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season's first strawberries

I picked this season's first substantial number of strawberries today. I walked out to my patch without a bowl thinking that I would be able to carry them in my hand but, when the berries began to spill onto the ground, I found a pie tin in my potting shed to hold them. Without a second thought, I knew that this special occasion called for a shortcake. I pulled out two partially filled boxes of baking mix to make biscuits. One box was Arrowhead Mills Whole Wheat Baking Mix and the other box was Hodgson Mill "Insta-Bake" Whole Wheat Baking Mix. Both biscuit recipes on the backs of the boxes were the same except one called for 2 tbsp butter and the other used 2 tbsp oil. The only other ingredients were 2 cups baking mix and 2/3 cup milk. Despite my better judgement, I dumped in the 2/3 cup milk thinking that 1/3 cup seemed more reasonable for the amount of flour. Both boxes stated this amount, so wouldn't you think it couldn't be a misprint? I had pancake batter rather than biscuit consistency. It was easily remedied by adding 2 more cups of baking mix. The end product is very light with good texture. We now have many more biscuits than the amount of strawberries to serve over top, so tomorrow's lunch will be chicken a la king.     

dressing drizzled spring bounty

I had to do a second planting of leaf lettuce due to the late season frost earlier this spring taking a toll on my crop. I harvested my first bunch of beautiful lime green frilly leaves today along with my first radishes. I supplemented the lettuce with some store-purchased romaine lettuce to make a summer salad and sliced the radishes to add a subtle fiery kick. 

Upon checking my pantry and fridge, my search for dressing turned up empty so I made my own using a new recipe. It turned out very tasty. Salads are so fun because you can pile on anything you have on hand at the time so each one is a little different. Today's salad had black olives, cashews, sunnies, diced zucchini, sliced cucumber, "Pink Lady" apple slices, grated romano cheese, strips of Swiss cheese, and a fig.

French Dressing

¾ c. oil (I used organic extra virgin olive oil.)

2 tsp vinegar (I used “Bragg” brand raw unfiltered organic apple cider vinegar.)

2 tsp water

¼ c. honey (The recipe called for ¾ c. sugar.)

2/3 c. catsup (I used an organic variety.)

I can’t give credit for where I acquired this recipe since I had scrawled it onto a little scrap of paper. I made ½ recipe and it makes great plenty since you’re going to want to drizzle it on your salad sparingly because it is a sweet dressing. Adjust the sweetness to your own tastebuds by adding more or less honey. So good with simple ingredients!

 

 

Since I was in my garden harvesting the very first veggies of the season, I thought I'd take a photo of my green onions and potatoes. These are white potatoes. I have red and pink ones in another bed.

 

 

I am enjoying the blossoms on my strawberries but soon I will be choosing my favorite strawberry recipes, as well as trying new ones, when the heavily-laden green berries turn into sweet juicy red berries. 

 

 

 

 

postage stamps

My oldest granddaughter asked me if I would save stamps for her since she is starting a collection. Of course, I was thrilled to help her out. I immediately rummaged through a waste basket of mail waiting to be shredded. In amongst a myriad of the usual junk mail, I pulled out a postcard from a business inviting me to visit their display of home and garden products at the "Back to the 50s Car Show" held at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in St. Paul this past weekend. In the postcard's top right corner was the prettiest postage stamp that, in my haste, I hadn't taken time to notice. As usual, it took a child to cause me to slow my pace long enough to really notice life's little things. It was the pretty pink and green guava pictured center-stage in this beautiful collection of fruit postage stamps. After researching usps.com, I discovered that they are only available in 27 cent postcard denominations. No matter. I will be scrawling my thoughts on postcards henceforth over the course of the summer. They are just too pretty not to share.

animal issues... friend and foe

The problem we had with our chickens retiring for the night inside their nesting boxes and on top of them, instead of roosting on one of several tree branches supplied for that purpose, has been resolved by draping a plastic mesh in front of the boxes at nighttime. In the morning, when I open the coop to release the chickens for the daytime hours, I swoop the netting upward and secure it out of the way with clothespins so that the nests are available for morning egg-laying. When I return to gather eggs, I unpin the netting so that it can fall down in place ready for nightfall once again. Cleanup is now a cinch and the eggs are squeaky clean! Since our girls have demonstrated that they understand the urgency in returning to the safety of their coop every night, Monday we will open the fence to allow them to roam freely on our property.

If only all of our animal issues had successful solutions... We are battling a woodchuck that persistently digs yet another hole under my garden fence. He has nibbled all of the leaves off my bush beans and Swiss chard. In addition, we have what we think is a raccoon that is knocking down our bird feeders in the middle of the night. Leaving a porch light on helps to deter it. Then there are gophers... mound after mound of dirt in our yard and also my veggie garden. Did I mention a turtle depositing her eggs smack dab in the middle of our 1/2 mile long driveway? Eeeeeks! What is she thinking?!!

  

  

city life vs. country life

My nephew was married Friday night in Minneapolis, so Dick and I took the "less traveled road" via State Highway 25 South from Brainerd to Monticello, which was as far as we could go before intersecting with the busy big city traffic. Highway 25 lazily meanders through small town America. We stopped along the main street in Pierz 30 miles south of Brainerd so that I could take this photo of a phone booth outside the city hall/police dept. building. Growing up before the advent of cell phones, these phone booths were so much a part of the landscape that they went unnoticed. However, they are now becoming a rarity.

  

The bride and groom exchanged wedding vows inside the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at St. Paul's Como Park in the midst of this unbelievably scented array of blooming flowers.

