her able hands

Busyness all weekend (nothing seed or garden related, but I’m out of the self-flagellation business, so we’ll just vett that to next weekend’s to-do list).

Chris surprised me Saturday afternoon by coming home with four new seats for the dining room chairs cut out of 3/8″ plywood. We all got busy taking the nasty covers off.

I was so happy to see that material in the trash. And check out the ugly vinyl underneath. I wonder whose rear ends made it so shiny.

Chris had to use his special pliers to remove the ancient, rusted tacks holding that vinyl in place. Those are working man’s hands, right there.

Lila helped, too. She was in charge of soaping the screws before Chris put them through the seat into the frame. Cheap made in China screws kept snapping off and after the fourth one he decided to put a drop of dish liquid in the hole and on the threads. Problem solved.

I didn’t get any photos of the actual reupholstering process because after an hour of the two of us struggling with one, I got frustrated and decided to go into the kitchen where I don’t have to deal with unfamiliar spatial relationships. I just couldn’t figure out how to fold the fabric without making it all lumpy and backwards and uneven and Chris could see it just fine. Bless him and his eternal patience with me, he just listened as I complained and questioned and pulled out staples and refolded and complained and re-stapled and pulled them out again and threw up my hands and ran upstairs to change because I was sweating so much.

We had dinner plans with Cheril & Greg yesterday and we were in charge of salad and dessert. I made these fantastic dark chocolate cupcakes by Chockylit but without the truffle aspect and I did a ganache glaze and a spritz of vanilla buttercream frosting and shaved dark chocolate curls on top. So basically, I used her cupcake recipe, which was absolutely incredible. So chocolatey and moist. I also added a half teaspoon of pure orange extract and a tablespoon of orange zest to the melted chocolate for the cake. And when I made my ganache, I added three tablespoons of butter to give it that nice shiny glaze.

I read on Chockylit’s site that my overflowing cake cups might have something to do with my oven temp being too low. She recommends preheating the oven to 25º warmer than the baking calls for, then turning it down as soon as you put the cupcakes in. I was very careful to only fill the cups 3/4 full and then tried that with the temperature, and they came out perfect. Psyche!

And look at how pretty they are! I so enjoyed presenting them last night and everyone made happy, yummy dessert sounds as they ate. So good.

So it was a multi-person, multi-tasking kind of day around here yesterday.

While I was busy in the kitchen putting together little love cakes, Chris was busy in the living room making our chairs pretty.

He says he wants to redo the second one from the left, but overall we’re both very happy with the way they came out. We used a thicker piece of foam than one might normally use, but I like the lift. Can’t wait to get that dining room wallpaper stripped off and the room painted next.

Speaking of paint, here’s a shot (crooked, sorry) of the corner where the green meets the red-orange. I’m so happy with this room.

Now we just need some more artwork for the walls. But doesn’t Cathy’s little painting look spectacular against the green?

Happy sigh.

Bookmark It

I made a decision yesterday and it felt so good. It’s a step in the direction of filling my pantry and freezer with my own food. It will cost more money than my original plan, and could be considered the easy way out. But I’ve recently discovered that laziness is the doorway to productivity. Overdoing it on every front simply makes me frozen and unable to accomplish anything all the way, so I’m not going to take the slow route with my vegetable gardens any more.

The lasagna beds didn’t work very well for me last year. They dried out too quickly and don’t even get me started about how much the slugs loved them. So I started these other two big lasagna beds down along the driveway in full sun. Right now they’re just lightly mulched leaves about four inches deep. I still have to order manure and get more straw and pull more leaves down from the piles in the woods, plus mix in some grass clippings with the first few mowings in spring. I also have all of that wonderful chicken poop straw to work with, but think I’ll be adding that to the beds next door.

But I want dirt. I want dirt in that American instant gratification kind of way. I don’t want to wait the few years it takes for the lasagna method to turn into dirt and in the meantime, it’s a crap shoot as to whether I’ve got the right balance, enough materials or the time and patience to deal with figuring it out. The ground is not tillable. It’s heavy yellow cement-like clay with gravel and large shelves of rock. What to do? Well, it occurred to me yesterday that I can have topsoil delivered to the house. I know. Duh. As a matter of fact, a local landscaping company sells topsoil with compost mixed in for vegetable gardens. For about $175 I can get enough to put a six inch layer on top of all of my lasagna beds and have some for the herb garden. So with that and the manure and straw, I’ll have about $250 invested in the garden base. But I’m only spending about $20 on seed this year and then the two pear trees.

