Looking forward to getting home

Tags

dirt, garden, peppers, postaday2015

        

I am looking forward to getting home because I am curious to see how my little plants are doing, as you can see from the two pictures at the top, I have flowers and a couple of baby peppers growing, so I am a little excited to see how much bigger they have gotten in the 4 days that I have been gone.

Who knows, I may see some other “fruit” bearing flowers such as zuchinni blossoms, cucumber flowers, tomato flowers and eggplant flowers. As you can see I am not very good at waiting, I want to see a harvest tomorrow, not in 45 days.

I definitely need to spend a few days digging in the dirt, it makes me more zen and less impatient.

Experimenting with growing leafy greens

Tags

greens, peppers, postaday2014, vegetables

I haven’t grown anything besides herbs for quite a few years. The last time that I grew tomatoes, I had to wait until September to harvest the four or five ripe ones that made it that year, and that was at least three years ago. I think that it was the year of the tomato blight in Western Massachusetts. Before that year, I had grown tomatoes and basil together for quite some time, I had tried to grow squash, eggplants and peppers, but to no avail. One of my fellow Blandfordites has a wonderful vegetable garden and around August time, she puts up a farm stand by her house and that is where I do as much of my produce shopping until he end of September when she closes up shop.

When I was at Agway last, about two weeks ago, the cashier gave me four little pods, two Bibb lettuce, one spinach and one red pepper. When I got home I followed the directions and put them into one of my big planting pots and I have been keeping the soil and the pods moist ever since. I didn’t have much faith that they would sprout, but as you will see in the pictures, I am getting actual greenery and I am so excited!

I am curious as to how long it will take for peppers to appear, the greens are well under way, but I think that the peppers will be trickier; from what I remember, pepper plants are temperamental, I think. Who knows, it is fun to watch and see them slowly grow.

It’s frittata time again

Tags

cooking, eggs, garlic, peppers, postaday2013

When all else fails you can always count on a frittata to please everyone. As long as you have garlic, some type of herbs and salt and pepper and of course at least 8 eggs, you can make a frittata work. However if you have other ingredients on hand then you are really going to have something delicious to serve. Tonight I asked the baby boy to go out back to gather a bunch of chives and on his own he rummaged a bit in the refrigerator and asked if prosciutto could be included, as a result I asked him if he minded chopping the chives and prosciutto while I was sautéing the shallots and the trio of peppers that needed to be used. The baby boy did a beautiful job and into the pan went the chives and prosciutto to meld with the caramelizing shallots, peppers and the many cloves of garlic that I had minced. I also found some basil leaves that I ribboned and added to the hodge-podge of ingredients in my oven proof pan. All that was left were the 10 eggs that I had beaten and seasoned with salt and pepper and in they went to join the vegetables, the proscuitto and the extra bacon that had been sauteed before. Once the bottom had set, into the 350 degrees the pan went and about 18 minutes later it was done. You know that it is done when the top doesn’t slosh when you shake the pan. It was very pretty when I inverted it onto the plate and according to the baby boy and my hubby it was yummy for their tummies.
I love frittatas.

Lunch is served

Tags

cooking, lunch, onions, peppers, postaday2012, sausage

This morning little Jack woke me up to tell me he needed to take care of his morning ablutions. Easy enough to take care of, open the door to the backyard and off he goes. During those minutes, I get the coffee started and like clockwork, I hear the little knock on the door, Jack is ready to come back in. He gets his little cookie and I serve myself my bowl of Great Grains cereal and off to the Internet world to see what is going on in the environment, Occupy Sandy Relief, an outgrowth of the Occupy Wall Street movement dedicated to getting blankets, food, medicine and other supplies to those devastated by the hurricane. I also read a variety of publications to see how the progressives are doing in the fight for less income inequality, tax reform, education and housing.

This reading takes a while, usually three mugs of coffee worth and then I move onto the Huffington Post and write my reactions to the political news of the day in the comment section which I cross post onto my political blog A Progressive’s Thoughts on WordPress. By this time Jack is ready for his late morning walk and my hubby was awake, a quick kiss and hug, and off Jack and I went to the park to do our first round of cardio for the day.

When we returned, we walked into a kitchen that smelled wonderful; the sweet smell of onions caramelizing along with green, red and yellow peppers; mixed in with that, was best smell in the world, pork. My hubby had sweet and hot sausage sautéing in the pan getting all nice and brown just waiting for the peppers and onions to be tossed in, it looked and smelled heavenly.

My blood sugar was running low at this point so this hit my nostrils and appetite like a ton of bricks. My hubby turned around and said “are you hungry?” I said “yes” and grabbed two plates filled them up with the goodies. I carried them into the living room where my wonderful hubby had a fire going. A perfect lunch with a roaring fire, my handsome hubby, who cooked for me, and watching our favorite shows together. A grand Sunday, I must say.