Happy, happy...

Pre-Holiday chores got y'all stressed out?
Click here and be magically delivered to Grandma's house.

50 pound turkey? Check. Bushel of sweet taters? Check. Crispy, crunchy runner beans? Oh, yeah. Half dozen pie pumpkins? Hmmm. Pumpkin Pie? That was soooo last year.... try baking up one of these goodies instead!

Bourbon Pecan Sweet Tater Pie
- 1 frozen pie shell
- 2 cups roasted sweet potatoes, peeled and shmooshed
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1.5 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. ginger
- 3/4 tsp. nutmeg
- 3 tablespoons Kentucky bourbon
-------------------------------------------------
- 1 cup toasted pecans (stove top, minute or two, teflon pan)
- 1/4 cup melted butter
- 1/2 cup real maple syrup

Uno: Pre-bake your pie crust for about 10 minutes @ 425 (F).
Dos: Toss the top list into a large bowl. Grab your trusty mixer and beat until fluffy.
Tres: Pour into the pie shell and bake @ 375 (F) for 20 minutes.
Cuatro: Mix up the nuts, butter and maple syrup. Pour over the pie. Pop it back in the oven for another 25-30 minutes.
Cinco, cinco, seis: Have a slice. Or two. Or, three! Hey, it's the holidays. Enjoy it while ya can.

Here's to a lovely weekend, this proverbial calm before the storm. And, happy Thanksgiving to one and all.


* If you click that top link, you'll receive your very own Thanksgiving card from me to you, designed by Jacquie Lawson, a goddess among card creators, even if she does make me pay for a subscription.
** This yummy dessert is adapted from a recipe I discovered on allrecipes.com. Mine, naturally, contains more booze. (Just kidding. That was a test to see if you're actually reading this post...)
*** The Spanish bit is from an old song, from an old band, and if you cannot recall it, then clearly you have better taste in music than me. :)

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day ~ November, 2010

John Cabot Roses (post blooming extravaganza.)

Oh, dear little blog... how I have missed thee. And, my garden, too.

I believe this might be the longest break I've ever taken between blog posts. And, while I do have a great excuse, it doesn't make for a very good story.

Scabiosa ~ Look close. Not just flowering in this frigid world. Bravely putting forth new buds! You grow, girl.

A scary ear infection (Geez! Those things are painful) had me down for the count. I slept away an entire week thanks to Dr. Kevorkian, Jr. ~ that HMO whiz of mine ~ who's answer to any dilemma is... Here! Take more pills.

Euphorbia adds a crazy bit of color to this icy brown landscape.

So, I'm sorry I haven't been over to visit anyone's blogs. And, I'm still not better. But, I am fed up. Enough's enough. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and we've got company coming.

Plus today is Bloom Day! And, I gotta participate! Even if I don't have a single thing worth showing.

Some high in the sky apples, keeping the birdies happy and the horses frustrated:

One tricky little mushroom masquerading as a daisy:

And, Helianthus perennial sunflowers. Which, in my humble opinion, look just as pretty in winter time:


Pay a visit to Carol, author of May Dreams Gardens, who is also the crafty inventor of Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Wordless Wednesdays: Autumn in the High Country

Locals: Find these gorgeous autumn colors along the High Line Trail. For more Wordless Wednesday participants, click here.

Tick. Tock.

The clock on my desk keeps ticking in earnest.

It proudly displays the time... and also the date. As I stare at this gadget I'm quite befuddled on how to proceed. Throw the clock away? It's obviously broken. Ticking through the last months of this year at far too quick a pace.

Orchids ~ all smiles ~ they get to blossom indoors. 

Outside is a whole 'nother story.

It cannot possibly be November 1st. Can it? (Please, don't answer that.) 'Cause I'm not even half way done with my autumn chores.

Surprise snows buried all sorts of tacky garden art.

Winter came in the pesky way it does sometimes ~ too early. Chopping an entire month off gardening. And, horseback riding. And, pretty much everything else this autumn lover loves to do.

Peering out my kitchen window onto the uninvited guest: gloomy weather joined me for morning coffee far too often this month.

Surprise snows, followed by sudden melts. Bad Dog and I slip-slide along the hiking trails like little piglets wallowing in the mud.

During the blur that 'twas the month of October I was gifted with these gorgeous Iris ~ in honor of my birthday. Inching ever closer to the 5th decade, I am now... officially...

... older than I was the last time I had a birthday. :)

I hope y'all had a marvelous weekend.

MURRRRDER!!

