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Yesterday was Pine Valley Day. The parade lines up in front of our house. There were horses, naturally:
Old cars, all decked out:
Beauty queens with braces:
Clowns, even though everyone is actually afraid of them:
He does look a little sinister, doesn't he?
Bagpipe bands are my favorite!
And don't forget the superheros:
It's also fun to watch the watchers, especially the kids:
I actually started this post a few weeks ago, but never got around to finishing it, so here you go, a post all about some good food I've been making and eating lately:
Cooking and gardening is about all that's been going on here lately. I need to do some sewing soon, it's been so long. In the meantime, we've been eating quite well, especially since Mr. Heylucy (not the tidiest person I've ever known, for the record), thought it was time to clean the oven. I'm not going to say how long it's been since that has happened, but we have lived in our house for seven years, so it's been less than seven years, that's not too bad, right? We ran the self-cleaning cycle, and almost had to spend the night outside it got so smokey. Oops. I think we'll do that on a more regular basis from now on.
Back to the cooking, I never mentioned that I made the Chili Pea Puffs. I highly recommend the recipe, they were delicious, and gobbled up before I took any pictures. So I suggest you make them. I used panela cheese (a Mexican fresh milk cheese) in place of the paneer, and it worked out just fine. I experimented with folding them several different ways, but I liked the simple fold-in-half-diagonally method the best. Serve with a little chutney, yum!
Last week at the farmer's market I got the biggest artichoke I had ever seen. Mr. HeyLucy is not a fan, so it was all for me. Feeling confident after my hollandaise sauce success, I decided to make a lemon garlic aioli to go along with it. That turned out to be a pretty good idea. Here's the recipe:
Lemon Garlic Aioli
1 egg (very fresh, be careful with raw eggs of course!)
1 T. grainy mustard
1-2 T. lemon juice
zest of one lemon
2-3 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. olive oil
Combine all the ingredients except the olive oil in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until the mixture thickens.
Speaking of sauces and dips, how about a little guacamole? I like a good guacamole with chunks of tomatoes and some creamy sour cream and all sorts of good stuff, but sometimes you don't have everything you need, and you just want some guacamole right now. Here's what I do in this kind of situation. Dice up a little bit of onion, and make sure it's nice and fine. A couple tablespoons is all you need. I prefer red onion, but yellow will do in a pinch. Put it in a bowl. Cut an avocado in half and remove the pit. Score the flesh lengthwise and cross-wise into a small dice, and scoop out with a spoon. Add to the onion, season with salt (I prefer kosher salt) and a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce. I'm partial to Cholula, but Tapatio is good too. Even Tabasco will do if there's nothing else available. Stir it all up with a fork and get yourself some good tortilla chips. There you go,guacamole in just a minute! You can squeeze a little lime if you have one, but I never bother. It's usually all gone before it has a chance to turn brown.
Saturday I went to a beekeeping class, but I made sure I had time before hand to stop for my current favorite sandwich. My current favorite Vietnamese restaurant is called Pho Superbowl, and while the pho is good, I am always looking for an excuse to go there for a banh mi sandwich.
I like the traditional pork, and here the owner recommended trying it with an egg on top. I had my doubts, but ordered it over-easy (they'll also do scrambled), and it was delicious. Underneath that egg is cilantro, fresh jalapenos, pickled, shredded carrots and daikon, and, of course, slices of pork (tenderloin, I think). The baguette for a real banh mi is made with rice flour, and it's so crisp and light and tasty. Also, they are cheap as can be, just $3.95 for a very filling sandwich.
And one last little tasty treat, also from 101 Cookbooks, and easy-peasy, Grilled Fava Beans! I happened across these at the Mexican market I shop at regularly, and this method of preparing them couldn't be easier, although they are a little bit of work to eat. It's fun work, though, and definitely worth it.
