Cleaning things up...one room at a time...

Sometimes, especially in a small house, the clutter builds up rather quickly and turns into one big mess.  The upside to having a small house is that the cleaning is usually faster as well! Lately, it seems, we cannot keep ahead of the mess.

In an effort to keep myself sane. I'm committing myself to have one room of the house that is clean every night before I go to bed.  Ideally, this will rotate.  But, if it has to be the same room over and over again I'm thinking that is not a bad habit to develop.

I'll let you know how it goes...

Happy Birthday Tony!

It's Tony's birthday this weekend!  We are putting garden and house projects on hold to celebrate with a pig roast!

Vegetables, Round 2, 2010

One of the great things about the Pacific Northwest is that the mild maritime climate makes a rather long growing season. Although not the best always for tomatoes (as evidenced by the sea of very green fruit in our yard) it does make it possible to plant some greens and other goodness at the end of summer to enjoy throughout the fall.

Don't just take my word for it...I found this great planting guide for Seattle here by doing a simple google search for "planting guide seattle."

I recently started sowing lettuce seeds in an area of one of our raised beds.  I am sowing a couple of rows every 1 1/2 to 2 weeks so that we have a constant stream of lettuce for our kitchen. 

Today, a little plant store along Leary Way, Walt's Organic Fertilizer Company, caught my eye as I was driving to Ballard.  I stopped in on my way back home to check out their plants.  As you can see from their website, they've got winter veggie starts.  I picked up a few to add alongside the rows of lettuce. 

Can't wait to gobble these up!!!

Red Express Cabbage, Giant Winter Spinach,  & Long Island Improved Brussel Sprouts.  In the background you can see their future home.

Vinyl

My mother recently gave me what is left of my parents' record collection.  Unfortunately, she ditched the player so I haven't been able to enjoy them. I knew I wanted one and on my way to meet a friend popped into a local music store to see if they sell them. (Yes, I tried the Craigslist thing and I would have liked a vintage record player but I was turned off by the avg. price considering the fact that many of the players didn't work)

I had heard that records were making a comeback but I had no idea that all new albums are now being made on records. At least that is what the guy in the record store told me. About 1/3 of their entire store is used and new records.

So I am unwittingly trendy right now...and really not minding it all...

Welcome!

At our previous rental house there were several mature lavendar, rosemary, and sage plants lining the path on the way to the front door.  The aroma was lovely, especially if you happened to brush one of them on the way in. 

We have planted some of each of these plants, but none have grown very large and they aren't really lining the path to the door.  As a stand-in I have planted a shallow terra cotta pot with various types of mint.  The great thing about mint is that it is rather hardy and because it likes to spread it has filled the pot up quickly and looks nice and lush.  I have it on a small table right next to the front door. 

I love that our guests are welcomed by the sight and smell of this planter. Another perk: A planter full of mint at the front door makes it easy to mix up a mojito. :)

Flowers from the Garden

Yeah.  I grew that.

:0)

Chickens

I've been wanting chickens for a while...but I have to admit they would make it even harder for us to go on trips.  And then there is the whole issue of letting them out in the morning.  It is hard enough as it is with the dogs, cat, and now the garden that needs to be watered in the summer months.

My mom sent me these hand-painted chickens for my garden and I will be enjoying them until the time is right to get some live ones :) 

Now I just need to name them...

Hot Sauce!

Tony has been putting hot sauce on everything lately. He has purchased several kinds of sauce and has been going through the bottles rather quickly.  He came home with these the other day to make some hot sauce of his own.

Tony's Habañero Hot sauce*


12-20 Habañero peppers, seeded, diced
2 TBSP kosher salt
2 TBSP paprika
1 TBSP freshly ground black pepper
1 TBSP cumin
1/2+ TBSP ground coriander
5 tomatillos, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
2 shallots, minced
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
1 TBSP olive oil
gloves to protect yourself from the peppers

1. Add everything (except the vinegar) to a pot and cook on medium high for about 30 minutes or until ingredients are cooked down well.

2. Add the cooked down sauce to a food processer and puree.

3. Add vinegar to the mixture and blend in the food processor.

* Note: This recipe makes approximately 3 cups worth of hot sauce so try cutting it in half if you don't put hot sauce on everything you eat. :)  Hot sauce is very acidic so it will keep well in the fridge for a while. Tony put his hot sauce in a sterlized wine bottle and used a vaccum wine bottle stopper for the lid.

Mammoth Sunflowers

I got these black-eyed susans earlier this Spring as a sunflower substitute, in part, because my previous attempts at growing sunflowers have been unsuccessful. Despite the failures in years past, I tossed a few "mammoth" sunflower seeds on the ground this Spring...

I'm feeling pretty lucky right now because the black-eyed susans have been happily blooming for weeks now AND my sunflowers are on track to be HUGE!  The flowers are not here yet and I don't want to be counting my chickens before they've hatched (or flowers before they've bloomed) but the buds are forming and the stalks are standing about 8 feet tall. We have had some extremely sunny days lately and the stalks just keep growing and growing...

Seeing them makes me feel like I am in some sort of magical garden forest. It really is amazing to look at these plants and realize that they've grown from a tiny little seed no bigger than my thumbnail!  I'm going to have to plant many, many more of these next year...

What Would Martha Do?

I went exploring at the Elliot Bay Book Store today. Have you checked out their new Capitol Hill location?  It is gorgeous...and dangerously close to Molly Moo's ice cream shop.

I found this...

It has sooooo many great projects! I think I may have found gifts to make for EVERYONE for their next THREE birthdays! Such lovely photos and step-by-step instructions. Of course everything in the book is beyond perfect but if I can do some of these half as well as Martha I bet you'll be pretty impressed!

Flowers from the Garden

These are radicchio flowers.   Prettiest cornflower blue!

I'm predicting: Pickles and Zucchini Bread

Tiny cucumbers appeared this weekend!  I had been worried because the starts we purchased were not growing, but in the past few weeks they have really taken off. 

I'm hoping they will get to a good size before the fall and I can have a pickling party with some girlfriends. We will probably pickle carrots as well.  I promise to post about it! :0)

We have only planted two zucchini plants but still ended up with more zucchinis than we can reasonably eat.  I'm planning on zucchini bread and I'm looking into other preparations and preserving methods as well.  I may freeze a few for veggie stew or chili.  If you have other ideas or tips for freezing let me know! 

Once there was a wall...

...and now there is a very big hole in that wall...

oh the possibilities...

Sun Tea!

The sun has been out (finally) in Seattle so I've been experimenting with sun-tea.  I've tried mint and I'm planning to try lavendar as well.  I have been combining the mint with teas that I have on-hand.  Today I'm trying out ginger and superfruit cherry and china green tea with mint leaves. 

The yogi teas have great inspirational sayings on the paper tea tags

 so they warm your tummy and heart at the same time. :)

 Combine the herbs and teas in a large glass jar and fill with water. Put the jar in direct sunlinght. Add a couple of lemon or lime wedges for some additional citrus zest. Let it steep for about 4-6 hours, pour over ice, and you will have a refreshing glass of tea!

Flowers from the Garden

Doesn't this picture look like a real-life Georgia O'Keefe painting?