Arkansas Visit - Day One

Yesterday we headed out to Arkansas to visit my mother and my sister. We got up at normal work wake up time - 5:00 a.m. The drive is 6-7 hours, so it isn't too challenging. We stopped about an hour in for breakfast, and just past Memphis for lunch. Things went well, the Gnomeslayer fell asleep shortly after we got back in the car. We drove for about another hour and had to stop for a bathroom break. Unfortunately when we stopped GS woke up and started crying and fussing. We tried stopping and letting her out for a while, but whenever we got back in the car she would start up again. We were about an hour from Conway, our destination so we went ahead and pressed on. After a very LONG hour we finally got to our hotel.

My sister came and picked me up, and the GS and I headed over to her place for a visit. We went to the Peyton Creek Catfish House for dinner. When I was planning for the trip, I looked up Conway restaurants and saw this place got very good reviews. It was supposed to be a family-type place, with no frills but good food, and extremely good catfish. My sister and her husband had seen it but never eaten there so we headed out. It was true to the review for the most part. It was very no-frills and basic, the food was served on an all you can eat buffet. The catfish was probably some of the best I have ever had, unfortunately the rest of the food was pretty mediocre. I tried to take some pictures inside but it was so crowded that I couldn't get any good shots.

This place was way off of the beaten path, with fields and woods around it. There was a pasture with horses so I took GS over so that she could see them. While we were standing by the fence I looked down and saw this:

There was a passionflower vine growing along the bottom of it and was in full bloom. I tried growing one of these in my backyard and it didn't work, and here is one growing wild along a fence. Go figure. :)

The Gnomeslayer

I thought I should introduce an integral member of my blog team. This is my baby girl, The Gnomeslayer. I went to visit a local nursery, 4-Ever Green in Ryland, AL. My husband was going to be out running errands and I thought it would be fun to take her out and let her run off some energy. 4-Ever Green is a fairly small nursery, but you can find some interesting things there. For instance, the pottery globes up above. You can put candles down in them and light them up at night.

They also have some really nice big pots. If I ever win the lotto I'll get one. ;)

The Gnomeslayer also had her first encounter with a cat. I don't think the cat was too impressed, but my little girl loved it. :)

Seven Hours Later....

I set out with ambitious plans on what I was going to cook this weekend. I picked three recipes from Stews, Bogs and Burgoos - a pork goulash, a beef stew and Brunswick Stew. Needless to say, my plans quickly got modified. Friday and Saturday ended up being more hectic than I'd planned, so today was the only day that I really had time to do intensive cooking. So since the Brunswick Stew had more of the different meats that were taking up room in the refrigerator I decided that's what it would be.

For those not in the know, Brunswick Stew is a regional specialty found in various locations in the South. It started out as a hunter's type stew that had squirrels, pork and beef. Since squirrels aren't exactly popular and easy to get these days, chicken has taken their place. Let me aside here and say that I was first introduced to Brunswick Stew eating at a Smithfield's restaurant in eastern North Carolina. Often we would make a Smithfield's run and I would get a couple of bowls of stew and eat it with hushpuppies. So I have very preconcieved notions of what Brunswick Stew should taste like. When we moved to Alabama, I found that there were some differences. The stew that I was used to was more tomatoey and thick. It only had pork and chicken in it (I'm assuming because the restaurant didn't have anything else with beef in it so it wasn't practical).

So I started cooking at around noon. The recipe started out with browning some bacon, then browning the chicken and beef in the bacon grease. Then sauteeing the onions and green peppers. Then you combined it all in a pot, along with a ham hock, tomatoes and spices. Then it had to simmer for an hour. Then you took out the chicken and let the rest simmer for an hour and a half. Then you took out the ham hock and picked out the meat from it. Then added in lima beans, corn and okra and cooked for another half hour. Then added in some mashed potatoes that you cooked in the meantime. Unfortunately when I was skimming through the recipe I missed the part about the additional hour and a half, and it was already around 4:30 and we still had forever to go. We gave up and ended up going out for takeout since the Gnomeslayer was getting cranky and hungry and so was the husband. So I finished it off when we got home.