I don't read a ton of food blogs, but there are a few I visit on a regular, albeit occasional basis. Of course I love Orangette (who is finally back, by the way, yay!), and the hearty stuff the Pioneer Woman makes, and obviously I visit 101 Cookbooks. But then I was reading Design Sponge today, and happened across this post. I would really like someone to make me these, any volunteers? I'm too busy with other things to have the time to make them, but I really want to eat them. Anyway, that let me to Lottie + Doof, which is now bookmarked, and will be visited regularly. I love this little food pop-quiz he posted recently. Feel free to play along in the comments or on your own blog:
Sweet or salty?
I really like a little something sweet after dinner, and I've always had a sweet tooth, but more and more I'd say salty
Chocolate or vanilla?
Vanilla. Although I do like chocolate quite a lot.
Hot or mild?
hot hot hot!
What won’t you eat?
liver, unless it's dressed up as paté
Most memorable meal?
there are quite a few, but I loved the breakfast I had a little hotel in Gent, Belgium (home of my favorite bakeries). Bread and cheese and jam and some of the best hot chocolate ever. So simple and so perfect.
Favorite object in your kitchen?
my cheese slicer. I brought it back from the Netherlands 19 years ago, and use it not only for slicing cheese (which it does, perfectly. yum, cheese!), but it's so great for thinly slicing mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, everything!
What are you scared of in the kitchen?
yeast. scared is perhaps a little strong, but I seldom have good luck with yeast doughs, so I don't try baking with it very often.
Do you prefer to cook alone or with others?
with others, but it's nice alone, too. very meditative, I find.
What country would you move to for the food?
Italy, no question. Even the food at the truck stop we had was good.
If you were to come back as a fruit or vegetable, what would you be?
I do love figs, but I'm not sure how that translates personality wise. I'm soft and delicate maybe? ha ha!
What’s for dinner?
I really want to try making some sorrel soup tomorrow night.
While last Saturday may have made me feel like a failure as a farmer, things are not all bad around here. Despite the fact that the chickens continue to think my vegetable garden is their own personal dust bath spa, a few things are growing quite nicely. I harvested my first radish this week.
This is a salad rose radish, they are, obviously, a long variety. This one was about six inches. I left it for Mr. HeyLucy to eat, because radishes are one of his favorites. He pronounced it delicious and very spicy. The chickens did a bit of damage to my radish section, so there are only three others there. They grow so quickly, I'm thinking of filling in a few squares with more radish seeds, so we can enjoy a few more harvests. I'll also be adding some chicken wire covers to the garden, and hopefully that will keep those rascals at bay.
I also discovered that what was burning my plants was actually a freakishly late frost (we had frost until June 22!), so I lost my beans, a couple cucumbers, and the cinnamon basil. I thought that three of my four tomatoes were goners, but only one actually died, and the other three are looking good. My red grape tomato is huge, and there are even a few tomatoes ripening. The other two tomato plants have a ways to go, but I'm hoping we'll still get a few by the end of Summer.
Here's the whole garden, it looks pretty nice:
The sorrel is doing really well, I've trimmed it a couple times to share with friends, and I'm going to try and make some sorrel soup this week. I'm not sure if my peas are going to do much more than they're doing now. They're the four right front boxes. As you can see, they have no interest in climbing the poles I've rigged for them, but there are quite a few pods. It may be getting too hot for them, so once the pods are ripe, I think I'll harvest and pull them out and replace them with something else.
Here's what I'm discovering: when it comes to gardening, you can read and study and plan all you want, but the only way to really learn how to garden is to...garden. I know, that's so deep, but if you want to plant a garden, and you have even a little bit of space, I say go for it! You'll never be more ready than you are now, and some things will not work, and some things will be amazing. I think it helps to be out there in the dirt, as much as possible, too, and even just pulling a weed here and there is progress. It's so easy for me to look at my big garden area, where I want to plant berries and fruit trees and make about 8 more boxes and get overwhelmed, but I just keep reminding myself to be patient and just do a little at a time, and eventually I'll have my little Eden out there.
Enough about the garden, remember how I started making a sleeve for my laptop? I finished it and used it while traveling last week. It worked out just great.
