Category Archives: herbs

Nov19

Saturday’s Simplicity

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Some Saturdays can be activity-filled and complicated with household chores, shopping, and cleaning, “get up and get going” like a weekday.  This crisp November Saturday morning I slept in.  The sunny autumn day Dean and I began with chive & cheese scrambled eggs and cinnamon rolls knowing we needed a substantial breakfast to get the autumn leaf and brush cleaning completed. Dean captured some lovely photos while in the yard.  And my thoughts drift to a subject at hand to facilitate at an employee enrichment class in a couple of weeks.  Simplicity.  Some refer to a simple lifestyle as minimalism.  Whatever you call it, it is living in the present moment, and enjoying life, love, family, and friends.  There are only a few basics to possess … and everything else is just stuff.  It is up to you to figure out what you can live with and what you can live without.  So what can you give away from that pantry, garden, closet, or garage?  What do you need to cling to for substance for your day today?  I have confidence you will make a wise choice.message-on-a-wine-cork

 

Oct5

A Pot Of Green

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The “F” bomb will be coming to our neck of the woods soon enough. I am starting to think about improvisations to ensure a daily diet of greens. My palette has grown accustom to fresh organic arugula and lettuce since May.  I think a fresh pot of microgreens seeded every 3 or 4 weeks throughout the colder months will do it.  I have the ceramic tile floor in the kitchen to put my pot(s) with the patio door to provide light. My herbs feed me nutrients also. Smaller terracotta pots of herbs will be seated in the kitchen window.  The 480 square-foot room addition extending the kitchen into a family room and a small guest bedroom will give a new place for my green friends. There is always a place for green life in my home.  How about yours?  Where do your green friends stay in your home?

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Sep6

Colorful Reflections

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The holiday weekend marked the baptism of our youngest grandchild, Elise. Beautiful evening ceremony.  Lovely child.  God with us.  Labor Day seems to signify the end of summer. Colorful fields with changing hues of amber and purple for the harvest season.  A whole summer of prolific arugula is about to end although my growing season continues with my herbs.  I sowed more leaf lettuce and basil a month ago in hopes to yield a fall crop.  See how mother nature takes her course.  Next year I will introduce a new herb to my quilt of culinary herb patches.  Lavender.  So I will learn how to prepare the soil for my first crop of organic lavender.  Lavender lemonade is my favorite summertime beverage, and a lavender tisane is a soothing, calming herbal tea enjoyed before nap time or bed time. This time next year I hope to harvest my own fresh grown lavender at the Deanna Greens And Garden Art plot seated in Boone’s Hollow Farm.  Not sure if little Elise will be quite ready for a tea party then, but maybe soon in the many days that follow …

Aug30

YOU CAN PUT THAT SALT GRINDER DOWN — Words We Women Write

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Below I share the blog of another blogger I follow on Word Press.  This was written on More Herbs, Less Salt Day, which was yesterday on my birthday.  I never heard of such a day, a good cause for another celebration besides a birthday!  Apparently More Herbs, Less Salt Day originated by a eccentric couple who own Wellcat Herbs.  They grow their own herbs and sell herbal products from their Pennsylvania home and gardens. I share these herbalists’ love of herbs on a part-time basis.

Enjoy this blog …

Here we are, all the way into the August of another year. The garden is exploding. I think that a vegetable garden shouldn’t just be functional…it should be pretty to look at. So come see how my garden grows…and shows. And, yes, I’m here to suggest you put that salt grinder down. Herbs. I love. Here’s […]

via YOU CAN PUT THAT SALT GRINDER DOWN — Words We Women Write

Aug14

The Best Weapon

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Simplicity.  “In a world of complexity, the best weapon is simplicity,” Price Pritchett is quoted.  The simplicity of a garden is one place I find peace in this troubled world. I am an artistic gardener, rather than a scientific one. I love creating an ambiance with green life. The fragrances of fresh herbs after a soaking rain or while harvesting feed my culinary imagination for Dean and I’s next meal, cucumber salad with snippets of cilantro to cool the heat of the summer day. The beauty of August’s blooms set in a simple vase uplifts the day no matter the bad news.  “To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow,” Audrey Hepburn once said.  It takes faith. “Faith isn’t the ability to believe long and far into the misty future.  It’s simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step,”  artist Joni Eareckson Tada tells us. So I  take one step at a time, one seed at a time.  “Faith as a mustard seed can move mountains” as the Bible encourages us.  I believe one simple step of love leads to another and then another.  Those mountains of hatred will move.  Make one simple step towards peace this very evening.