It turned out pretty good, different than what I am used to, but good. I had never had beef in the stew before so that was definately interesting. This was the first time I'd ever cooked anything with a ham hock and it did add in a lot of smoky flavor and some body to the stew, once you get over the creepiness factor of the way that they look. I can safely say that if I want the stew again I am going to find an easier recipe because this one took WAY too long. I have made easier recipes that tasted as good to me.

Peach-O de Gallo

My boss went on vacation a couple of weeks ago, to Hilton Head, SC. When she came back, she brought me a present, a sampler of fruit salsas. There were several varieties - peach, mango, pineapple, raspberry and pomegranate. The only ones that I really cared for were peach and raspberry versions. The fruit in the others had an overpowering presence and I just didn't enjoy them. So I got to wondering how it would be to make a fresh salsa with peaches, and here's what I made. First, the peach that you use shouldn't be too ripe. It needs to have a fairly firm consistency. I used cherry tomatoes sliced instead of chopped - I got this idea from the bruschetta at Macaroni Grill. I really liked it and plan on making it often. The flavor of the peaches is really not overpowering, and the counterpoint of the lemon juice and salt makes it so that it isn't too sweet.

Peach-O de Gallo

1 peach, peeled and finely diced
1 container cherry tomatoes or 1 whole tomato, finely diced or sliced
3 green onions, washed well and finely chopped
1 poblano pepper, seeds removed and finely minced (if you like hot food use a jalapeno)
1 Tbs. fresh cilantro (dried is not the same)
Juice from one lemon
Salt to taste

Combine in a bowl and mix well. Tastes better after it is chilled for a couple of hours.

Break!

I am finally on break between classes for a few weeks. Time to catch up on spending time with family, gardening, reading and relaxing. When the Gnomeslayer and I went out for a walk I noticed that my toad lily has finally opened up.

Welcome Home is blooming again. In fact, all of the roses seem to be doing better. I think the threat of getting evicted made them straighten up and fly right.

The bee balm has finally started blooming too. Funny what happens when you aren't watching. :)

Cookbook Roundup - Week One

Weekend One of the Cookbook Roundup is finished. I really enjoyed being back in the kitchen and making something that wasn't pre-processed. In respect of Mr. Villas' copyright I am not posting recipes, but if you see something that interests you, let me know and I'll share my adaptation. Today I cooked the Delta Red Beans and Rice recipe. I had to make a few substitutions because I missed a few things on my shopping list. First, as you might notice, I used Great Northern Beans instead of kidney beans. My husband is not a fan of beans and he only likes white or black beans. I don't mind because I like all of them. Also, I missed getting a green pepper at the grocery store so I made it without it. I can't say that I missed it, cooked green peppers aren't my favorite thing.

The second recipe that I cooked was Colorado Curried Lentil Stew. I have been a fan of lentils since I was a young E-3 in the Marine Corps living on a tight budget. Whenever I make lentil stew it reminds me of my Uncle Roger. Roger had seven kids and never had much money. He did love to cook though, and most times when we visited him he would be puttering around in the kitchen. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. This recipe turned out very good. Thankfully the husband likes lentils too. Curry is something that had to grow on me, but I am very fond of now. I had to do some adaptations from the original recipe due to differences in things that I had on hand. The nice thing is that I have enough leftovers for lunches for the week.

So now to pick out next weekend's recipes.

• Pork Goulash Ritz-Carlton
• Liz Clark's Iowa Coffee Beef Stew
• Georgia Brunswick Stew
  

Lythrum & James?

You know, Elle has to be one of my best performing roses ever. On Tuesday evening I trimmed her up, gave her a good watering and treatment for black spot. There are blooms all over her now and they smell amazing. The Gnomeslayer loves to smell of them now too. I cut one for her and gave it to her and she carried it around for a while burying her face in it. For the last couple of weeks we have had amazingly good weather for the Deep South. Mild weather, no humidity...I even had to wear a jacket one morning it was so cool. Last night we had really heavy rains blow through, and it felt like a sauna out today. As I was walking through the yard I could feel the steam rising up from the ground. We've had some very dramatic skies too, and the clouds were lined up like soldiers on a battlefield today. Too bad I didn't have my camera with me. And my camera, bless it's heart, I've dropped it twice now on the concrete and it's still working. Good thing it seems to be a robust design!

