socca + whipped yogurt and feta + homegrown cayenne & tomatoes (the color!)
Grandma’s rosehips
kung pao chicken + vegetables
Mid-September! It creeped so stealthily in, a sudden call for blankets in the inky black of night and sweatshirts and jackets in the low slant of morning. Cool, cool. Days are all over the place, pleasant or blasting heat, the patter of rain on concrete. All beautiful.
As is often the case, I canned three batches of deliciousness over the course of twenty-four hours, Grandma’s rosehip + apple jelly, apple butter, and rhubarb jam. My legs were wobbly from all the standing and stirring, stirring, with the house a heady terrarium of sweet scented steam. The results are glorious and delicious, especially the rhubarb. I used the last stringy stalks, macerating them overnight in sugar in hopes of softening them up. There was a LOT of green, so I added a handful of frozen cherries to pretty them up, and boy, what a fabulous jam. But alas, no pictures! Gotta turn up the imagination dial, dear reader.
We are still enjoying our Weight Watchers adventure, losing weight, learning, and questioning. Greg comments on how much more he is laughing. Me? How much less I am belching. All good. I keep adapting recipes to match points and do what I can to add MORE vegetables to our life. Steady as she goes….
Breakfast “Ramen” – zoodles + egg + bacon + jack cheese + green chile + chicken broth
pico de gallo with our own tomatoes and cayenne pepper – huzzah!
Good Tuesday to you, dear reader! What eye candy here today, and what luck to find it all in front of my lens.
From the top: the garden is going like gangbusters, with super delicious ripening tomatoes, of a variety we cannot remember, drat. The kohlrabi hollering go big or go home!
After struggling a bit with the middle age S P R E A D, Greg and I joined Weight Watchers. It’s been a few weeks, and though the pounds aren’t exactly flying off (damn slowing metabolism!), we are losing weight and feeling truly great. It is actually FUN, and we are enjoying the challenge. I am spiralizing like a mad woman: zucchini, carrots, butternut squash!
We visited Bev + Lyle’s graves weekend before last for the very first time. Her colorful personality called for a rainbow of roses. We’ve had more death in the family, and I’ve felt a little heavy about it, truth be told. I pore over pictures and replay Super-8 style memories while pondering the gossamer connections of blood kin and my chosen family, each binding me to the wider world. Like planting small seeds of comfort that will one day bear beautiful fruit.
In a super cookbook from the library, Living Within the Wild, I found the recipe for Breakfast Ramen. Theirs uses actual ramen, which is NOT worth my points on WW, so of course I zoodled! It also calls for nori rather than green chile, but come on, green chile was made for this dish! I will definitely be making it again.
This past weekend was the Balloon Festival, and we awoke early Saturday to wade through giant puddles and trudge the mud of two evening’s blessed rains: all to watch the launch from our favorite perch on high. The mist veiled hills a bonus gift for our labors. Every year we expect a crowd in our viewing spot, and every year we are gratefully spared, reveling in our own good luck AND company to watch each wonder of gravity rise and rise and rise.
It is prickly pear season, at last, at last. I cannot believe my good luck at finding the local patches of beautiful fruit, waiting to be turned into wonderful juice. The spiny jabs worth it in the end.
More glory in the garden as the harvest gets to go, go, going. We experimented with cantaloupe! While it is among the best we’ve ever tasted, it is not nearly worth the water or labor for the three adorable fruits produced. The ground cherries, peppers, beans, zucchini, and tomatoes are quite a different story. The blue tepary and scarlet runners an excellent introduction to beans for drying, so we will plant much more next year, taking out the strawberry plants that do so very little. How life presents a body with ample opportunities to learn!
A Grandma Cracker (seriously what she calls her!) made yummy lemon cake full of Frozen goodness!
This photo shows the moment we started singing Happy Birthday! What JOY in knowing it was just for HER. The best!
T H R E E
Oh my goodness, in a high flying time moment, my cousin Ryan’s wee babe is now THREE. She is, among many other things, adorable and thoughtful and playful, and ever so loved.
I was the only person to old-school wrap her present after forgetting to buy a gift bag large or sturdy enough. What an ill-used muscle I have for this, dear reader. It took ages! She was a very careful unwrapper, slowly peeling off each piece of tape, before going delicately at the paper, which delighted me. I am a lover of precision and care, too, yup. She liked her necklace and magna-tiles, which also delighted me. I do not ever wish to be a lame gift giver!
We ate well and enjoyed many a conversation with parents and friends, aunts and uncles (there I am with mine!), grandmothers and grandfathers. The kids ran circles around us, eating and playing and squealing and splashing. A wonderful day to be THREE, indeed.