 

Jul13

Pasta Arugula

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I use my abundant, pungent arugula in my salads as well as egg, pasta, and rice dishes these days.  A little goes a long way, so most of my culinary creations as of late include my fresh grown arugula. One important aspect to the culinary arts is that improvisation goes a long way. It is easier to substitute ingredients with cooking versus baking.  I find arugula can be used in place of spinach in most dishes and salads.   There is a taste difference with these 2 greens, but cooking properties similar. Arugula like spinach is a great source of vitamin A and C as well as potassium, calcium, and magnesium.  Arugula grows much like spinach, spring and autumn sowing here in Missouri.

I love creamed spinach! The best I ever had is crafted by the executive chef Gerard Germain. I learned much from the culinary experts while working at Dierbergs School of Cooking.  Chef Gerard dazzles his students’ appetites with Italian and French cuisines. A first generation French immigrant applies his old world culinary magic in the kitchen of a fine Italian establishment in St. Louis called Tony’s. The next best thing is spinach in a white sauce over pasta.  So here is my attempt to a lighter version of Pasta alla Fiorentina … Pasta Arugula (or the Italians say rucola), but my recipe is American-style.  I lessen the butter and use a little olive oil as a base for the slurry as well as use whole milk instead of cream or half & half.  Of course, arugula goes in the recipe instead of spinach.  Noted for the recipe this evening, I cooked too much whole-grain pasta for the amount of white sauce I made, and did not add enough arugula.  Fresh arugula shrinks considerably while sauteed. Tonight I served the Pasta Arugula with locally-made chicken Italian sausage and crusty bread.  I sipped a glass of lavender sparkling water,  and Dean downed a domestic beer this rainy summer evening.Pasta Arugula

Jun17

Earthy Goodness

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“We have learned that more of the ‘earth-earthiness’ would solve our social problems, remove many isms from our vocabulary, and purify our art. And so we often wish those who interpret life for us by pen or brush would buy a trowel and pack of seeds.” Ruth R. Blodgett.

The week-long sunshine and humidity boosted garden growth.  Clean, crisp leaves of arugula and leaf lettuce will make a big bowl of salad for the family crowd this week. My sister is in town from Minnesota, cause for celebration.

Sweat beaded my neckline, and then down my back and chest as I harvest the garden greens. Already 88 at 10 am. Soon salty droplets dribble onto my lips. The greens are almost sweet before the extreme afternoon temps turn them bitter. Are not we all?

The herbs thrive in the summer heat, with plenty of water. More chives need cutting. Snipette of tender dill and cilantro came ready in a couple of days. Next week I will be freezing my surplus herbs for the winter meals. The pea blossoms produced 1-inch pea pods in a matter of a week. Plant scraps are added to the compost. Earthy goodness. Primal to my taste buds. Organic gardening.Arugula.

May8

Mother’s Day Weekend

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My Saturday was filled with caring  for green life, as so many Saturdays and Sundays in the spring time. Dean and I made an early run to the greenhouse as summer like weather was forecasted for the day. Dean mowed the grass while I attended to weeds and watering. Our peas, lettuce, spinach, arugula, parsley, and dill are sprouting. The chive plants are in full bloom. I cut a bundle, and dropped some off to Jack Mac, executive chef  and friend at Chandler Hill Vineyards. He told me how to use the blooms in my cooking this week.  For this weekend I put together a red potato salad snipping my chives and young voluntary dill sprigs into the bowl.

