In the kitchen, deep fried

my male hummer at the kitchen window :: pasta in process :: the pasta maker :: angel hair :: tomatoes from the garden :: wide noodles with shrimp and garlic butter :: swedish rosettes :: plus sugar :: making donuts :: table ornament from the yard

So, I think this was the un-healthiest week on record here in my kitchen. We might has well have gnawed on sticks of butter all week. Thanks to some really productive yardsale-ing, we had a donut batter dropper ($.50), a rosette maker ($1.00) and a pasta maker ($2.00) to try out! What's even more crazy is that they all worked perfectly, once we got the hang of it.

We tried pasta both skinny and wide. When in doubt, add more flour. We ended up with a few trial noodles that didn't pass inspection and we didn't know what to do with them... so we deep fried them, too.

The donut recipe is here. I used both the orange and the old-fashioned. We agreed that the texture of the orange was perfect, but the flavor of the old-fashioned was best, so if you make them, use the orange recipe, add the old-fashioned spices, and sub out milk for the OJ.

For the record, that is the first time I've even come close to getting a hummingbird in a picture this summer. AND I abuse that dahlia every year by tossing it in the garage through winter and only bringing it out when it is fighting for life, and still it rewards me with the most perfect blooms year after year.

What's happening in your kitchen??

In my yard-en

Its a jungle out there!! We've been getting good rain these past few weeks and everything outside is growing non-stop. We added a new bed on the back corner of our lot. It does make mowing a little more difficult but we are hoping those boxwood and the rose-of-sharon will get large enough to provide a little bit of a break for the wind and snow that howls through the wind-tunnel that is the back side of our subdivision. It is nice to put things in the ground that we won't see reach their full potential. Most of the flowers and many of the shrubs are enjoying their fifth summer with us, so they are plenty full and will need dividing this fall, but the plants in the new bed will grow, grow, grow long after we are gone.

We are working on our second batch of sparrows in the nest box just outside the kitchen window. They peep all day long. The noise of the patio slider makes them pop up to the house hole but if I get close enough to get a picture, down they go. It took me days to get this bitty beak bump in my camera.

How does your garden grow?

Garden update...

I have a slug problem. Argh. They have never behaved this way before - the hosts remain untouched and yet as soon as a flower blossoms, it is slimed and munched. They've gotten the day lilies, the petunias and the pansies. Suggestions?

On a happier note - it's official! We've got our first little red tomato! I feel like everything in the yard has doubled in size in the blink of an eye. The cilantro and lettuce have bolted, but I'm keeping them on as "wildflowers."

It seems we are in the thick of our third round of blooms (daffodils and other bulbs being first, irises and peonies being second). The roses are up and going, along with speedwell, coreopsis, and the first of the asiatic lilies.

How does your garden grow?

In Bloom

Full of loveliness - our little kingdom is. The only problem is that its all moving too fast. I can feel the days slipping by too quickly. Summer is in the air and before I know it, the dog days will be here and we will loathe stepping outside for even the smallest of chores, but for now... for now we will drink it in.

Yesterday afternoon was spent on the patio, under the umbrella where the breeze kept things cool. After three hours, I finally noticed that our baby sparrow wasn't peeping - I panicked! What had happened to him? He is ALWAYS peeping from the inside of the birdhouse, right outside my kitchen window. Later yesterday evening I saw him - a fledgling! He was resting on our patio chair and getting a snack from mamma.

The peas are scrambling up the netting I placed for them this past week. The berries are plumper everyday. Cilantro and dill are taking over and I am pulling them both like weeds. We added sage to the garden this year: common and pineapple. Any recommendations/recipes for the pineapple?

I am anxious for rain and today is promised to give us some showers - but you know how weather goes. We are at the point where we will have to start dragging the house out each night if the plants in containers don't get a good drink soon. We had a quick shower this morning when I snapped some photos of the berries and sage, but the sun is shining bright as ever now. Bring on the thunder storms! Bring on the drizzle. I'll take it any way I can get it.

What's Blooming

I have little time and no energy so here is a quick post on what's blooming in the yard. I am so irate that just hours after I took these, deer came through and mowed down my hosta, nipped the buds off my daylilies and grazed the hydrangea down. There's always next year, right? Stay tuned for a few posts on what I think about deer.

Hosta scape and bee balm,  Hosta and Monarda

A beautiful daylily that I started from foraged seed, finally coming into its own, Hemerocallis

My sister's wedding hydrangea (was a live plant decoration), Hydrangea macrophylla

Dwarf butterfly bush  and purple coneflowers, Buddleia davidii and Echinacea purpurea

Asiatic lily,  Lilium asiatic

Zebra Mallow (from seed), Malva sylvestris "zebrina" 

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