Seasonal Cooking

This is a great cookbook that encourages seasonal cooking all year. It is separated into the four seasons allowing you to see what is available at the market. If you don't have a garden, you can find local foods at your farmers' market. Also, you can help by buying foods that are season at your local store. Seasonal food requires less transport to arrive to your table. You can find this cookbook at Amazon.com or at http://store.mpn.net/showproducts.cfm?FullCat=9 Give it a try it is a wonderful cookbook.

Garden Update

As of today everything is officially planted. The garden looks great and weed free.* We shall see how long it last.


*I did leave some weeds around the volunteer sunflowers. I was going to pull them, in fact was in the process of pulling them, when I noticed Rose was relaxing in her "jungle" paradise of those weeds. Since then I have noticed her hanging out there quite a bit, so I have decided to leave them there. FYI, Rose is one of the ferals I have TNRed (grammar?) She has taken up permanent residence on my porch and surrounding area. She was Porch Kitty until I broke done and named her. She is fully an outdoor cat, but if anyone wanted her for an indoor kitty, she is forever trying to come inside. I should post of photo of her in the sunflowers but I don't have one. Sad. Well, this post took a major side trip. Tee Hee. By the way, as of this post, Rose is the lovely cat featured as my profile photo.

Garage Sale Find or Exercise in Folly

After a breakfast and shopping with an old friend, I went to her neighbor's garage sale. My pal talked me into wheeling and dealing for this little table and chair set. I had been saying I wanted something to sit on my porch for tea and an occasional breakfast. My requirements were cheap to free. Well, I was able to secure this lovely set for $5. I am certain I overpaid, but they were asking $10, so what do you do. Tish convinced me I can easily reupholster the seat cushions and paint the set. So the adventure begins. Tish and I went to a fabric store and found some cute outdoor fabric and outdoor foam. I wanted to buy the bamboo foam, but it was for indoor use only. The process has been harder than I imagined. The heads of the screws that hold the seat in place were all striped so I had to for the cushions apart. (Holding my breath that I didn't break the chair.) Then the staples holding the fabric were rusted and difficult to extract. However, I persevered. Then I discovered that the foam is a smidge to short on one side, so I had to do some additional cutting, but after an hour and half, I have one seat cushion done. I will clean and spray paint the chair tomorrow and go from there. Eventually I would like to replace the table top with beveled glass (as was originally there) until then I am unsure what to do because the table top that is there is awful, any suggestions?

Adventures in Gardening

About a month ago, I had my lovely little plot plowed and tilled. Well, as sometimes things go, the time was never available to plant, so the weeds took over. The first photo gives a clue to the weed growth. The second shows my early progress and the volunteer sunflowers that I have decided to leave. The third is the gas tiller that I had planned to use to work up all the weeds, maybe not the greenest option but would have saved time. The final photo: The rickety, old, hand powered plow that is very difficult to use because it has definitely seen its better days years ago. As I am sure you are realizing, sometimes we must use the greenest option by force not choice. I could not for the life of me get the gas powered til to start so I spent an hour and half pushing this horrible contraption back and forth. Now I have three blisters but it is nearly ready to plant, I need to do a cursory raking to pull the weeds out, then planting time. This is apparently not for the faint at heart.

Gardening

Well, tomorrow begins my yearly escapade in gardening. I usually loss interest in the weeding process by mid-July. Maybe this year will be better, fresh produce straight from the garden is one of the great pleasures in life. So here is to optimism. Maybe this year will go better. Happy Hoeing. (Sorry, I can't help but giggle at that.)

Gross Alert - Proceed at your own Risk.

Okay, so it isn't as gross as all that, but some may find it a little gross to think about so if you have a sensitive disposition. However, while having a severe allergy issue, I looked around the room and saw all the piles of tissues I had used. For one, I was grossed out at the thought of cleaning them up, two, I was grossed out by the number of times I blew through, a tissue, and third, I was grossed out by the amount of waste I was contributing to by the massive usage of tissues. So, I thought about it and decided to give an old fashioned idea a try. Bring on the handkerchief! I have the big old school ones for allergy season and colds, and the more dainty, feminine ones for more daily use. I have grown to love them. I don't have to worry about blowing out and having "that" issue to deal with anymore. It is great. I had a friend mentioned she was grossed out by the idea of washing them and having that bodily fluid in her washer. However, I think it isn't any worse than washing your underwear.....think about it.

In praise of the toaster oven!

Again, a common sense suggestion, but when making small amounts of food, try to use a toaster oven rather than your conventional oven. Obviously, it takes much less energy to heat up a small toaster oven. I find that the small bar pan from Pampered chef is the perfect accessory to the toaster oven. I often use it to make french fries. So give it some thought.