I hear them whispering behind my back. Nosy neighbors, witness to crimes unimaginable. And, now they're stirring up trouble:

"It's murder I tell you, murder most foul!"

"This killing spree began early in springtime. We saw with our own eyes how she tortured those little flowers..."

• There was Death by Dehydration. (RIP beloved Canterbury Bells.)
• Death by Shameless Neglect! (I'll never forget you, dear Hibiscus.)
• Death by Strangulation! (Who's got time to pull all those weeds?)
• Death by Scary Critters! (No tippy toeing through the tulips for this little lady.)

 
Death by ignoring which growing zone I actually live in!
Goodbye my little cabbage. The icy fingers of a frosty night squeezed the life right out of you [and the rest of my heirloom veggies.]

++++++++++++

Suddenly, without a sound. Without a warning of any kind...

A crime of passion that should have the neighbors gossiping well into the next decade.

The premeditated murder of every jolly little houseplant that had bugs or refused to bloom... Such senseless brutality!

Whodunnit?
I did it!

I was a lazy, lazy gardener this summer. Forgetting to water, forgetting to weed. I didn't fertilize my flowers even once all summer long. I planted a lot of goodies but my lazy ways upped the body count, big time.

In loving memory of all the little flowers who died waiting for Kate to turn on the sprinklers. I promise to do better next year.

PS: I hope you'z all prepared for a hideous Halloween :)

Feed 'em to the Birds

So you hosted your first (and probably last) Come As You Really Are Halloween Party. And, everyone from the neighborhood showed up.

Including Fat Bob in a pair of Superman tights. At which point, the rest of the crowd decided tequilla shooters might be a good idea, after all. And, then... well... no point in reliving the gory details.

It's only natural you'd want to put this behind you as quick as you can.

Salvage something from this disaster by disposing of the evidence in an environmentally friendly manner.

Lighten the burden on landfills!

Chop up those Jack O'Lanterns and feed 'em to the birds. 

They love it! 

Any leftovers can be tossed into the compost pile.

What's that you say? You don't have a compost pile? Well, maybe you should start one! It's a whole lot easier than bagging up dry leaves.

Lemon-Sage Roasted Chicken

I tried to get all artsy fartsy with the herbs & flavors in this yummy recipe. Though I really should just leave the artwork to Richard Neuman. I love his stuff. (The Sage, Thyme pics are his artwork.)

~ Lemon Thyme is a pretty pink perennial I like to grow in the garden.  
~ Italian Parsley and Cooking Sage do pretty well in the herb garden, too. Though it's not really a garden. It's just a whole bunch of pots on the deck that get hauled indoors at the first sign of nasty weather.
~ Cooking Sage {Salvia officinalis} is different from the ornamental sages that most of us grow in our gardens. These flowers are edible and have a subtler flavor than the sage leaves.
~ Rosemary comes and goes. {She's such a little weenie.} If I forget to water her, even once, she curls up and dies. But that's okay. Dried, crushed rosemary imparts great flavor to chicken and homegrown potatoes.

As for those Lemons? Perhaps some day I'll get to garden in zone 9 Nirvana. Until then they're on the grocery list.

~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Do you ever bite the bullet and roast a whole chicken? There's not much cause to do so these days since the supermarkets happily do that for us. But every once in awhile I love to make this from-scratch version of that bird in the bag so readily available at the market.

• Place the chicken in a large stew pot and cover with water.
• Toss in 2 sliced lemons.
• Plus, one full cup of crushed herbs just like Simon and Garfunkel suggested way back when ~ parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. 
• And, 1/2 chopped yellow onion plus lots of chopped, fresh garlic.
• Put a lid on this mess and let it percolate in the 'frig overnight.

Drain this glorious bird while you're pre-heating the oven to 475 degrees (F.) Put your cast iron skillet into the oven while it's pre-heating.

After about 15-20 minutes, remove the hot skillet, coat it with olive oil and brown the chicken in it. Rub some crushed Rosemary and Sage on the chickie. Then roast in that same iron skillet at 475 degrees for about an hour. (Time depends upon the size of the bird.)

* Now I know what you're thinking... 2 days of effort vs. 10 minutes in the checkout line at the supermarket. Is it worth it? Well... it makes for one ultra-marvy Sunday Dinner. :)

** Dearest Hazel: If you're reading this, it's time to step bravely out of the dark ages and ramp that oven up to a hot, hot 475. (This crazy gal recently confessed that she never cooks anything hotter than 325. (Huh??)