Herb Festival

This past Saturday Anthony's Herb Farm in Brighton held it's annual Herb Festival. I met up with my mother there and wisely limited myself to just a few plants. Anthony's has lovely gardens and so many plants.I bought Lemon Balm, Golden Jubilee Anise Hyssop, a dwarf Joe Pye weed (really good for attracting butterflies) several geraniums because I love geraniums and a mini floribunda rose.There were goats there too from Julia's Herbal Soaps (made with goat milk). I like goats but not as much as I like alpaca.

What I Made with It: Whole Wheat Flour

With the flour I bought from Funder Farm I made Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe is from the new book Good to the Grain, found via Food in Jars. I used a combination of milk chocolate, bittersweet chocolate and semi-sweet chocolate ('cause that's what was lingering in my pantry) and I sprinkled just a little sea salt on top of the cookies before baking. They were buttery and crisp and not overly sweet, just right. Yum!

Tuesdays with Dorie: Banana-Coconut Ice Cream Pie

Oh I was glad to have a recipe that didn't include turning on the oven this weekend. Our temps coasted into the low 90's (blech) and the last thing I wanted to do was actually bake. The pie is pretty simple and only requires some stovetop melting, some food-processing and freezing. I was a little hesitant about using chocolate ice cream but Dorie has never steered me wrong before so I blended the ice cream, banana, run and lemon juice together and topped the delicious crust with the it. The crust was seriously good, I'm already scheming more uses for it. I couldn't locate the cookies Dorie uses so I used another brand of shortbread cookie. All and all it was a yummy, cool recipe for the first hot Memphis weekend. Thanks to Spike of spike.bakes for this week's selection!

What I Made with It: Strawberries

Last week I was off on Wednesday, which allowed me to visit the Farmer's Market at the Memphis Botanic Gardens. Typically I can't make it because it's from 2PM-6PM and by the time I get over there after work (around 5:30PM) most of the goods are gone or picked over. But I got to go early this time and bought the following: strawberries from Jones Orchard, broccoli from Tims Family Farm, whole wheat flour from Funder Farm, honey from Peace Bee Honey and a St. John's Wort plant (not pictured) from Patsy's Herb Farm (I think, I can't quite remember).I thought this week I'd post about what I did with each item I bought, starting with the strawberries.On Thursday morning I made myself a Nutella-Banana grilled sandwich and ate it with a side of fresh strawberries. Warm Nutella is heaven I tell you, HEAVEN, the 'recipe' for the sandwich is from Everyday Food but I can't find it online. Essentially it's just two slices of crust-less wheat bread, lightly buttered on the outside, filled with a healthy dose of Nutella and a sliced banana and then cooked over medium-low heat until the bread is lightly browned (like 3-4 minutes).

In perusing some other Memphis blogs I found The Chubby Vegetarian and these posts about making popsicles. I remembered I had a popsicle mold that I had never used somewhere and I went about digging it out. I mixed up a batch of popsicles using the remaining strawberries I had bought, some sugar, a splash of lemon juice, a chug of Triple Sec and a few springs of mint from my garden. I threw everything in my food chopper until it was pretty smooth and then poured it into the molds. The molds hung out in the freezer overnight and then I got my first taste of them on Friday, just in time for our hot, muggy weather. They were so good, light and refreshing. I ordered a few more molds from Amazon that are silicone so maybe they'll be easier to unmold since I did have one popsicle that got stuck.

Gaenor - another complete knitting project

I was able to finish another knitting project, the Gaenor shawl. I started it April 19 and finished it May 15 (Saturday). The yarn is Malabrigo sock in Lettuce (favorite color ever) which I bought in Austin at The Knitting Nest. The pattern is garter stitch with a little lace on the edges, easy peasy. My blocking job is kind of crappy but you get the general idea. I did 15 repeats and used a little less than a skein of yarn.I've started another shawl, in an effort to 'forget' about the 1.5 seed stitch sleeves I still have to knit for my Minimalist sweater. The yarn is Pico Accuardi bought at Fancy Tiger in Denver. I love the colorway because it reminds me of hydrangeas but it's turning my hands blue. The pattern is Centrique.

Garden Update 2010: Week 10

Peas! Peas! Peas! They lived, they bloomed, they made peas! Hallelujah!Swiss chard, almost ready to eat (provided the slugs don't get to it first)Two kinds of green beans blooming and making baby green beans, I picked a little bowl full this afternoon.Tomatoes growingPepper almost ready to pick

I bought a few more things over the weekend to fill in the gaps.
Okra (since my seeds never germinated) & eggplant & cherry tomato plants & cantaloupesYellow zucchini

Tuesdays with Dorie: Apple-Apple Bread Pudding

This week's selection was bread pudding - my favorite dessert. I tinkered just a little with the recipe, halving it and then using egg beaters in place of a few of the eggs. The caramelized apple slices and the apple butter made it a very unique bread pudding, I loved it. I used challah for the bread and it was delicious. Thank you to Elizabeth of Cake or Death? for this week's selection.

Music in the rain

What a warm and rainy weekend we had. Saturday night we had tickets for the Big Star tribute/concert at the Levitt Shell and sat with these friends. The rain held off for a little bit and then started up about an hour into the show, luckily it wasn't torrential. It was a very nice concert and the Shell is a great outdoor venue, I'm looking forward to the new season of shows there.

Ishbel - a completed knitting project

I finished and blocked Ishbel a couple of weeks ago and got to wear it while I was in Colorado. It

was a fairly quick knit because it was so small. In retrospect I would have knit the larger version because I'm almost positive I had enough yarn. I knit it up with Dream in Color Smooshy in Grey Tabby, bought at Close Knit in Portland and it was mostly knit on my trip to Texas. I also knit pretty tightly and used a smaller needle than called for which added to the mini-size. I ordered blocking wires and pins from Knit Picks and the wires made blocking the little points SOOOO much easier. The heart shaped pin is from Designs by Romi and was my birthday present to myself. I really like her pins and I've got my next purchase planned.

Orange Chocolate Macaroons

I doubt these could be more simple, egg whites + sugar + chopped bittersweet chocolate + orange zest + sweetened flaked coconut, that's it. Prep time - somewhere around ten minutes (chocolate chopping and orange zest-ing). Baking time - 26 minutes (at least in my oven). From bowl to belly in around 36 minutes. Recipe from the Sweet Melissa Baking Book.