sparrowgrass

Scamhi, made your vinegar chicken last night--yum, and leftovers for lunch, too! Wimpy's adobo is next.

I have a barn.

I am always intimidated by these dinner things (most of the ingredients y'all talk about would call for a 70 mile trip to St. Louis--cain't buy 'em here in the Ozarks), but tonight I had the best--I ran out to the chicken house and grabbed a half dozen eggs, picked a handful of asparagus out of the garden, sauteed some morels my sis and I found, scrambled the eggs with the shrooms and the sparrowgrass, homemade bread on the side. MMMMMM.

JSD, I bought some seeds for a pink primrose that says it likes hot dry poor soil--don't know if they speak spanish or not.

I am a lazy, lazy gardener when it comes to flowers and other ornamental type plants. Your comments on comfrey lead me to ask for assistance. The previous owners of this old house started a garden on a very steep little slope just outside the back door. Not much soil--kind of gravelly clay. South east facing, so it is kinda hot and dry. Roughly oval, about 15 by 30. There are lots of daffs out there, some violets, that creeping phlox that blooms early, 3 butterfly bushes, some thyme and catnip, chives, a peony or two, but, what I basically have is some perennials with space between them, and the space between them comes up in wild sorrel, yellow hop clover, and then queen ann's lace and other big coarse weeds later. I think what I am looking for is some kind of evil thug plant that will take over the empty spaces and look nice with no work involved for me--that's easy, isn't it? The other alternative is that I keep growing and buying perennials and sticking them in at random. (I have flax, canterbury bells, delphiniums, and lavender started in the sunroom--about 50 of each, if I don't kill em dead.)

Cabbage leaves and pork sausage is my Pittsburgh grandma's recipe for kraut pudding. She wrapped the concoction in cheese cloth and boiled it in a big pot for hours and hours--phewy!

I have a Presto Microwave popper--with Orville Redenbacher's picture on it. I pop the corn without oil, then use my Misto to spray olive oil on it. Finish with nutritional yeast and salt. Eat large quantities.

MY ASPARAGUS IS UP!!! Tiny little purply sprouts. Planted last year, and according to U of Ohio Extension Publication on asparagus, I can cut some this year, but I will probably get more from the wild asparagus up here on Sparrowgrass Hill. Chickens and ducks are laying like mad, daffodils are everywhere. AND, I finally figured out how to get the pictures out of the digital camera and into the computer, so if you want to look, try this Pix of dogs, cats, the chicken house and new bathroom I built. No pix of the daffodils--just snow.

Peas, lettuce, spinach, potatoes (4 kinds!) and kohlrabi are in the ground! I had to come to work to rest today. Saturday--hauled 5 or 6 cartloads of chicken litter out of the hen house, and spread it on the gardens. Pruned the yew bushes in front of the house--hauled 2 pickup loads of branches to the brush pile in the back. Sunday--rototilled and planted, vacuumed, bathed the dogs (outside, with the hose), barbequed a rack of ribs to celebrate St. Urho's Day. For those of you who are not from the tundra of Minnesota, St. Urho is the Finnish saint who drove the grasshoppers out of Finland. High point of the weekend--when the rototiller caught on fire. Note to self--twist the air filter so it is not sitting directly over the muffler. Daffodils, crocuses, little irises blooming. The lawn will need to be mowed next weekend, probably. Three incubators full of eggs ready to go out to classrooms in my counties--4-H embryology projects.

The alcohol content of your breast milk is the same as your blood alcohol--so unless you are drinking enough to get your BAC up to the moon, I wouldn't worry about the baby getting too much booze. However, don't drink so much that you drop the little bugger, or put him down someplace and forget where he is.

Wonderful--I am immediately forwarding it to every female I know. PS My daffs are blooming.

nickn, my grocery store has SEED potatoes, and onion sets. I have, however planted grocery store potatoes, sprouty old things that have been under the sink too long, and have done well with them. I ordered some blue potatoes--can't wait to try them. I could probably plant today, but this dang job is interfering with my gardening time. Supposed to be 60 degrees, and the garden is dry enough.

Oh, I remembered another one. Manila, Utah--The Flaming Gorge Cafe--sounds like really bad heartburn, doesn't it? Manila is on the shores of the scenic Flaming Gorge Reservoir.

OK, off the lake and on the trail. Hmmm. Well, I remember when my kids were little, we would stick a pack of hot dogs, some buns and a little jar of mustard, maybe some apples and cookies, too, in the pack, hike for an hour or so and then build a little fire and eat hotdogs--I remember those meals fondly. Or cross country skiing in the cold til I was shivery and sweaty and tired, and then hitting a little cafe for Navajo tacos or chile verde--that was yummy.

My rhubarb is poking its little nose (noses?) out of the soil--likewise the peonies. The daffs have buds and the trees are coloring up. The silver maple will bloom in a day or two, and the ducks are laying!! Must be spring. We have had a long winter here in Missouri--our kids have had ONE week since Christmas break when they didn't have a snow day or two or three. However, it will be 45 today, 50 tomorrow, and possibly 70 on Saturday and Sunday. I may be able to get the tiller out by Sunday, and start in the garden. I have lettuce, spinach and pea seeds, and I will hit the grocery store for seed potatoes. I think I will skip the onions this year. I never have good luck, lots of rotten ones and the ones that aren't rotten are always way hot. AND SOON--time for asparagus. Asparagus for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Asparagus steamed, roasted, sauteed, raw. ASPAAARRAAAGUUSS. yum.

