Yikes – my apologies. This was a practice piece I was playing with on my WordPress iPad app. I haven’t figured out how it works yet but obviously it does schedule and publish…too soon. I just whipped something up and didn’t edit a thing. No graphics, either. It will be better next time, I promise.

Garden whites June 2013The perennial poppies are just beginning to burst out of their hairy pods. The peonies are flamboyantly stunning. Their sweet scent makes my mouth water. Hub and I spent yesterday moving triple mix to the new garden bed we made at the back of our property. It used to be a raspberry bed but the yield hadn’t been good the last two years. It was a constant battle to wrap plastic fencing around the plot because the damned hares would eat everything a their level and the birds would consume the rest.

This winter’s relentless frigid cold was the death knell to the raspberries as well as my roses – nothing much came up green in the spring so I cut the remaining sad looking sticks down and laid an old half-rotted tarp on the ground. We used beams from a tree house we were going to build for the grandchildren. They are now 14 and almost 12, so they have no interest in a tree house anymore. In fact, I usually buy them a couple of cans of spray paint and let them loose to tag the old Norway maples. They write their initials or ‘love’, ‘peace’. When I drive the tractor back there it always makes me smile.

Today we had my son and his family over for brunch. Delightful as always. My grandson, the budding gourmand, tried something new. I made this recipe – Bobby Flay’s Thai Red Curry Mussels because Hub and I, my son and granddaughter loves mussel.  Easy-peasy recipe but of course I had no red curry and had to substitute green. I always have a container of frozen chopped lemongrass on hand so I didn’t have to run down to the Thai supermarket for fresh. Bobby Flay suggests two tablespoons of curry paste but I only used one and as Hub said, it was ‘on the edge’ of hotness. The Boy slurped up about a dozen and wanted more. So that was a success. I also made this – Asparagus with Balsamic Dressing, but I grilled the asparagus first with salt, pepper and olive oil. Eggs Benedict with marinated grilled back bacon (I hate making poached eggs – they’re so messy and the after-effects of cooked stringy whites in the pan look like someone barfed). For dessert, we had Oatmeal Chocolate Chip bars, except that I cut back on the butter by 1/4 cup, substituted the same amount of chunky natural peanut butter and added 1/2 cup chia seeds. I find that when adding oatmeal to cookies an bars, it helps the texture if you throw half of the recipe amount into the blender or Cuisinart and whirl them around to reduce some of the oats to smaller bits.  Out of a 10×13 pan, I think only about half a dozen are left. They are addictive and even taste good with wine!

Another gorgeous day. I am so grateful. My son has grown into a fine husband and father and I am more proud of him than words can say. Life is good. Now back to the garden.