So on to the title. I've been hearing a lot lately about the Julie & Julia movie. I've read her blog some and thought it was pretty interesting, but I really have zero interest in French cooking. It did give me an idea though. I have a pretty big collection of cookbooks, most of them American or Southern cooking. Most of them I have either cooked one or two recipes from, or none. So I thought it might be neat if I picked out one of them at a time and worked my way through the recipes and tried to cook them all. So I think I am going to start with Stews, Bogs & Burgoos by James Villas. James is my very favorite cookbook author. I love reading his stories about how he came across certain dishes. He's more of a foodie than I am, I'm not so much of a purist and I'm not going that far out of my way to get special ingredients. Most of my cooking is done on the weekends because I don't have time during the week. I have three day weekends, so I could theoretically get at least three done a week. I guess that is going to be my target to start with.

I do have some rules, because I doubt that I'll be making all of these recipes:

• I don't do organs.
• I don't do seafood.
• I don't do lamb.
• I don't do veal.
• I don't do mushrooms.
• I don't do olives.

So if there is a recipe that heavily features one of these things I'm probably not going to cook it. I guess we'll see how it works. :)

Evicted

Firstly, here is my latest acquisition - 'Cracker Red' miniature rose. I loved the deep red color and the intricate petals. I didn't really need any new plants, but sometimes they just catch you off guard.

I have had a hard time both keeping up with the garden and with blogging. The scree garden, while good in theory has been a pain in the arse in execution. There are various issues:

• To make the garden we layed down landscape fabric, added in a mix of sand and soil, and then added some gravel on top. Plantings of creepy, crawly plants were added on the edges.


• The first problem came from the grass around the edges. It started creeping over the border and making its way through the gravel. Compared to the packed clay in the rest of the lawn, once it got into loose, friable soil it went crazy.


• Birds have been frequenting the garden and leaving poke stalk seeds in their droppings. There are poke stalks popping up everywhere. I used to eat poke a lot when I was growing up, but I'm not so into it now.


• There is some other low growing weed that is spreading like wildfire in the garden and I can't seem to get rid of it.


• Planting horsetails by my pond was about the stupidest thing I have done. They got down through a hole in the landscape fabric and now I'm pulling them up five feet away, where they have popped up through other holes in the landscape fabric.


• The callirhoe that I got last year didn't do much. So I moved it and it went nuts. It started getting long and lanky and killing the thyme that was under it. I was in a bad mood when I went out back and saw the mess that my garden was and it got uprooted and tossed. I liked the flowers on it, but not the growth habit. Maybe if I had more time I could see about keeping it trimmed, but anything that requires a lot of maintenance right now isn't happening.

I like the idea of the scree garden, but I'm going to have to do some modification this fall. I think I'm going to remove all of the gravel, soil and landscape fabric. I'm going to try to get the horsetails up. I'm going to have to see about doing the edges better to keep the grass out. This time I think I'm going to put down a couple of layers of landscape fabric this time. I am going to put only gravel on the pathways and just cut through a couple of places to plant the plants in. So far the plants that have worked out best are ice plant, creeping phlox elfin thyme and creeping thyme. The rest of the plants can't seem to stand up to the heat put off of the gravel when it's baking in the hot Alabama sun. I have quite a few phlox so I'm going to see if I can find some different ice plants to add in.

My roses are another issue that I'm worrying around. It's just hard to fit in taking care of really maintenance intensive plants. I've actually been thinking of digging up my roses and getting rid of them, except for a very few special ones. I have some of the more maintenance free plants that are ready to divide - daylilies, dahlias, coneflower and black-eyed susans. I am thinking about redoing the bed in front of our bedroom at least, with plants that have flowers longer in nthe season.