As tradition goes green plants and May flowers fill my Mother’s Day weekend. This year is no exception. Maybe it is tradition from my childhood.  My motherSeeds Quote still enjoys a potted tomato plant and another pot of summer favorites like petunias or geranium. This Mother’s Day I sit on the porch bench surrounded with early morning mist, song birds, and quietness from the world’s busyness. Midnight,  our Labrador joins. He, too relishes the weekly early Sunday morning date with nature. My pots of perennials and annuals complete my sensual needs this morn.

Apr21

Green Passion And The Porch

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As most weekend mornings go, I cannot sleep in long.  Weekday awakening before 5:00am makes it difficult to sleep much past 7:00 am on the weekends.  The weekend to-do-list is long, so Saturdays are packed. On Sundays, I start at a slower place making meditation and prayer a part of my morning. The front porch welcomes a cup of hot honey chamomile tea an inspirational gardening book, and me.  The sights, sounds, and smells of a rain storm bring freshness to the morning.  I became one with the springtime outdoors, crisp breeze and tender green plants and white dogwood blossoms.  A bit shabby from winter life, my potted plants are waiting for a play date with their gardener.  I withheld that Sunday knowing next Saturday will be a better time for gardening.  This time was set aside to rest rather than produce.

Besides my green passion needs to get fluffed up like a flatten feather pillow.  For months my focus has been our house, all those details with a major insurance claim … the funds, renovation, inspections, and the move back in.   There is a good-size pile of paperwork still needs sorting through, but it can just wait.  This gardener needs to get her green thumb out again, play in the dirt, sow some herb and vegetable seeds, design some pots of virid green life.  We had no time to sow in trays, so direct sowing it will be this year.  Better late than never.

Ambitious thoughts for another Saturday, Dean and I spent a good part of the day cleaning gumballs and rocks out of the front yard.  The neighbor’s gumball tree scattered its fruit all over the neighborhood with the help of the spring winds.  The rocks surfaced during the water and sewer line repairs.  Perennials were brought out from the garage.  The babies are seated in the cart while the large potted birds-of-paradise, lemon tree, asparagus ferns, geraniums, and arrowhead plant are now situated in the newly mulched landscape.  Our succulents have been outdoors on the front porch for about a month.  We placed a covering over them with a frost-forecast.  Fortunately March and early April have been mild like much of the winter. The herbs and green leafy vegetables will be sowed next weekend as well as annuals planted in a couple of moss baskets. Only so much time during one day. The journey is a part of gardening, not just the end result … one day at time …one season at a time.

I relax on the porch another Sunday.  This particular morning is special as my two oldest granddaughters join me.  Talking and soaking in the morning sunshine, it is a tender moment indeed like the fresh spring foliage…and more porch Sundays to look forward to.

Feb6

Pancake Morning

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“Talking, talking, pancakes” is what Dean describes our first morning together.  We loves our pancakes!  This Saturday morning is no exception.  This improvising personal chef had one over-ripe banana in the fruit bowl and one bottle of Wells Banana Bread beer left in the refrigerator from the holidays.  This combination created some delicious pancakes. Is it Hermann’s German culture or my German heritage from my deceased grandmothers influencing the weekend menu in this home?  Probably a little bit of each.  Here it is folks … Banana Beer Pancakes with Caramelized Banana Beer Sauce.

This morning Dean and I talk weekend topics over our pancake breakfast.  Errands to run … purchase and install new window blinds in our rejuvenated home, and a tile floor selection for the bathroom.  Then dog food and possible organic vegetable and herb seeds to purchase at the local farmers’ co-op with an afternoon run out to our 7-month greenhouse at Boone Hollow Farm in Defiance, Missouri.  I will get the organic soil turned up today while Dean looks over the structure for winter wear. February brings us closer to spring.  Besides the Groundhog tells us it will be an early spring this year. Spring-like today, but winter returns with frigid cold weather after the weekend. Deanna Greens And Garden Art will start our 4th growing season.  In another 4 or 5 weeks, seeds will be planted in our beds for an early crop of lettuces, spinach, and peas. The garage is too crowded with our extra storage during the house renovations to get the gourd and herb seedlings started on the heating pads.  All direct sowing this year.  Flexibility and improvisations once again.  Life requires it.

“Look around for a place to sow a few seeds.”  Henry Van Dyke