Of course, I’m worried about bringing more disease onto the land. If any of you other gardeners have any advice on bringing soil in, I’d sure appreciate it.

And then? When it’s all set up and neatly spread? Then I am going to grow some food, people.

Bookmark It

So! Sorry family (New Englanders, all) but that was some game last night. I couldn’t help rooting for NY, they played so hard.

The only treat I made for the game was a batch of Ina Garten’s Coconut Cupcakes.

The cream cheese frosting came out like silk. But I really need to work on my cup-filling technique. Every one of them overflowed and stuck to the edge of the (nonstick!) mini muffin tin. Ina calls for coconut to top the frosting with, but I’m not a huge fan of the chewy coconut unless it’s fresh, so I toasted about a cup of coconut in my cast iron skillet in the oven while it preheated.

This recipe uses buttermilk, and a metric ton of butter which converts to an assload. I mean, I may as well just stuff these babies down the back of my undies, they’re that buttery. I’m going to try making them with coconut milk instead of buttermilk next time. (Oh, yes. There will be a next time. But I will try to wait a few months before I carb load like that again.) I used to make an incredible layer cake using fresh grated coconut and coconut milk and it may have been the lightest, moistest, most delicious cake I ever had. It would translate to cupcakes so well.

And so I stayed up way past my bedtime to watch the Superbowl, ate two cupcakes and now have an early morning belly ache. But there’s no time for complaining—I’ve got to get the kids up and get us all out the door in 40 minutes. Peace out!

Bookmark It

To the soul who found my site by searching “buy pickled turnips”:

Don’t buy them! Make them!

It’s so super-easy and inexpensive and more delicious than you can ever imagine.

Note to self: buy more turnips, you only have a few slivers left in the jar.

Bookmark It

This morning the windows on the south side of the house are encased in a thick layer of bubbly ice. It’s freezing rain on top of an inch or two of snow and is meant to turn to all rain and then back to ice pellets and then to snow again by afternoon. But no real accumulation. How I long for a big snow. A colossal snow. A blizzard like the blizzard of ‘78 where we had to remove the storm door and bring it inside in order to begin to shovel our way out of the house. The snow came 3/4 of the way up the door.

Maybe I’m just wishing for another reason to stay at home (of course I’m wishing for that. Think of all of the things I could accomplish). But winters haven’t been as wintry for the last few years. If it’s going to last this long (and it will, it lasts so bloody long in comparison to the other seasons), it would be nice to have some opportunity for sledding with the kids—that doesn’t melt away the day after it hits the ground. I haven’t seen any of the area ponds stay frozen yet this year, and never see kids ice skating.

It seems like my childhood winters had a blanket of snow on them for two solid months, and every day the whole neighborhood gathered at the top of the big hill by the Taunton River for all-day runs. I spent day after day gliding around on Sturdevent’s Pond when I was a preteen, fantasizing that Robbie Benson or Shawn Cassidy or Leif Garrett sliced back and forth behind me, watching my every move and falling helplessly, hopelessly in love with me. And then I’d attempt a spin and fall straight out of the pages of Tiger Beat Magazine and onto my bony little ass.

Will global warming ramp up in my lifetime to the point where I am able to garden in winter without a heated greenhouse? As much as I love the thought of filling my salad bowl year-round with succulent lettuces, I hope to Maude that I never see a tomato flourish in my February garden.

That’s what pantries are for—we’re supposed to enjoy the less-heady, preserved fruits of our summer labors in the winter.

I think tonight I’ll celebrate this in between time. I’ll stew two overstuffed quart bags of blanched winter greens that are still in the freezer—one each of kale and collards. After I get a pot of brown rice started, I’ll sauté a pound of sliced chicken sausage in the dutch oven with a small chopped onion until the sausage is browned and the onion golden and soft. Then add two cups of cooked Great Northern Beans (also ready and waiting in the freezer—or they were until I set them on the counter a minute ago to thaw) and a quart of chopped tomatoes and garlic (I have one jar left from two years ago, found far back on a shelf). I’ll toss in a little kosher salt and cracked black pepper to taste, then let the whole thing simmer for about half an hour on medium-low heat. Once the rice is done, I’ll scoop that into bowls, then top with a heaping spoonful of the greens, sausage and beans, then shave some Asiago cheese and a small swirl of basil and olive oil (that I also just took out of the freezer). Doesn’t that sound warm, but wintry? Now come on snow. Work with me here.

Bookmark It