Homemade bacon

Today I used the bacon that Lyn gave me. They grew this pig themselves and the bacon was very different from what I am used to! It is hard to describe, more meaty, less salty and smokey.
I call it BLT pasta. Whole wheat pasta with homemade bacon, cherry tomatoes and parsley. So, I guess it's BLP...!

Sunny with a chance of chicken

Chicken Piccata with whole wheat pasta, served on a bed of 2 cups of baby spinach. Love that lemon and caper sauce-tastes like sunshine!

Lovely day...

For a drive?? I had this pleasure as I ran work errands this afternoon.
Miserable.

Let me take a moment..

To reflect what has kept me away from my poor blog.

Time spent on the southeast coast of Florida. Almost every Friday morning at 6am, you could find me and hubby in line at Midway Airport, trying to be the first on board so we can stow our luggage.  We get up at 3:45am and tear through the house, throwing suitcases in the back of the little car and zoom east toward the airport. It always amazes me how many people are OUT AT THIS HOUR!

Once, we almost missed our flight, due to the traffic!

We make our way towards the ocean, fighting crowds, (and entire families on planes that treat the plane like their family room). 

We virtually run down the gangway to the terminal once we touch down in Florida and the humidity hits like a ton of bricks. The moist air is heavy and it feels like it lubricates the joints. 

It is easy to breathe. The humidity causes even my eyebrow hair to curl and disobey. 

One of the drawbacks, but not enough to stop me!

We search for our rental car in the lot and soon we are headed to our destination. 

My friends here think I'm nuts to jump through all those hoops. 

But we have a spot, where we can check in and walk right thru the lobby to this:

Have you ever just known you were meant to be in a place?

I never have. 

Until I walked onto this beach. 

This has what has kept me away. 

I hope you understand...

These have called my name as well. 

Now you understand???!

A Couple of Turkeys Walk into this Bar...

A visit to a girlfriend's house this afternoon and I got a glimpse of the wild turkeys in the yard! Gracie the Yorkie was not enjoying their company. The male turkey gobbled back at Gracie, who was barking her head off, but the female paid the dog no mind...

This Northern Illinois area is still suffering from drought, so no smart girl in farm town will be complaining about the rainy days. The ground is frozen solid, so the water is simply sitting on the top of the earth, we hope it doesn't all run off...

This girlfriend of mine "grows her own", unlike a gardener, my girlfriend "grows her own" beef and pork. As a family, they raise cows and pigs, several of each at a time, and they sell them and start all over.

As a city girl, I would refuse any of the meat that didn't have a UPC code on it from the grocery store. Many times, I've passed up a gorgeous looking hunk of something because I thought it would taste funny. Somehow, something changed and now I never purchase any meat at the grocery store. My Boss and I split half a cow. Well, I went and got some of the pig, today. A boneless pork roast, grown just miles from here, fed by an 8th grade girl with blonde hair and cowboy boots, I kid you not.

I will be sure to post photos of that lovely roast AND the sweet 8th grader, very soon.

Today, I also came home with a haul of jam. That's another item I had no idea tasted so good, when grown at home.

They glisten like gems, to me!

In the back, is a quart of homegrown organic honey. A teaspoon a day of locally grown honey is the best way I know to cure the symptoms of allergies like runny nose, congestion and all the good stuff that comes with spring allergies! Left to right; crab apple, blueberry, strawberry, red raspberry and black raspberry. Another little jar had just a question mark on the top and I laugh at that one, every time I spy it. My girlfriend canned all this jelly in a short amount of time and it got away from her and a batch of purple is simply marked with ? because she forgets what went in! That very much is her personality in a nutshell!

These jams are much more flavorful than those you purchase in the grocery stores. They taste more like the fruit they are made from, less like High Fructose Corn Syrup, which is what is in so many of them now.

I cannot imagine the work that must go into this, and her generosity comes so easy, she fills a canvas bag for me, not allowing me to leave empty handed, ever!

Before I met this friend, I had only had homemade jam once, the strawberry freezer jam that my mother in law made, she filled little margarine containers full and passed some on to me.

All of this jam giving and meat sharing makes me wonder....what do I share??

I honestly can't think of a single thing I have shared with my girlfriend OR my mother in law.

Surely, I must have something worth sharing?



The White Death is supposed to come, tomorrow, I hope all of my pals are safe and warm and can sit this one out, at home! I really don't believe we will get any amount worth freaking out about, but I freak out about 2", I just try to stay out of the ditch!



Whitefish and greens

Wow. 2 posts in one day!?
Dinner is whitefish and a huge sald with greek dressing and feta cheese. No carbs, sadly...

Just got the urge to post....

Chicken soup with Italian sausage, kale and tortellini on an icy Sunday.

Flax and Follow thru and Florida Bound

Thursday, Rose will be here in the morning and we will take off for the train into the city. 

YAY!!! 

I cannot wait to spend time with an articulate gardener. At the show at Navy Pier, I will be surrounded by thousands of them!! 

No offense to neighbors and non-gardening friends, but this is the time of year that I find myself repeating the same phrases over and over. 

Cut it back. Cut it back. Cut it back.

Wait till it flowers. Wait till it flowers.
Don't cut the foliage. Please leave the foliage. WHY DID YOU CHOP OFF THE TULIP'S FOLIAGE???

In our neighborhood, most plantings are 5-6 years old and they haven't been touched since my neighbors put them in when they built the house. Spirea are reaching the middle of windows, (why spirea are planted as foundation plants, I will never know....), and the perennials are flopping over, begging to be divided.
Does this happen to you?
The neighbors ask you over and have you walk around the yard. They begin asking your advice on this and that, why my grass isn't thick like yours and what should I do with this thicket of pampas grass that I planted in front of the window???
I give my honest opinion, cut this back, move this, when the forsythia flowers, apply $100. worth of crabgrass prevention.
But they never do any of it. I found myself walking another neighbor's yard yesterday, telling her to cut the Knock-outs down to 6" and apply a fertilizer. It is the same thing I told her last year. She didn't do it then and she won't do it now.
In August, she will come down again, her rose bushes devastated by beetles and heat and lack of feed, she will beg me for answers.
Like anything else, I honestly believe success in gardening is dependent on the follow thru. Thinking about winter sowing is one thing. Making a list, purchasing seed, stockpiling soda containers and soil less mix is another thing.
But actually scooping the mix into containers, planting the seeds and getting the containers outside behind the junipers, in January, is the follow thru.

I'm not perfect by any means. Certainly, I have been guilty of being a big talker, proclaiming all the big things I am going to tackle.
But I have red and blue flax sprouting in winter sowing containers behind the junipers. Along with English Daisy and several other perennials.
It still remains to be seen if I can continue to keep the containers watered and remember to open their lids in the morning and close them at night. That is the follow thru, my friends!!

After a long and exhaustive and expensive search, the Darling has decided on her college. She will play volleyball for Florida Tech. In my wildest dreams, I had never imagined she would play volleyball in college. But it was always in my plan for her to lead us back to the southeast.
I would like to thank you all for all your kind wishes. This summer will be a difficult one, The Boy has taken a position in Richmond, VA, leaving for Europe immediately after graduation and then on to Virginia, and the Darling will leave us in August for her college career.
That will leave the Hubs and I alone with Gracie the Yorkie.
I'd better stock up on waterproof mascara. I have a feeling I'm gonna need it.....