On Sunday we cleaned the house from top to bottom and made a few little improvements. We’ve now got a chalkboard in the kitchen, a slightly–no, very–tacky tall lamp on the sugar box in the living room, and a fancy, frilly brass and marble plant …
Today I went to the Tallahassee Museum with Kris, Sophie, and Jake. We had a lovely time. The Tallahassee Museum is one of my favorite places, a place I have been a thousand times over the course of my life. Every square inch has a …
Sand pears and Turk’s caps are in abundant supply now.
This weekend Rob was out of town, so I was left to my own devices. I made butterscotch brownies and played with the cats. I also picked our very first pears and our first White Globe eggplant . . . and I did a whole bunch of mulching and weeding and got really, really sweaty and covered with gnats. I am a native Floridian and love our terrible muggy weather, but I must say it was nearly unbearable outside this afternoon. The gnats were the worst part. They tickled my eardrums and feasted on my cuts as I worked on extending the stone path under the big water oak behind the vegetable garden.
This morning was my very favorite part of the weekend. I got up early and had butterscotch brownies and Coke for breakfast. Then I brushed Foxy and Carl and Jammer, and everybody was purring like crazy and rolling around, reveling in the creature comforts. Then I went out in the dew and picked pears. I love to go outside really early and see the sunrise lighting up the curving swaths of meadow–the bear paws and rosinweed. The pears were lit up too. I was walking around amazed at the sunrise, the play of light. I was finding interesting mushrooms and petting Babs and eating pears. Our pears are sand pears, the Carnes variety to be exact. They aren’t sickly sweet and mushy like grocery store pears. No, they’re crunchy and tangy, sweet and tart both at once, gritty–and the skin is speckled. I love a good sand pear.
Outside early, in the dew, I saw two spunky mockingbirds . . . and the small friendly box turtle that likes to eat cat food. Whenever I feed the cats I always set out a special bowl for the turtle, and he comes and eats alongside Bernie, Clark, Babs, and Greg. The cats just ignore the turtle (Rob guesses they regard him as something along the lines of a rock), and the turtle never seems to feel out of place in their company. I think what I like about him (the turtle) is that he’s oblivious of his own absurdity; he never seems to feel self-conscious when eating cat food with a bunch of cats.
A funny thing about Kimels–we don’t like chocolate, but we do like coconut. So this is the perfect recipe for me–butterscotch brownies with coconut! I better not make these again or I will be the fattest vegan, but I’m reprinting the recipe below with my …
Last weekend was a pretty typical summer weekend for us. We spent it gathering baskets of tomatoes from our garden (the Romas and Matt’s Wild Cherries are doing so great) and making fresh salsa and other tomato-y things. …
Well, I’m finally getting around to posting about this year’s potato harvest. We planted our potatoes on February 5 and harvested on June 4. We dug 8 pounds, 6 ounces of Red Pontiac potatoes and 15 pounds, 12 ounces of Kennebec potatoes. Since then, we’ve eaten them all sorts of ways, but my favorite fresh potato dish is definitely simple oven fries. We coat the potatoes in plenty of olive oil and season them with salt, lemon juice, and homegrown garlic.
I made a bunch of these sweet, salty peanut-butter cookies to take to Kris’s birthday party a few weeks ago. Obviously, I’m very behind on my posting.
Today’s wholesome vegan lunch
This week we picked lots more tomatoes–Romas, Bonnie Hybrids, Sun Golds, and Matt’s Wild Cherries–and today we used them to make a huge pot of marinara sauce jazzed up with homegrown hot peppers, garlic, onions, basil, and oregano. We served the sauce over some ravioli stuffed with butternut squash, and on the side we had stir-fried kale (our kale is still going strong) and toast with vegan butter.
