City Gardening

I saw this woman in the garden in the middle of Broadway poking something in the plants.  I almost was afraid to ask, but my curiosity got the better of my and I simply had to.  So I asked this lady just what she was doing sticking a probe into a flower in the middle of Broadway.  She said she was gardening.

I checked her knees - perfectly clean.  As you well know, according to the Knee Theory of Gardening, you really aren't gardening unless you get down on your hands and your knees and get a little mud on them.

Like this spectacular bout of gardening I did this past June.  See?  Mud, ground in dirt, soaking wet, caked into the jeans.  Even my sneakers are wet.  (Oh, and Duke's garden seems to have settled in nicely over the summer, so we think it will survive this coming winter.)

I almost shared the Knee Theory of Gardening with the lady, but she seemed so intent and sincere about her "gardening" that I just didn't have the heart.

She was, after all, checking the moisture in the plants to see if they needed water.

I also didn't have the heart to let her know that you check the moisture of the plant in the soil at the root - not inside of the flower.

City gardening...it's different.

Darkness Is Coming

It's getting to be that time of year where darkness wins out over light.  By the time I get home tonight the sun will have set.

Unfortunately, my ongoing campaign to continually adjust working hours to accommodate the hours of daylight (less light = less time in the office) has once again failed.  Although I have a great amount of support from my fellow commuters, my boss has not yet hopped on the bandwagon - so I guess I will just have to get used to the darkness and hang in there until next May.

In the meanwhile, I think I'll just enjoy the sun in Manhattan during the week and at our bucolic manor on the weekend.

Maybe I'll get a little light back when the clocks change!

Midnight Muffin Madness

Tonight, after working all day on just 3 hours of sleep, I came home to bake muffins.  And not just muffins for me and my DH, but muffins for "Other People".  In other words, they had to be edible - and good - and moist.

Great.

My train buddies helped me out, though.  We scoured the internet to find a good base recipe that I could tweak to my east coast taste buds (thank you lady in Iowa) and I think it is a winner.

So here it is:  Triple Berry Midnight Muffins

The wet:  1 1/2 cups whole milk (tastes like cream to my 2% taste buds!), 2 eggs (thank you Farmer Sophie!), 1 cup melted butter (salted - it's what I had), 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (which I forgot until the last second!) and 12 ounces frozen mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries and raspberries)

The dry:  3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon cardamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1 Tablespoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt (kosher - natch).

Measure out your dry ingredients and toss them in a bowl - then stir them together with a whisk to get all of the spices distributed in the flour.

Tos in your frozen berries and coat them with the flour mixture.  If you don't do this, the berries will sink to the bottom of the muffin cups and you will have stew topped with muffin mix - and it won't bake evenly.  I had to cut some of the berries up because they were really big - but I didn't find that out until I had already tossed them in the flour.  I just used my kitchen shears and snipped them into smaller bite-sized bits.

In a separate bowl - mix your milk, melted butter, pure vanilla extract and eggs together (and forget to take a picture due to sleep deprivation) then toss the wet mixture into the dry bowl.

Mix this together as fast as possible using as few strokes as possible.  The more you mix, the dryer and tougher your muffins will be - so less is the way to go.  I used about 10 strokes to get it together.  There are a few lumps here and there, but nothing too outrageous, so it's good to go.

Scoop the mixture into lined muffin tins - about 3 ounces per muffin cup.  This fills them up to about 1/4 inch from the top of the cup.  You'll get 24 of them.

Bake at 375-degrees for 20 minutes.  Pull them out, put them on a cooling rack, ransack the house looking for some gingham fabric and a cute basket to deliver them in.  And walk away.

Triple Berry Midnight Muffins - total prep and cooking time 1.5 hours.   Click here for the recipe card.

I hope they're good!  I should probably try one...or two.

Hi Ya Pup!

Hi ya pup!  Why you're just the best puppy ever.  Sitting at my feet just waiting for me to be done so we can have some quality time together.  We could play ball - or fetch (this time, you fetch and I'll toss - okay?).  Or we could just go for a really long walk.  Just the 2 of us.  Wouldn't that be fun!?

{DH opens a bag of treats ........ rrrrriiiiippppppppppp}

Hello?  Pup?  I say, do you want to go for a walk?  Play with Ball?  Play Squeak?

Pup?  Are you listening?  Hello?

Once again I am forgotten in her never ending quest for an endless supply of treats.  She'll be back though.

I know where we keep them!

Holy Guacamole

I decided to make some guacamole today.  The slow cookin' way because I had the whole day to play with my food.

