![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
derekl_1963Pardon the one longish and rambling post, but it's better than a bunch of semi-connected smaller posts I think.
Well, the great storm bandied about by the weather pundits simply didn't happen for us - just a few flakes mixed with rain on Thurs and Fri. I even tempted the weather by leaving the van in the alley rather than facing it out in the driveway as I normally do when a storm is pending. No dice.
Onward to the weekend - gardening and food!
Friday:
Dinner was absolutely wonderful. I had a few extra apples so I conceived a dish with browned pork chops and sauteed apples. At the last moment, I realized my plan of adding a not-sweet note with dried cranberries was not what the dish wanted. Instead, I quickly ground up some white pepper and added it with a touch of mace and a whisper of nutmeg and finished with a little bit of (undiluted) concentrated frozen apple cider. Served with some Stove Top stuffing and a nice salad - much yummy!
Saturday:
Spent the morning at Fred Meyer shopping for plants and waiting in line for the free potting service they were offering. In the afternoon we went over the Dream Dinners in Poulsbo and made a stack of dinners for the freezer. Yeah, they are a bit pricey but it's fun, the food is tasty, and the dishes help kick me out of my rut and inspire my own cooking. (Fridays dinner was in fact a spin off of a dish they offer.)
Dinner however was a creation of my own: I brined some chicken breasts, then poached them nice and low so they'd stay juicy. While they rested, I sauteed some sliced mushrooms and as they were finishing I wilted some baby spinach in the same pan. I sliced the chicken breasts thin, laid them in a tortilla with the spinach and mushroom mixture, then topped it with mozzarella cheese and wrapped it all up and served it forth with a salad of spring greens. Mmm.... They only change I would make in the future is maybe a bit of herbs in the spinach-and-mushroom mixture, and either add some Romano cheese or substitute entirely for the Mozzarella as overall it was a bit too rich without much in the way of complementary flavors.
Sunday:
We looked at the plants we had bought they day before, and decided we weren't entirely happy with the potting job. The soil they used wasn't very good, and in my pots there wasn't any screening over the drain holes. Brenda worked some better soil in and around her plants, while I centered mine better in the pots, worked in some better soil, and dug down and put in drainage screens.
Dill, rosemary, and thyme in the square pots. Four pots full of fuschia for the front porch. Lavender (left front) because Brenda likes lavender. All sitting inside the sliding door in the dining room with some random houseplants because it's too darn cold for them outside. I set them outside today to get a little sun once it warmed up - which along with bringing them back in will, I suspect, will be part of my morning routine for the next couple of weeks.
Brenda spent the afternoon digging out a bed by the front walk for some iris bulbs. Along with my culinary herbs this is part of a multi-year plan to expand the plantings in the yard/garden and to beautify the yard.
Well, the great storm bandied about by the weather pundits simply didn't happen for us - just a few flakes mixed with rain on Thurs and Fri. I even tempted the weather by leaving the van in the alley rather than facing it out in the driveway as I normally do when a storm is pending. No dice.
Onward to the weekend - gardening and food!
Friday:
Dinner was absolutely wonderful. I had a few extra apples so I conceived a dish with browned pork chops and sauteed apples. At the last moment, I realized my plan of adding a not-sweet note with dried cranberries was not what the dish wanted. Instead, I quickly ground up some white pepper and added it with a touch of mace and a whisper of nutmeg and finished with a little bit of (undiluted) concentrated frozen apple cider. Served with some Stove Top stuffing and a nice salad - much yummy!
Saturday:
Spent the morning at Fred Meyer shopping for plants and waiting in line for the free potting service they were offering. In the afternoon we went over the Dream Dinners in Poulsbo and made a stack of dinners for the freezer. Yeah, they are a bit pricey but it's fun, the food is tasty, and the dishes help kick me out of my rut and inspire my own cooking. (Fridays dinner was in fact a spin off of a dish they offer.)
Dinner however was a creation of my own: I brined some chicken breasts, then poached them nice and low so they'd stay juicy. While they rested, I sauteed some sliced mushrooms and as they were finishing I wilted some baby spinach in the same pan. I sliced the chicken breasts thin, laid them in a tortilla with the spinach and mushroom mixture, then topped it with mozzarella cheese and wrapped it all up and served it forth with a salad of spring greens. Mmm.... They only change I would make in the future is maybe a bit of herbs in the spinach-and-mushroom mixture, and either add some Romano cheese or substitute entirely for the Mozzarella as overall it was a bit too rich without much in the way of complementary flavors.
Sunday:
We looked at the plants we had bought they day before, and decided we weren't entirely happy with the potting job. The soil they used wasn't very good, and in my pots there wasn't any screening over the drain holes. Brenda worked some better soil in and around her plants, while I centered mine better in the pots, worked in some better soil, and dug down and put in drainage screens.
Dill, rosemary, and thyme in the square pots. Four pots full of fuschia for the front porch. Lavender (left front) because Brenda likes lavender. All sitting inside the sliding door in the dining room with some random houseplants because it's too darn cold for them outside. I set them outside today to get a little sun once it warmed up - which along with bringing them back in will, I suspect, will be part of my morning routine for the next couple of weeks.
Brenda spent the afternoon digging out a bed by the front walk for some iris bulbs. Along with my culinary herbs this is part of a multi-year plan to expand the plantings in the yard/garden and to beautify the yard.