The Evil One (the ex) and I used to do quite a bit of camping/canoeing in the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area in Minnesota. The Forest Service has special rules for wilderness areas--no cans, no bottles, which makes meal planning for a week or so rather difficult. Freeze dried food is mostly really gross, and expensive. Fresh fish are great, but not dependable, at least with my fishing skills. No refrigeration, so fresh stuff is out, not to mention the fact that fresh stuff is heavy. We used to live on "noodles and stuff"--mac and cheese, chicken/beef flavored noodles, spaghetti, when we could find dried tomatoes--remember no cans. Keeping in mind that fresh air and lots of exercise makes most things edible, we did find some box stuff from Bean Cuisine that was really pretty good, when doctored. Pasta fagiole, beans and rice, that kind of thing. Fresh bread crushes too easily in a Duluth pack, so we carried tortillas, crackers and pita. Dried salami, dried beef, smoked sausage from Zup's in Ely, sometimes fresh meat for the first night out. URK, and oatmeal for breakfast. The instant kind, with "peaches and cream" or brown sugar. Gag. This does make me wish I had someone to go paddling with--a couple days on the lake listening to the loons and worrying about moose and wondering if the bear pack is strung up high enough in the tree would be nice. Ice out is the first of May--anybody wanna go?

Buck Snort Cafe, I think in Montana somewhere. sounded like deer boogers.

What is the difference between basmati and jasmine rice? I have been buying locally grown (well, from down in the bootheel--relatively local) jasmine rice--mmmmm. Terrific fragrance and flavor. The farmer says it is so flavorful because they don't hull it until they are ready to ship. If I pick it up at the mill, it is $7 for a 25 pound bag.

When I was pregnant with my oldest son, I lived on the Quinault Indian Reservation, and my Indian neighbors smoked lots of salmon. I couldn't get enough--very salty and smoky, kind of like a good country ham.

Round these parts--S. Missouri--Frito Pie is a standard at fairs. Costs about $1.50-2.00 for a 1 ounce bag of Fritos, topped with chili (ground beef and beans and tomatoes), sour cream and shredded american cheese optional. Like a taco salad minus the lettuce. Comfort food for me is chicken noodle soup (homemade noodles just like my grandma taught me to make) and a grating of nutmeg over the top.

Round these parts, churches often make sorghum molasses as a fund raiser in the fall--is that the same as cane syrup? Catfish--fried, of course Cabbage--fried, of course ( fry off a couple of slices of bacon, shred the cabbage, toss with some sliced onion, fry in the bacon grease, salt and lots of pepper.) Okra--fried, of course bucket mouth bass--fried, of course red velvet cake--don't fry it home made ice cream--don't fry that either strawberry shortcake--ditto rhubarb custard pie--ditto

I am going into my second summer in my house, and last summer was pretty wasted, in terms of flowerbeds, what with remodeling the bathroom and building a chicken house. The weeds got ahead of me early, and while I could pass off some of those weeds as wild flowers, most of them were just weeds. Good thing I live out in the country and don't have any disapproving neighbors worrying about my Queen Anne's Lace and fleabane. Going slow is a theory I need to embrace. I bought 80 tree seedlings last spring, and asparagus and peach trees and rhubarb and bulbs and perennials. I mowed over many of the seedlings because I was in too big a rush to mark them properly. I just feel like I have waited so long to have this home, I want it right and I want it right now. (The seedlings came from the conservation dept., and only cost me about $30, BTW.) I bought poppy seeds last week, but I haven't sprinkled them yet. We had snow here too, and I was waiting for it to melt--maybe tomorrow. Also put in an order for grape vines--two each of 3 different types--rose of sharon, butterfly bush, and lord knows what else. Next month will begin garden time--the very first day it is dry enough to run the tiller, I will be out there with the potato eyes and the peas and spinach and lettuce. I am much more of a veggie gardener than a posie gardener. I need to plant "thugs" in my flower beds--those things that just take over and you have to mow around the edge of the bed to keep them from over-running everything. And lots of bulbs and peonies, that don't need anything more than an admiring glance once in a while. I do plant a row of flowers and sunflowers. I buy those cheap seed packets at Walmart, mix 'em all up and let 'em fight it out between the veggies. I have admired the Swiss Chard in the seed catalogs, Maggie--maybe I will do some of that. Recipes will be requested.

I remember fighting with pie crust as a tyke--it would always break apart as I lifted it into the pan. When I learned to roll it lightly onto the rolling pin to carry it to the pan, I did much better.

a question for all you incredibly clever folks. I can get a slab of polished granite, say 18 inches square, inch and half to two inches thick, for 20 bucks. Would that work? I guess I would have to "temper" it by heating slowly, huh? Same place has marble, might be cheaper, but thinner.

No matter how artfully you sprinkle it, cornstarch doesn't taste as good as powdered sugar on french toast. My nephew will never let me live that down.