A Time of Acceptance

I love garlic planting time.  You can really learn a lot about your soil when it is fall and the garden has spent a summer being tended (or not).  This is the second burst of good intentions, the first one being the entire month of May when ideas run ecstatically through the garden plan .  Garden cleanup is a confessional time in the gardening calendar. It is a time to look at mistakes, assess [...]

Black Bean and Butternut Squash Chili

This is one of my favorite things to do with butternut squash, and every time I make it, I am reminded of my friend, Robin Holland.  She made it for a mom's group I was a part of when my daughter was a baby and a toddler.  A dozen or so of us would get together once a week, share an amazing meal and, together, relish in the joys and burdens of motherhood.  I still make this often, and every tim [...]

Lost Potatoes and the Simple Garden Dinner

Tonight's dinner was another super easy one and I averted yet another trip to the grocery store. First, I found some feral potatoes. I was turning over a plot of soil in the garden where the potatoes once stood and there they were, gnarly and red, asking why they had been forgotten. After a good scrub down, they got tossed into a [...]

The Rototiller and the Gym

Every year, around October, I join a local gym and start to do arduous things indoors.  I don't love to exercise indoors, but it's a way to keep myself from going a little batty and  it means I can't use our foul weather as an excuse.  This year though, I am waiting a little longer to submit myself to the four walls and the machines and instead I am tillin [...]

Dropsies Dinner and Caffeine

From frugal and fabulous to dizzying drech....that is the risk of the home cooked meal.  Sometimes food blogs just sound a little too easy and full of grace.  The photos are perfectly shot, as if a food stylist lives in house, and the recipes and anecdotes that accompany those perfect shots are always well mannered, well dressed, and say all of the appropriate food things. Precious. Well, las [...]

Frugal and Fabulous

My pantry is small, but pretty well stocked with staples.  Between that and the garden, it's easy to spend a week without going to the grocery store.  I get milk from Family Cow Farmstand, eggs from a neighbor, and a few items at the Burlington Farmers' Market during the summer.  The main thing I go there for is the cheese from [...]

Chicken Broth Medicine and Reconstructed Soup

Last night, I made 2 gallons of chicken broth using 2 chickens from Shuttleworth Farm, an armful of mixed herbs (sage, lovage, thyme, rosemary, winter savory, and parsley), the tops of many leeks, a handful of carrots, some onions, bay leaf, peppercorn, and salt.  I let everything cook very slowly on medium to low heat in a bi [...]

Privacy from the Traffic to the Secret City

I like to plant perennials and woody ornamentals in the fall for two reasons: one, I finally have the time to do it, and two, they benefit from the cooler temperatures and the rainy days.  Today, I am planting a privacy screen between our house and the noisy road we live on.  While it's still a country road, the traffic is such that we cannot simply tune it out. There are cars e [...]