Garden Harvest

We did our first harvest! True it's a small little garden but we got enough for a green salad and tabbouleh fixings. Now if only the tomato plants were big enough to grow some tomatoes. I can hardly wait!

Green leaf lettuce

Spinach

Basil

Yum!

My Burpee Plants

Guess what I found on my door step?

Live Plants!

Burpee shipped me live tomato plants!

They came all packaged up so pretty with all their dirt and leaves intact. I was very impressed with the delicacy used in protecting these little plant babies. At first they looked slightly limp but after some water they perked right up! I ordered three varieties of tomatoes and now I wished I'd ordered more!

As a kid in St. Louis, getting the Burpee catalog every spring was like Christmas. My Dad in particular was always so excited for the day when the catalog arrived in the mail. We'd look through the catalog of seeds and pick our crop of vegetables for the new growing season.

My past living arrangements have limited my ability to grow tomatoes considerably. In our new place we have a ton of patio space just begging to be filled with potted tomato plants.

The three varieties we're growing are a Napa grape tomato (Christian's favorite), the Honeybunch Cherry (described to be as sweet as honey), and the Sun Gold Cherry (super sweet yellow).

Now I'm kind of toying with the idea of ordering the Black Pearl variety. They look totally rad and the name sounds pretty cool too. They are supposed to be super tasty and when chilled are described as tasting like a concord grape with how sweet they are. Yup I might have to order these too.

Now if only the weather outside would improve and stop snowing I could move them to their new location on the patio.

Holy Lemons Draddums!

As an encore to my Lemon blog post Draddums has flooded my counter with Lemons! I was literally dancing up and down when I saw how many there were. I cradled them all lovingly in my arms (including the ugly one) and dreamed up magical ways to crush and squeeze the life out of every one.

The ugly one.

Having had the royal wedding recent on my mind I immediately decided on crumpets with fresh warm lemon curd poured over top. It's so very English and so very delicious especially when served with flowering Chrysanthemum tea.

Lemon curd is at the top of my favorite things list at the moment. It freezes well which is nice considering I don't won't a single drop of precious California lemons to go to waste. Lemons have gotten a bit pricey here in Utah this past month due to some frost problems (or so my Macey's grocer tells me) so my excitement over lemons reached an ear shrieking exhuberance from which Christian's ears may never heal. Do not be overly concerned for his ear health, his painful grimace did not last for plying him with lemon curd did the trick.

Make these!

Crumpets-

Lemon Curd-

Weather is warming up! Climbing and biking outside have begun! Prepare for the photo dump of outdoor adventures!

I had Mrawmin for Breakfast!

Mrawmin (aka Mom) was in town for a week and I FINALLY convinced her to stay in her room at our place. It took a lot of pleading and begging on my part but she relented at last! In order to ensure she stays with us again I might have bribed her with some home cooked breakfast ala Julie style.

Christian squeezed fresh California oranges (from John and Becky's tree) and made some delicious orange juice to go with yummy omelets.

I also made Eggs Benedict over croissants with avocados and hollandaise sauce. We ate these while watching the Royal wedding. It was so romantic!

I think the crowning jewel of breakfasts were the Mascarpone Crepes with raspberries on top. By far the best crepes I've ever had. Make them, eat them, they are divine!

Mascarpone Raspberry Crepes!

This is the crepe recipe from the Laurel Family cookbook. I halved it for 12 crepes.

Crepes

2 eggs

1/8 tsp salt

1 C flour

1 1/8 C milk

2T butter (melted)

Mix eggs and salt. Alternate adding milk and flour whisking to avoid clumps. Whisk in melted butter last and let sit in fridge for an hour (or a long as you can stand to wait)

The filling is adapted from an Emeril recipe.

Filling

8oz mascarpone

4oz cream cheese

3T sugar

1 1/2 tsp orange zest (preferably from John and Becky's tree)

1 tsp orange juice (see above recommendation)

pinch salt

Mix it all together, put a few spoonfuls into each crepe and roll it up. At this point you can put the crepes in a casserole dish and warm them up in the oven till the filling gets a little melty or use a microwave if you're lazy like me:) Finally spoon the fresh raspberries sprinkled with sugar over the crepes. Top liberally with whip cream!