It was so cool to use all garden ingredients - except for the avocado.  But, hey, it's not like I live in California or something.  On second thought, maybe my DH will build me a hothouse!  Hmmmm...

So what I did was...

Slow cook about a dozen shallots and 1 1/2 heads of garlic in about a tablespoon of olive oil with 2 teaspoons of butter.  They took about 5 hours to turn into melted savory goodness.

All caramelized.  All deliciousness.  Once they were done, I let them cool down in the pan.

I got some nicely ripened avocado's at the market.  Once I cut them in half, I twisted them to pull the sides apart, then did a dice pattern - not cutting through the skin - to make it easy to scoop out the insides.

I used a spoon to scoop out the avocado into a bowl that had about 2 teaspoons of lemon juice in it.

I needed the lemon juice to a) stop the avocado from turning brown and b) add a little acid to the guacamole.

Now here's the most important part.  Use a fork to mash the avocado.  I know that it's easier to use a Cuisinart, or a stick blender or a potato masher.  Don't.  Use a fork.

It'll mash into better sized pieces and the creamy to chunky proportion will be just perfect.  My DH's brother learned this from a Mexican grandmother.  And if you can't take the word of a Mexican grandmother on this, whose word would you take?

Use fork.

Creamy chunky goodness.

Add in 1/4 cup of diced jalapeno pepper and 3/4 cup minced parsley.  What can I say, I don't like cilantro.

Then add about 2 cups of diced, drained tomatoes.  Freshly picked and still warmed by the sun's kiss.

Then add about a 1/2 cup of your roasted shallots and garlic goodness.  Sprinkle on about a teaspoon of sea salt.

Mix it all together and let it sit and meld while you make the tortilla chips.

Cut a pile of tortillas (I used 4) in half.  Pile them up and cut that pile into 1/3s.

Add a teaspoon of olive oil to the pan that you were using to cook the shallots and garlic in and let it get nice and hot.  Put a few pieces of tortilla in the oil and toast them - lightly.  Flip them once, sprinkle about 1/16th to 1/8th of a teaspoon of salt on them, let the other side toast a little bit.  We're not going for brown here, just a little crisp and nice and warm.

Put a few on a plate, top with a big spoonful of the guacamole and serve to your DH!  Okay - eat a few first and then bring him a plate of them.

They were really good.  The tortilla is still foldable since it wasn't crispy browned so I could load up on the guacamole.  The light salting of the tortilla was nice - and the best part was that I didn't end up with salt burns on my mouth from eating.

My DH really loved them.  And the best part is that now he has left-overs - or in his words, finally something good as a left-over.

Guacamole - simply lovely!

Garden Duties

Today my DH and I got to attend to some fun gardening duties for a change.  We went to view sites and just talk about gardens.  Not ours, so no weeding involved.

Our first stop was at the town's war memorial.  They want to put in some flowers for spring and were hoping that the garden club would be able to provide the bulbs.  Of course we can!  Naturally it's a red, white and blue themed space, so we're going to get them blue chionodoxa, white daffodils and red tulips.  They won't all be out at the exact same time, but it should be a lovely display.

Our second stop was a lovely garden overlooking the valley.  We're hoping that it will be on the garden tour next year, and so far it looks like the garden has what it takes to participate.  They have a beautiful space, well maintained, interesting species and cultivars and an enthusiastic hostess.

There are formalities that have to be attended to, of course, but it look as though this little 6-acre mountain-top retreat will make for a lovely addition to the tour.  Fingers crossed.

Of course, when we spend that much time out and about on the weekend, our little pup needs to have extra attention when we get home to burn off all of that energy that she has stored up for us.

But seriously, garden viewing and playing with the pup - what a relaxing way to spend the day.

Love it!

Italian Harvest

More tomatoes today.  But I also decided to pick a few grapes to make it a real Italian harvest.  We mostly have the Jelly Bean tomatoes - they were still hot when I picked them off the vines.

I don't know what it is, but there's something so right, so home, so perfect about eating a sun warmed tomato fresh from the vine.  They are little bites of sunshine!

It was also time to harvest the shallots and chives.  This was our first year trying to grow shallots - and aside from me planting them 9-inches deep (oops!), I think they did pretty well.  We got 4-5 new shallots for each one that we planted.

The chives were perfect too.  The new ones from this year are thin and delicate - the ones that we over-wintered look almost like scallions.  They are huge and hardy with a strong flavor.

My DH has been in snack heaven since I brought these in.  He's torn between wrapping a chive around the tomato and popping it in his mouth, or wrapping a fresh basil leaf around a tomato and popping it in his mouth.

Either way, it's a win-win for him in the snack department.

And you have to love that.