Baking Bread

I love making bread from scratch. The kneading and punching are therapeutic, and the results are always gratifying.  The family favorite, Focaccia, with its dimpled surface brushed with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt, olives, and fresh herbs from the garden might get made 2 or 3 times a year .  A few months ago, a gift from Jeremy and Michala arrived:  a shiny white bread machine that takes all my time honored ingredients and literally gives them a new twist.  I will still bake bread the old fashioned way occasionally to keep my kneading knack, but this is really fun!  I have not purchased bread at the grocery store since I tried it the first time!  Part of the fun is picking which bread to make next.  I have made Banana Oatmeal Bread, Honey Wheat, Egg Bread, and am working my way down the list of rye breads.  So far, we vote Russian Black Bread and Black Forest Pumpernickle our favorites, but Dill Rye and Sauerkraut Rye were delicious, too. I made a sweet bread with mangoes and one with flaxseed.  It is amazing to pop the ingredients in, get it started and wait for the tantalizing smell of homemade bread to fill the kitchen.  Nutritious ingredients, no preservatives, and endless variety.  I have shared my kitchen with alot of appliances that have only occasional use, but this is one that keeps its place on the counter.

Harvesting Bok Choy

Maddie and Jordann hunted Easter Eggs this weekend, but they also helped their Dad harvest the late Bok Choy crop in our garden.  Now I am hunting recipes to add to our family favorite, Bok Choy salad tossed with sunflower seeds, almonds, and toasted Ramen noodles drizzled with a spicy soy vinaigrette.  This is not a vegetable that freezes well, so we will share some as well as having stir fry and trying bok choy kim chee.

This year, the girls have their own vegetable and herb garden at their house so stay tuned for more "girls in the garden" pictures.

Palette of Tomatoes

A favorite gardening project, growing tomatoes has taken wings the last couple of years.  Not only are we growing more tomatoes, but most of them are heirloom varieties.  I am intrigued with being part of  sharing history and story.  Heirloom vegetables are grown from seeds passed down by many generations in a family and shared.  Last year, our family voted one heirloom our all time favorite.  It is one of the very first known "black", or deep dusky rose colored tomatoes, and is called Cherokee Purple. It was named in 1990 by. Craig LeHoullier  , who received seeds of an unnamed cultivar in the mail from J. D. Green of Tennessee. Mr. Green indicated that the "purple" tomato  was given by the Cherokee Indians to his neighbor "100 years ago".

We love the color and taste of this tomato, and enjoy thinking about others who have liked it enough for over 100 years to share it with others and save the seeds.  We have at least 2 dozen tomato plants.  Some of the other heirlooms are named Black Plum, Brown Berry, and Purple Russian.  Did I hear you say you thought tomatoes were red?

Invitation

I read in home and garden magazines about creating different spaces in the garden that are like different rooms.  Our garden has a variety of plants and paths that lead to herbs and vegetables, roses and fruit trees, flowers and vines.  Then there are what we call our "sitting spots".  A small table and chair, benches, stone walls, and tucked into the shady background here, child size chairs with cushions for the little girls who call us Papa Joe and Granmary...our invitation to come sit awhile.  There is so much rushing about and working to mark the next thing off a list.  The sitting spots call us to just be, doing nothing but breathing a prayer of gratitude for garden beauty.

In Love with Lavender

 Spring cleaning has not happened yet inside my home, but we have been hard at work Spring Cleaning the garden.  Pruning, wood-chipping, composting, tilling, mulching, cleaning out all the debris left in winter's wake and making room for new growth has resulted in sore knees, aching backs and glad welcome for the return of a palette of greens and rainbow colors.  As we put in fresh herbs, we picked plants for flavor, color and fragrance.  I learn more and more about herbs, and use them many more places than my kitchen herb bed.  We plant several different kinds of lavender for foliage and fragrance, as well as their lovely stalks of bloom.  There is English, Spanish, and French lavender, Godwin's Creek lavender, and Fern-leaf lavender.  I have a number of recipes which use lavender. We use it to make potpourri, and have made salves and tea.  Our few plants bring us joy, but on my list for "someday" is a visit to the lavender farms in the Texas Hill country.  If you are traveling near there in the next few months, be sure to visit and tell me all about it.  The Unlikely Lavender Queen:  A Memoir of Unexpected Blossoming, would be perfect reading for your trip!
                                                
                                                 http://www.blancolavenderfest.com/

Texas Bluebonnets

One of the most beloved gifts the month of March brings to Texans is the lavish spread of bluebonnets along the sides of highways and neighborhood roads. As historian Jack Maguire so aptly wrote, "It's not only the state flower but also a kind of floral trademark almost as well known to outsiders as cowboy boots and the Stetson hat." He goes on to affirm that "The bluebonnet is to Texas what the shamrock is to Ireland, the cherry blossom to Japan, the lily to France, the rose to England and the tulip to Holland."

Although seeds have been taken to grow in other places, the two predominant species of bluebonnets are found growing naturally only in Texas and at no other location in the world. When I was growing up in East Texas, we watched for the first bluebonnets, usually accompanied by other Texas wildflower color, especially the complimenting colors of Indian Paintbrush and Crimson Clover.

I don't have a Stetson, can't ride a horse, and cowboy boots make my feet hurt. But I am glad to be a Texan, and love bluebonnets as much as the lady bugs on these I photographed just down the road.

In Gratitude

March 25, 2011: The redbuds are blooming, and I am remembering a grandmother's birthday. She has been physically gone from me for 34 years, but she is part of me and will always live in my heart and in the way I live my life. Mary Clyde Curley Terrell was born on this date in 1887 and lived until just weeks short of her 90th birthday. She loved me lavishly, taught me much of what I know about taking care of home and family, the gifts of hospitality and gardening. Her faith in God never waivered, throughout years of growing sons and a daughter (my mother), during which she endured the tragic death of her first son at age 13, loosing home and household to a fire, working ceaselessly as a farmer's wife to "make do". She never drove a car, did not have indoor plumbing until she had to move from her home to a small apartment when she was in her 80's. But she knew how to spread her table with a white cloth and gather flowers in a jar and make fried chicken Sunday dinners for her preacher and our family. She made patchwork and crazy quilts from clothing scraps that are still kept and passed on. She knew how to give a skinny litle girl good night kisses and tuck her into a feather bed. She made tea cakes and cornbread and chow chow. Near the end of her life on earth, sharing a room in a small nursing home, she saved her morning snack cookies and wrapped them in a napkin so she would have something to offer me when I came to see her. I saw the face of God in her face and felt His hands in hers. Thank you, Grandma. I am your namesake. You do live on, not just in me and in my sons, but in their children. I see the Redbud trees and greet another Spring, a precious reminder of ongoing life.