The First Strawberry!

The traditional birthday cake on my mom's side of the family is strawberry shortcake.  I have a June birthday so it is fairly easy to get strawberries at the grocery store on my birthday that haven't travelled too far.  My hope this year is that we might have enough strawberries from our garden...

This past weekend the first strawberry turned red and we've got at least 30 green berries. (No, I didn't count them...ok maybe I did...)

Arugula...aka "The Rocket"

We have a LOT of arugula in our raised bed right now.  I recently was looking for some arugula recipes and realized that this is a common phenomena with arugula because it grows so quickly. 

A friend suggested I try arugula pesto so I adapted a basil pesto recipe from the Joy of Cooking.

It was a hit...especially with prosciutto and mozzarella on BBQ pizza!

The recipe is below:

(1) Blend the following ingredients in a food processor and process to a rough paste:


2 cups loosely packed arugula leaves (you will have to tear these into smaller pieces to fit them in the measuring cup)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano Cheese
1/3 cup almonds
2 medium garlic cloves, peeled (also try roasting them for a milder flavor)


(2) Slowly add 1/2 cup olive oil as the machine is running.


(3) Remove pesto mixture from food processor and add salt and pepper to taste.

Voila!  Delicious spicy sandwich spread, pasta or salad dressing, pizza topping...the list goes on!

Flowers from the Garden

This week...more roses... from a different plant.  You can see they are much more pink and some branches from the overgrown hemlock tree, which sadly must come down sometime this summer.

Flowers from the Garden

My roses are starting to bloom!  I made this boquet yesterday afternoon with some roses and ornamental kale flowers from the garden.

Silver Lining...

April was so very rainy!  I thought (like I do every April in Seattle) that it might never end.  But this weekend was gorgeous.  One of the great things about living in the Pacific Northwest is that the sunny days are so glorious when compared with the overcast days that seem to plague us in months like April.

This morning, I made brunch for Tony and a friend.  As I was setting the table I decided to break out the silver. 

Some of the pieces of my silver "set" have been handed down from the family, like my Aunt Clairabelle's baby spoon, and some are from a set that my dad found at the thrift store.  I like to think of it as treasure because I keep it in a dusty old box and also because it really is quite beautiful. 

The combination of the food and company at brunch were lovely.  And I was in such a good mood because of the sunny skies. But I think that the day had that extra something special because of the silver...which makes me think I should leave it out...just for now...in case those clouds come back.

+

Clairey Clairey Quite Contrary, How does your garden grow?

I know that incessant rain is typical for the Pacific Northwest, nonetheless I find myself in a bit of a funk these days with all the gray skies.  Our vegetable garden and I do not see eye to eye on this.  The veggies are loving the *drizzly weather we have been having!  The lettuce mixes, peas, and strawberries have exploded since the day we first brought them home.  In fact we've lost only one of the plants that we purchased at the early Spring Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale.

Seeing our plants grow during these past two months has been so exciting.  The best part is that we are finally getting to see some of them on our dining table!  The flavor is unbelieveably better than anything that can be purchased at the grocery store.  To that end we hit up the second Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale this weekend and our garden will be expanding.  Here is a list of the newest plants that will be finding a home in our garden over the next few weeks:

List of Plants:
Artichoke
Globe

Tomatoes
Peacevine Cherry
Odessa
Russian Anna
Sweet Millions
Anaras Noire
Flamme

Herbs
Chives
"Curry" plant (smells just like curry though does not taste like it)
Cinnamon Basil
Winter Savory

Edible Flowers
Nasturtium-Whirlbird
Floral Lace Pearl

Pumpkins
Howden

Squash
Table Queen Acorn
Black Zucchini

Onions
Italian Blood Red
Borrettana Cipollini

Cucumber
Marketmore 76

Hops
Tettnager

Berries
Blueberry

Mint
Spearamint

Here's hoping they turn out as well as the others...

Sweet Peas on the Bamboo Trellis built by "moi"

(Left to Right) Garlic, Kale, Broccoli, Eggplant, Chard

(Left to Right) Strawberries, LOTS of Lettuce, Arugula,

Raddichio, Parsley, Basil, & Dwarf Peas

* I should also give a shout out to City People's Garden Store because our soil is a huge part of the equation. Our soil was perfectly formulated with the help of a knowledgeable employee who calculated the exact ratio of compost, to topsoil, to sand for our raised bed.