My laptop is my primary computer, so it's a big 17" one. I don't travel much with it, sand I have a case, but it's heavy and ugly, and it wasn't very practical. So I got myself a little rolling carry on bag, and filled it with a bunch of stuff, leaving room for the computer on the top. So much easier!
And it's cute!
One last thing, back to the garden. I decided to have some pretty yogurt for breakfast this morning. I picked a sprig of lavender and a sprig of mint, and added them to my Greek yogurt and raspberries. There's also a sprinkle of raw sugar for sweetness. It's quite tasty (I'm eating it right now!) and it smells so good.
I don't even want to write this post, but I just have to do it anyway. It's going to start out bad, I'm just warning you. I'll try to end on a happier note, though, so I hope you stick with me.
Saturday I came home from visiting my family in Idaho. It was lovely, but earlier in the week Mr. HeyLucy called and said that something was wrong with Sally, she wasn't eating and was mostly just sitting on the nest she made to lay her eggs earlier this Spring. He was bringing her water and setting her in her little pool regularly, and she would drink, but wouldn't even eat apple slices-her very favorite food. This continued the rest of the time I was away. When Mr. HeyLucy met me at the airport he said she was in her pool when he left, and had even gotten in all on her own, so we were hoping that she was improving. Sadly, by the time we got home she was gone, we found her body still in her pool. I was glad that she was at least in one of her favorite spots, but so sad that I wasn't there for her at the end.
Good-bye little Miss Sally, we're going to miss you!
We're not sure what was wrong, but it could have been one of several things: 1) I was gone, and she was really bonded to me, so she felt abandoned. She followed me all over when I was outside, and she didn't particularly like being held, but would let me pick her up any time I wanted. I really hope this wasn't why she stopped eating. 2) She and Bear had a rather rocky relationship. She would often pull on his tail, and he knew he wasn't supposed to hurt her, but sometimes he just couldn't take it and would pin her down between his front paws and really growl at her. He might have unintentionally hurt her internally. Or 3) She nibbled on something poisonous. I can't think of anything that she might have found, we don't keep any plant food or weed killer around, but who knows what could be out there, she wandered all over the whole yard.
As if this wasn't enough to spoil my homecoming, I went and checked my garden and found two little hens having the time of their lives out there. Apparently a four-foot fence is not enough to keep a couple determined chickens out of the garden. I suspected chickens were the mysterious diggers, but I hadn't ever seen them out there. I guess I should be glad that mystery is solved.
Of course, while I was there I had to check on the bees. I noticed that they had pushed another rubber band out the front door, but not all the way, so I thought I'd help them out, and pulled it out the rest of the way. Unfortunately, there were a few bees hanging on to the other end and they were not happy about being yanked out of the hive. A couple of them were mad enough to sting me, one on my calf, just below my knee, and the other, through my pants on the front of my thigh on the other leg. I got the stingers out right away, and went straight to the house where I took a Benedryl and crushed up some aspirin, making a paste with a little water to put on the sting sites. I read about these treatments on one of my beekeeping lists, and I have to say, they worked brilliantly! Of course the Benedryl put me to sleep, but the aspirin got rid of the pain within minutes, and I didn't have any swelling at all. Now there are just small red blotches and they itch about as much as a mosquito bite, but that's it!
How about some better news? Remember these little creations? I got to see them modeled on this pretty little girl. My brother had a portrait session with the new family, and I got to be the lighting assistant. I have more photos to share from my trip, but it was really nice, and a lot of fun, and I'm still recovering at the moment, so the pictures will have to wait a few more days.
We found a patch of wild strawberries:
Took some pictures by an old, abandoned cabin (this is one of my brothers and his pretty family):
Stopped in Idaho City for lunch and visited this crazy place:
Here's what I've done so far. Made some cupcakes for a mini-shower for my sister, with the help from two sisters-in-law:
Filmed my brother playing a new song in the bathtub. The flashes are me, taking pictures. I get to be a guest on his podcast later this weekend.
UPDATE: Okay, Cary took his video off YouTube, so I'll have to load it myself, but I'm headed for the mountains this morning. I'll re-post it when I get back! In the meantime, enjoy a cute puppy!