    

This was the evening view of Minneapolis, seated at our table next to one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that surrounded the room on three sides, on the 50th floor of the IDS Tower where a dinner and dance was held. Our 3 a.m. arrival back home was brutal, but so well worth this outing. An afternoon nap Sunday afternoon eased us back into the solitude of the slower-paced lifestyle on our Brainerd acreage once again.   

here comes the sun

The daily downpours, that we have received for weeks, transformed my front porch cement into a lovely carpet of algae. Today we were blessed with a full day of sunshine, so I mopped the porch floor. It wouldn't have mattered what I did today as long as it was spent outside. Any task was enjoyable. After I finished the floor, I went inside and brought lemonade and peanut butter oatmeal raisin flax cookies out to the table and Dick and I sat a spell watching a "thirteen line ground squirrel" skitter back and forth under the lilac bushes. He stopped long enough to spy our cookies... hoping, I am sure, that we would leave a crumb or two. The gray weathered wooden box is an old chicken nesting box that I cleaned up and Dick hung it on the wall for me to set potted plants in. I tied a variety of aprons, from my stash that I had gathered from yard sales, onto the backs of the chairs to give it a softened "garden party" atmosphere.

 

I wanted you to see this unusual gerbera daisy on my front porch because when it is beginning to bud out, its petals are a lime green color with a burgundy center. (See little flower in foreground.) In its mature stage, it turns a sunny yellow color with the same burgundy center. 

apple varieties

I went to buy some apples to make "Good Mornin' Apple Crisp" for my bed and breakfast guests this morning. For apples to eat raw, I like the Gala variety. Instead of the Gala Apples, though, I selected a bag of the "Pink Lady" variety. I had never tried Pink Ladies before. One crunch into an apple and I now have a new favorite. Their firm crunch and sweetness with just a hint of tartness is a perfect combo. They baked up very nicely in my apple muesli crisp, too. I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of "Honey Crisp Apples", which are my absolute favorite variety... as of this day anyway. 

hearty pear pecan muffins

A guest requested the recipe for a muffin that I served at breakfast this morning. It came from one of my favorite series of cookbooks by Jane Kinderlehrer who is a former food editor of Prevention Magazine. "Smart Muffins” contain no sugar. Instead, frozen fruit juice concentrates, raw unfiltered and unprocessed honey, 100% pure maple syrup, and unsulphured molasses are used. A wide array of whole grains, seeds, and dried fruit are also used. These ingredients bake into a nutrient-packed tasty "convenience food" that is ready to grab-n-go as you race out the door for wherever life leads you.   Hearty Pear Pecan Muffins Considering the many grains in these muffins, you wouldn’t think they would be so light, but they will surprise you! 2 large eggs ¼ c maple syrup 2 tbsp oil ½ c buttermilk or yogurt 1 tsp vanilla 2 tbsp wheat bran 1 ½ c sifted whole wheat pastry flour 2 tbsp wheat germ 3 tbsp lecithin granules 2 tbsp oat bran 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp cinnamon 1 tbsp grated orange rind (I don’t always add this and it tastes just as good.) 1/8 tsp grated nutmeg (ground nutmeg works too) 1 ½ cups coarsely chopped cored pears ½ c chopped pecans (walnuts or hazelnuts may be substituted) In mixing bowl, blend together the eggs, maple syrup, oil, buttermilk or yogurt, vanilla, and wheat bran. In another bowl, mix together the flour, wheat germ, lecithin granules, oat bran, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, orange rind, and nutmeg. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Oil 12 regular-size or 6 jumbo muffin cups. (I prefer to use jumbo size which I slice into quarters and serve two quarters per person with a tiny butterfly mold of butter.) Combine the wet and dry ingredients and mix briefly, just to moisten the dry ingredients. Fold in the pears and nuts. Spoon the batter into the muffin wells and bake for about 18 minutes or until the muffins are nicely rounded, golden brown, and a cake tester (toothpick) comes out clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

springtime means babies

Yesterday, I decided to bake a "Daffodil Cake" to celebrate the arrival of sunny skies and a break in the rain. It ended up being a celebratory cake symbolizing new springtime birth. We received news that our fourth grandchild was born last night at 10:34 p.m. Eastern time... a boy! Not knowing that my daughter had gone into labor, I had called her at 9:30 p.m. central time but got the answering machine. Now I realize that she was a teeny bit busy at the moment. Moms just intuitively know these things. A midwife assisted with her homebirth while her husband and 6 1/2 and 3 1/2 year-old daughters gathered round. Our perfectly beautiful 8 lb. 2 oz. grandson is snuggled in next to mom, who is resting comfortably in her own bed. We now await the birth of our fifth grandchild's birth in one month to our middle daughter and her husband.

  

Basil Mayo

It was our monthly "Member Day" at our local food co-op yesterday, so I received a 10% discount off my total purchases instead of our normal 5%. By the time I arrived back home and had put all of my groceries away, Dick and I were getting hungry... too famished for any long involved prep or extended cooking time. I stuck my head in the fridge and grabbed items to make a salad... mesclun, cauliflower, cucumbers, zucchini, red grapes, apples, raw sunflower seeds, and Swiss cheese, then drizzled Newman's Raspberry Walnut Dressing over top. For a sandwich, I spread basil mayo on a slice of sprouted grain bread then added slices of thinly sliced turkey and a mound of sprouts. A little dish of maple flavored yogurt and we had "fast food". Basil mayo is so good to have on hand in your fridge to add flavor and a little pickle crunch to a sandwich. Here's the recipe:

Basil Mayo

1 cup Grape Seed Vegenaise. It has a yummy flavor. You can buy it at a food co-op or health food store. Regular mayo doesn't get it.)

2 tbsp dried basil.

3 tbsp chopped dill pickle plus 1 tbsp brine from jar

2 green onions, finely chopped