Christmas came and went

A tiny snowman cottage in the woods

Now is the time for a post christmas mini Christmas celebration. 

Normal Christmas has too much pressure attached to it so now it's time for tiny Christmas! With all it's tiny, cute, cheerful glory.

Tiny, unexpected packages on each plate.

The distractions of a beautiful autumn

Even though I've been extremely distracted for the past couple of months, I haven't stopped eating all sorts of delicious things, so here is a quick post of all the delicious things I've been munching on since I last posted. And a few of the lovely places I've been. 

One of the most impressively filling but also delicious tasting salads I've eaten. This is from our stop at the Wild Carvery in Burbank, CA. We made a quick stop for lunch on our drive home to Oregon in mid September. 

Last of the sunflowers from my mother in law's garden. 

A stunning example of my mother in law's beautiful front yard.

The first of the fall leaves. We went home for a little fall color but were just a week or two early.

A super adorable, super poisonous mushroom we saw during a little hike in the woods. I was truly shocked that a tiny gnome or fairy didn't peek it's head from underneath this darling little mushroom. Such a perfect little scene it was. 

Matthew's delicious cooking. This was one of the tastiest sandwiches I've eaten in recent memory.  

And finally, my birthday cupcake. From baby cakes, this was a pumpkin spice cupcake. Absolutely delicious! And so fun to eat :)

favorite summer soup

The Garden Zucchini Soup recipe from The City Gardener's Cook Book has long been my favorite summer soup. I realize that "summer soup" sounds a little crazy, so I should probably clarify that this can be served hot or cold. I actually prefer it as a chilled soup.

I started making this as a way to use up zucchini from the garden, back in the days when I was living at home and my Mother would plant a half acre garden. Of course, long gone are those days of picking everything fresh and complaining about having too much fresh zucchini and heirloom tomatoes. Still, I did create my own mini zucchini crisis last week by purchasing too much fresh summer squash at the market and have spent the last week trying to figure out ways to use it up. I have to admit, that feeling of zucchini overload really went a long way to making it feel like summer around here, well, that and the crazy heat wave we've had this past week in San Diego (what? you say 85 isn't a heat wave?).

So, once again, because this book is no longer in print and is, in fact, almost impossible to find I'm going to go ahead and post the recipe to this blog.



Garden Zucchini Soup
6 cups sliced zucchini
1 onion, chopped(naturally, I use shallots)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cups broth
1-2 Tbsp curry powder
lemon juice to taste
salt and pepper

cook veggies in olive oil in a sauce pan for 10 minutes. Add curry powder and salt to pan, cook a further 1-2 minutes, add broth and heat until veggies are soft. Using stick blender, blend soup to smooth consistency. Add lemon juice and pepper to taste.

I love to eat this soup when it is hot but I prefer it even more after it has chilled and the flavors meld in the fridge. I am finding that the easiest way to store soups in the fridge is in a large canning jar. I used to try to stuff the whole sauce pan into my, usually, very crammed fridge but when I was back home the last time I noticed my mother keeps her leftover soup in a half or full gallon sized canning jar, which she has done for as long as I can remember. It is only now that I realize how perfectly this solution works. Vertical storage!!

A San Diego Spring

A few weeks ago, my mother sent me a beautiful mini essay on the beauty of spring in Oregon. It made me miss being back home for the arrival of spring, but it also caused me to look around my own little neighborhood to discover that San Diego has it's own "arrival of spring." It might not be as dramatic a change from winter to spring here in this city with it's pleasant-all-year-round reputation but it's enough to mollify my wish for the usual fresh and vibrant signs of spring.

 A beautiful jumble of daffodils and violas. They are so charming!

 

Beautiful red flowers in a little circle flower bed. 

 

Little Ice Bat

We found this little fellow at an adorable children's toy store in McMinnville, Oregon while we were there to attend my cousin's wedding (back in 2007). As soon as we got into our hotel room in Portland, he decided to take a little nap. He's pretty cute all snuggled up in a giant bed, and he insisted he needed all that room to get a good rest; we believed him.

Appreciating rural-life

When Matthew and I traveled home for the teensiest, tinsiest visit(only four full days) I spent the entire time just soaking in all the joys of rural life with plants and pets and delicious, home grown treats: Home grown strawberries, lettuce, herbs, zucchini and snow peas. The back yard chickens laying eggs. A little organic dairy farm that produces gorgeous, cream laden milk. A lavender farm grown in full view of Mt. Shasta.



I just took a few photos of it all to remind myself of why I can hardly wait to move back to Oregon.


Onions blossoming



Snow peas in blossom and fully grown. They were delicious.





Peeping through the lattice - my mother-in-law's garden is really thriving.






And though I was extremely disappointed with the photos I took of the hops, I've included a couple for the annual hop update - they are certainly bigger than they were last year and have significantly more hop flowers on them. Maybe there will be enough to do something with next year.

cheese and apples...

...but not together.



I made these two delicious cheese tortes for the big party that my family had when we were back home. They got snapped up in just 5 or 10 minutes. Yum!



These apples are lovely. Our family has picked apples from two little trees for years and we used to press cider in late September or October when the apples ripen.



These apples are always green even when ripe.

other pretty growing things

The hops aren't the only things growing well for Matthew's parents; they have lots of lovely little plants. In fact, this year, they have a real, dedicated garden, which I've never seen them have before. It really is adorable. Small and sweet.



For whatever reason I found these blue candle holders charming, probably because they are tiny replicas of a chimneria style baking oven. And, as with last year, I kept taking photos of the lavender.



Not much had been harvested from the garden, just a zucchini and a few pear tomatoes.



Such a cute pair of pear tomatoes



Probably the exact same branch that I photographed at Christmas, but it looks so vastly different in the summer time, still lovely.



A few flowers among the vegetables, for color.



Now, I realize and fully understood at the time I took all these silly bee photos, that many professional photographers have taken amazing bee on a flower photos. There was no reason for me to waste my time with the task, but I still couldn't help myself. The bees were just so cute and fuzzy. I wanted to pet them.

Photos from The New Year

Here are a few photos taken during the first week of January.



Freshly collected eggs


Home made pizza for New Year's eve.


Trends take a while to reach Southern Oregon. And when they do, they are usually way too late to even be considered part of the trend. These cupcakes come from a darling little Frenchish bakery. My mother knows the owner and couldn't stop raving about their buttercream frosting. Unfortunately, none of the Cupcakes they served the weekend after new years were buttercream frosted. But that didn't stop these from being some of the tastiest cupcakes I've purchased.


Such a cute logo on the cupcake box. Too bad the photo didn't turn out well.

Mead Making. We tried to make it a New years tradition a couple years ago(2007), but last year we never got around to making the 2008 batch of mead. This year, we went to the new homebrew store back home and found White Labs mead yeast and decided that we would pick up the tradition again. Expecially since the mead from two years ago is really starting to taste good. This year, we decided to add Heather tips, since we really enjoyed a Heathered mead that a Quaff member made. Also, we suspect that the Honey we purchased may have been a mix of various honeys and probably contained a good deal of Clover honey, which the experts say, doesn't make flavorful mead.


Ingredients.


The little baggies for the heather tips, we made a heather tea.


Putting the honey in the pot.


Heating the mead


Lynnea, stirring the mead


The mead, before we added the yeast and nutrient.