home meet the chef Services and Pricing Sample Menus blog

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

How Does Your Garden Grow?

So glad we put in the vegetable garden this year! I love watching it grow.

The lettuce is going crazy! I think the two big ones are ready to become part of a salad.

And the spinach now has little spinach leaves....this I planted from seed.

Also from seed, I planted French Green Beans....two have popped up!

We also have squash, cucumbers and tomatoes, and Brussels Sprouts.

It really is the little things that make us happy.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Not Just Cooking, Knitting Too

I have been knitting for many years. Knitting gives me hours of happiness, and besides cooking, it's my second form of therapy. It's so relaxing and I do some of my finest menu planning while knitting. And I love yarn...well, we won't really talk about my stash.

I finally broke down and treated myself to a yarn swift and ball winder. Why would I be happy about this? Because it turns hanks of yarn like this


into nice little bundles of yarn, all wound and ready to start knitting!


Yes, it's quite the contraption -- I got it yesterday and set it up on my kitchen island so I could start playing with it.


Although I haven't minded all these years winding yarn into balls myself, this will save me so much time...and give me more time for knitting. Although, is there ever really enough time for knitting?

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Ready For A Garden!

We decided last year (well, I did a lot of hinting and begging) to plant a garden this year. Last weekend, it finally was a great weekend, schedule and weather-wise, to lay it out and get the box built. We worked most of the afternoon Saturday digging the trenches where the boards would go, then finished up on Sunday replacing dirt and leveling out the space.










We had really good help...Haven is a great digger and she really got to it!





Then she had to settle back and just be the supervisor.

And we're done with that part. The next step will be to add lots of nutrient-rich soil, then wait for the proper time to plant.

We're thinking tomatoes for sure, maybe squash and cucumbers and some kind of bean. I can't wait! I just hope I do a good job with the weeding and watering...not really my strong suit.