One More Day

Last year I got frustrated with the Peruvian Daffodils that I planted in the spring and I pulled them up. The blooms were spectacular but they lasted maybe two days and then were gone. The leaves were big and floppy and overall I wasn't happy with their presence, so I pulled them up. So imagine my chagrin this spring when 'lo and behold they started coming up again. Having been really lazy this spring I kept meaning to pull them back up again but kept forgetting. A few days ago I walked out of the house and noticed a bud coming up. So my daffodills are on reprieve for a while. We'll see if I remember why I left them when I get tired of their foliage again.

I have one more day of work and then I will be on holiday weekend. It'll be good to get a long rest. Or as much of a rest as the Gnomeslayer will give us. :)

Could I Leave My Garden?

Gail asked this question on her blog, and it made me think back to when we left North Carolina. I had been working on my garden there for five years. And then when we got here in Alabama I started my new garden with a lot of lessons learned. The main lesson is to keep it small and manageable, especially since I am so busy with so many things. My living room is bigger than my garden is now. I am also gardening only in raised beds, decided after one look at the clay soil here.

I am already looking to my next garden, even though we aren't leaving here anytime soon (that I know of). Working in the defense industry is almost akin to being in a band of gypsies, you never know where you're going to end up. I definately have a better idea of what to look for in our next house. :)

Nile Crane

The blooms on my Nile Crane daylily finally opened after teasing me for a long time. I always felt slightly conned because although it is beautiful, it was advertised as being fragrant and I never could smell anything. Today for the first time I could smell a sweet, delicate fragrance on the flowers and I was happy.

I've been pretty busy for the last week or so, not really in the garden, but in weaning my daughter. I have to keep her busy and wear her out so that she falls asleep easily at night. Spending time sitting down and typing, with the chest in easy reach isn't in the cards right now, alas. :)

The Freight House

We have a new favorite place to eat now. It is in Hartselle, AL about a 45 minute drive from here (shorter if the spouse is driving!). It is the Freight House and it is located in a renovated railroad building. If you look at the picture you can see that I got it snapped just as a train was going by. I was also unknowingly blocking traffic while I was waiting for the perfect shot. :) Don't bother looking for a sign on the building because they don't have one.

The decor is really neat and the food is spectacular. It is basic downhome Southern cooking an the Sweet tea is spot on.
I loved this lamp, with the bubbly glass.

This clock was enormous and cool looking.

And I really, really want this gryphon in my back yard!

I Hate to Say It...

But I haven't been much into blogging for the last week. I am in the final week of a college class and I've been busy writing papers. I seem to be losing my mind because I'm getting forgetful and easily distracted. I'm looking forward to the three week break that I'm getting between classes. I'm really over the whole college thing and burnt out, but with the uncertainty at work any extra advantage will help. So I'm hoping to get back into writing a little more after next week. :)

Succulent Bird Feeder, Take II

Last year, I posted about a bird feeder that I had seen in a magazine. It had a planter in the roof that you could plant succulents in. I thought it looked really neat, and my dad made me one. I got it planted with a variety of plants and got it put up. There was only one small thing that I overlooked...it rains in Alabama, and it rains a lot. All of the dirt washed out of it, leaving behind some sad looking succulents. I knew that I needed to do something but I was stumped, that is until I had a revelation.

Back about 10 years or so ago Martha Stewart had a succulent wreath featured in a magazine. You used a wreath form ad had soil wrapped with sheet moss, poked holes through it and planted the succulents. So I decided to pack sheet moss around the plants and see if that helps. I probably still need to bring it in if it's going to be a lot of rain, but we'll see how it works.

Now I can pretend like I am Aiyana and grow lots of succulents!

Various Notes

It just goes to show that no matter how hard I try they are never gone. I have been trying to weed out the primrose that I had planted in the front garden bed and I found this one (with a few friends) growing in the azalea. I am still weeding out some of the horsetail from around the pond too.

We also have some other guests in the front bed, courtesy of all of the rain that has been falling lately.

Poor Elle is still soldiering on in spite of my benign neglect this year. I have been so busy with work, school and trying to keep up with my baby that roses have had very little of my attention. That combined with all of the rain and dampness have given her a really bad case of black spot.

The 'Husker Red' pentestemon blooms have finally opened up.

