning to institute can happily wait a few years.  

Also, please note the especially lovely topmost shelf....all Harry, all out and pretty for the world to see.  (Except that my American edition of Order of the Phoenix has gone AWOL in the shuffle--drrrr!)  Now about those chickens....

Moe Speaks: Mom Knocked Me Silly On the Scary Stairs

Hey everybody!  It's been awhile I know, but I've been ever-so-busy exploring and supervising at the new place.  I really like it so far, except for one little thing....the tricksey, evil, scary basement stairs.

Now, I'm a very brave dog, but it took even me a few days to be brave enough to try these stairs.  They're wicked steep, and the concrete floor at the bottom?  Not soft at all.  But the really scary part is that there are sneaky dangers, like the one that got me today.

Mom didn't realize that I had followed her downstairs, so when she came back up she shut the door.  When she realized I was still down there, she went to open the door for me, but I wasn't back far enough.  The door swept me over the left edge of the stairs and I landed on my back on the concrete floor--ouch!  

I'm comfortable enough in my doghood to admit, I cried just a little--it really hurt!  Mom scooped me up real quick, and took me upstairs to Dad.  At first I felt OK, but then I got a little woozy.  (Meryl: He was doing some sort of drunken-crab-walk and his eyes were rolling back in his head--scared the bejeezus out of me!)  Mom and Dad were pretty worried, so it was into the car for a surprise visit to my doctor.

Of course, by the time we got there I was feeling better.  I'm a terrier after all, I bounce back fast!  But my doctor still looked my legs over and shined a funny light in my eyes.  The verdict? No broken bones, no neurological damage--whatever the heck that is--basically, Doc said Mom must've just knocked me silly.  She gave me some good drugs in case I was in pain later and sent us on our way.

(Meryl: And, of course, he was back on the darned stairs almost instantaneously!  Thought I might have knocked some sense into him, but no such luck....)

Barefoot Bloggers: Gazpacho

First, I must admit, I debated about how much of this story to share because it makes me look kind of like a ninny.  But...well, we're all ninnies sometimes so I'm going to embrace it here, in hopes that maybe it will help someone else or make you all laugh your asses off at me or whatever....

For this Barefoot Bloggers recipe, it was my turn to choose.  When I figured out that I was going to be up in June, I decided it had to be strawberries or tomatoes.  In the end I decided on the Contessa's Gazpacho, just because it was something I hadn't ever tried before.  I figured, if I was going to jump, why not make all 116 Barefoot Bloggers jump with me, right?

Sunday night--our first official dinner in the new house--I was happily dicing away tomatoes, onions, and peppers, when I read a little further down into the recipe, "Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not overprocess!"  

Shit.  

See, I sold the blender at the garage sale, knowing that we were going to just buy a food processor after the move.  But, as said food processor had not been purchased yet, I was caught with my pants down between appliances.  It quickly became clear that just me and my knife weren't even going to get close to the desired consistency for the Gazpacho, and this was my recipe, that I got to pick, so I really wanted to get it right.

After turning up zilch on borrowing a food processor from a few different friends, I decided I was just going to have to go buy one that night.  But it was after seven, so my options were quickly becoming limited as stores closed.  I had my heart set on a black Kitchen-Aid, so I was on a pretty specific mission.  Best Buy? No luck.  Sears and Penny's? Closed.  Wal-Mart? Had the white one, but not black.  Target? No Kitchen-Aid, but one that looked kind of close, so in my tired, crankiness, I just bought it.

And regretted it the whole way home. 

Now, keep in mind, I had been at home painting and dickering with home improvement projects for an entire week.  I still had the blue paint in my hair, and I was all kinds of achy and hot.  And I had to go to work the next day, so I was already stressing about my in-box there.  And, and, and....  Upshot--when I walked into the door, I burst into gulping, sobbing, messy tears.  

Poor Sweet Husband was very confused.  When he finally sussed out that the root of the problem was that I had been forced to buy a substandard food processor in order to properly complete my Gazpacho, and now was going to have to use it (thus making it impossible to return) or we wouldn't have dinner....he wisely refrained from chuckling, and did what most wise husbands would do--wrapped the chopped veggies up for later and took me out for dinner.

Thus revived, I came home and ordered a food processor from Sears, which was able to deliver it before my chopped veggies went bad.  (I returned the knock-off to Target the next day.)  A few quick pulses in my pretty new Kitchen-Aid, and voila--Gazpacho!

We're just at the beginning of real tomato season, so I was able to get a few nice, big homegrowns that were super good.  And, as the soup develops more flavor as it sits, letting everything rest for a few days in the fridge was actually probably about the best thing that could have happened to it.  The resulting soup was spicy and cool and yummy.  Perfect with a few little cocktail shrimpies and some white wine.  Maybe not quite worth all the trouble I went through to make it, but definitely worth it for the non-ninnies among you!

For the recipe, see the link above.

Two Gardens on the First Day of Summer

This morning, we had breakfast on our lovely little screened in back porch (the only place we have proper chairs just yet), after which I told Sweet Husband I was going to go out and make a quick walk through the garden, just to see if there was anything worth picking.  An hour later--with a fistful of onions, some okra, and some peas--I knocked on the backdoor and asked him to turn on the hose for me, because I was too muddy to come into the house without showering off first.

As I said before, once I got going out there I really didn't want to stop.  Not that I even put a dent in the work that actually needs to be done, but I did get the veggie beds weeded enough to give the tomatoes a little breathing room, at least.  There are squash bugs breeding (yes, I actually caught a pair doing the deed), and some sort of evil prickly thing growing, but those issues will just have to wait until another day.  One wonderful thing I did discover is that the new garden is nicely shaded until about eleven in the morning, so I predict several more nice, cool Sunday mornings of weeding will be in my future!

A shot of the new garden:

And, last but not least, a shot of the old house and garden, which I said goodbye to this afternoon.  Although I'm terribly happy that we now have wonderful things--like a level stove-top and a glorious amount of space to grow things in--I was still a little sad to leave it.  Especially today, when it's at that perfect point of flowers right on the brink of blooming....I know the new garden will be so much better once it's all fenced, and weeded, and worked over, and shined...but...but....

Outtakes