And the coreopsis that I bought earlier this year is making after a rough start. It's a good thing that I've been buying tough plants. :)

A Crafting Interlude

Some explaination is necessary. My boss is a pretty flambouyant dresser with a fondness for leopardskin. Aside from that she's a pretty conservative gal which led our planner to make a joke about her being Amish. We started laughing, imagininh an Amish lady in a leopardsin bonnet. So when it came time for her birthday I decided to make her a teddy bear, complete with the aforementioned bonnet, complete with gold ric-rac trim.

We're going to surprise her with it, along with her real gift, an Amazon gift certificate to buy books for the Kindle she is supposed to be getting. It took me forever to make the bonnet and dress, because I had help from a 17 month old. ;) So finally I got it cranked out this weekend since her birthday is Friday. I hope that she enjoys it. ;)

Ego?

I'm trying to figure out if this is the Ego iris I planted last year. Too bad I lost the tag. ;)

Mother's Day

I have a new mother to feature or Mother's Day. Early this morning we were taking the Gnomeslayer out for a walk. I happened to glance over at the fence in the corner of the garden where the Lady Banks rose is and saw a robin sitting there. It finally fell into place for me that she has a nest in the corner where the fenceposts meet. She's been flying around this morning with worms and fretting around when we are back there. Here's where it is:

I tried to circle it but it's still hard to see it. It's where the top rails and fencepost meet. It's a pretty good spot since the rose will hide her nest from just about everything. The only problem is that today was a day that we planned to do some gardening, since it only barely misted. I don't think that most of you realize how small my garden is. It's probably about 20'X20' so wherever we are when we work in it is pretty close to her nest. I'd actually planned on moving some of the plants around there but we decided to minimize what we did around there today. Since it doesn't take that long for robin babies to grow up we're going to leave her alone.

Here is our other buddy living in the garden. I don't know if it's a him or a her, but GS and I see it frequently when we go out to check on the garden. I was able to get a real closeup yesterday, which I'm sure didn't please him.

In other news, here is my new Laura Bush rose that I got this spring. I tell you, living with my $50 plant budget this year hasn't been easy, but this was one exception that I made. It's a really lovely dark orange/salmon color and has a lovely fragrance. I'm still trying to figure out it's final placement, with all of our rearranging that we're doing.

And finally, the blue flax that I planted two years ago finally put on some blooms. It's nice that my garden is maturing a little so that things are blooming more.

Where's my Ark?

It rained yet again today and we had tornado warnings. I heard that a tornado actually touched down a couple of miles from where I work. We had to go hang out in the hallway for about 20 minutes while the storm went over. Definately not my favorite way to spend the day. So on a good note, the plants are still going nuts. The iris pictured above is the deepest purple color that I have seen. Unfortunately it doesn't come true in the picture and looks lighter.

The Peppermint clematis is covered in blooms and they are starting to open up.

And the mountain laurel buds have opened and it is so beautiful. Last year there were three buds total on it. I wouldn't volunteer to count them this year. ;)

Green Thumb Sunday 5-3-09

It's been raining here since about Wednesday, and it looks like no end in sight anytime soon. Yesterday I went outside in a lull and took the Gnomeslayer for a walk to burn off some of her energy. I found quite a few interesting things going on. My Betty Corning clematis, pictured above is putting on a lot of growth, as well as blooms.

I found this Acadian Miss louisiana iris blooming behind a hedge.

My mountain laurel is getting ready to explode with blooms.

And another gratuitous shot of Joseph's Coat. Yes, I have other roses but they aren't as convenient to take pictures of. ;)

Siberian Irises

Last year I bought a mixed collection of 25 Siberian Irises from Roots & Rhizomes. I picked out one special named variety but I can't remember what the name was. :( I planted them all around the house in various beds. I was disappointed last year because only one bloomed. I was worried that they would be a bust. And then when I was outside this weekend I noticed that there were buds all over them. They finally opened up yesterday and I got some pictures. I don't know which type any of them are, especially because I forgot where I planted the named one that I got. Maybe I'll be able to recognize the color on it. And maybe I'll start keeping better records. ;)

And last but not least, I had planted a baptisia a couple of years ago and it has languished around and never done anything. Until this spring that is. :)