Tag archive for spring

There is a For Sale sign in my front yard. I was at home the afternoon it went up – a friendly guy stopped by to make sure we were indeed selling our home before he installed it. As we chatted back and forth for a minute, he said he hoped this was a happy occasion. As it turns out, it is! My husband, Sean, and I are selling our sweet home, leaving our workplace and heading out on an adventure. (Don’t fret, dear reader, Blaise is coming too!)

Adventures can be hard to come by these days, there are always more important things to do. Things to take care of and bills to pay. But for sometime now, I’ve been feeling the pull of something more creative. I’ve been so happy to have spots like this blog or Instagram to share some of my creative pursuits. Over time, I’ve come to wonder if I couldn’t find a way to incorporate more of that creativity into my daily life.

Which is where we come to the part of me jumping out of the boat – I decided to leave it all, the consistent routine, the house and steady job, and strike out with the intent of doing something new. We’re moving back to Canada to be close to family and to take a minute to just breathe and reorganize ourselves. We don’t know where we will end up, maybe around the corner from my childhood home, maybe on another continent. 

For many reasons, the uncertainty of my life at this moment brings me back to my garden. Most days when I find myself wondering about just what it is we are setting out to do, I go sit in the garden. Awhile back when I realized that I might not see a full growing season in this garden, I started to adapt my plan for just what I would plant. There seemed to be little point in devoting a good chunk of the garden to dahlias and tomatoes, both favorite garden additions, but always hitting their prime in the later part of the season. Instead, I wanted to play up the parts that I could likely enjoy in the early part of summer. In the midst of my sadness over leaving this garden, I have been steadfast in my plan to enjoy every single moment I am afforded there. 

There is no denying viagra without prescriptions uk that these meds work wonderfully to reduce stress and improve male’s ability to be hard in the bed. Keep all brand viagra 100mg medications far from scope of youngsters and pets. Yohimbe: Yohimbe, an evergreen tree, grows in the western find this link buy viagra in australia India. Sildenafil Citrate medicine like viagra buy cheap is the drug consumed by millions of male patients today. So, early in the spring, I started reading the seed packages, carefully calculating the number of days until harvest, Tomatoes take time to grow and mature, so most varieties were put aside for that reason. But a few hardy and early varieties have made it into my garden this year. I don’t know that I will be around to pick them, but these ones seem like the most likely candidates. Of course, there are peas. All of the shelling variety, but there are two different kinds, planted thickly so I have plenty of young greens to harvest. And plenty of pods for Blaise and I to feast on, right out in the midst of it all. Green beans, along with purple, romano and yellow, made the cut, but this time with fewer climbing varieties. The salad greens are out of control, as usual, with plantings of French sorrel, purslane, dark red lettuce and New Zealand spinach all elbowing in amongst each other. The early plantings of radishes have already come and gone for the season.

The newcomers to the garden this year include the okra and carrots, both planted with the younger generation in mind. And last but not least, the Padron peppers. These beauties are a hands-down favorite at our house. Lightly charred in oil and seasoned with flaky salt, we enjoy these peppers while seated in the garden, with cups of Cava in hand. This is the way the Spanish do it, I’m told, and I am not going to mess with that tradition. Fingers crossed I have at least one of those meals to come this summer.

Either way, I remind myself that there will be other gardens. Already, I have some ideas of what I might do differently in a future space. Just the other day, I optimistically bought some seeds to plant for a fall harvest of maché. But the location of that garden is still to be determined. I’ll find it one day – build, plant and harvest from it.

I recently attended a graduation ceremony, listening as attentively as I could after hours of ceremony, to the advice that was doled out on the graduates. It seemed somehow appropriate for me as well, starting out on my own new adventure. The snippet that stuck with me all of these days later was from someone sharing advice from a fortune cookie…”A thrilling adventure awaits you, be on your guard.”

So, here I go, with my jumble of jubilance and uncertainty, only knowing that out there, a new life awaits me. I’m ready!

Not all picnics are created equal, and that’s a good thing. My personal philosophy around picnics is that anything not eaten around the primary table in my house classifies as a picnic. This means that winters are filled with couch picnics and the summer with patio picnics.

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It’s early evening in the garden. The sun is low on the horizon and the warmth of the day is beginning to fade. For some reason, this is the time of day when dozens of dragonflies make an appearance in the sky about my yard. I see them here every year in the summer. They dip and zoom through the air as they search for food, or whatever it is they are swarming over. This is about the time I turn on my new garden lights.

There are a couple of new additions to the garden this year, plantings of zucchini, cucumber, nasturtium and cheery overhead lights. I’ve devised a plan to hang strands of lights, zigzagging back and forth across the garden on the same stakes I put up for the plants. Since we are often our relaxing in the garden in the dusky evening, I think the lights are going to be a great addition to our enjoyment of the space.

My garden seems to be doing a very good job at reflecting life this year. Parts of it are planned and organized with neat straight rows and even spacing. I’ve been working towards the best way to create green “walls” around the garden with pole beans, towering tomatoes and colorful dahlias. It’s taken a few years, but I think I’m getting this figured out! Other plants are randomly taking over the pathways, like the lettuce stalk that went to seed last summer, tossing hundreds of seeds out amongst the gravel. Turns out that I am getting some really lovely heads of lettuce from this random seed placement. Same story with the arugula that has been growing so rapidly that I’ve resorted to sharing bags of it with friends to keep up with its growth.

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The lettuce and arugula have been a wonderful start to the season. Along with those volunteer crops, I have been tending to an early salad garden with generous plantings of kale, mizuna, pretty speckled lettuces and my favorite French breakfast radishes. My salad bowl is a pretty delicious place this time of year.

I am also giving the English peas another shot this year. I swore I wasn’t going to waste precious garden space on them again after last year’s dismal showing. The plants came up only to fall to some terrible pea pestilence before any pods reached maturity. But it’s funny what a winter’s worth of grey will do to my resolve. So with a new variety of seeds and a little crop rotation, my fingers are crossed for a better outcome this year.

Where ever you are this season, I hope a little spot of green – farmer’s market, community garden, herb pot in the window or acres of vegetables – crosses your path this summer.

A few weeks back, I mentioned my radish craze. Each season, I feel like I cannot get enough of the spring-fresh roots, so I plant them all throughout the garden. Staggering the plantings across several weeks, I am always hoping for a steady supply of radishes until the summer heat gets the better of them. As luck would have it, my first planting of radishes grew out of control this year.

Radishes are one of those garden crops that are fast. Twenty two days from planting until harvest, boasts my seed packet. It may not be quite true, but I didn’t bother counting. In the early stages of spring, 22 days sounds like another season. But there they came, those hardy first seedlings pushed out of the ground with determination and haven’t looked back. So when I came back from another weekend away, more than 22 days later, my ombre french breakfast radishes were a little bigger than desirable. I felt some dedication to the radishes, my first harvest of the season. So I carefully pulled them up, left their leafy foliage in the garden and scrubbed away the last bits of dirt that clung to the roots.

If you have ever seen a radish grow past it’s prime, you’ll know what I mean when I say they can get a little spongy inside. But I was still determined to get to use the radishes. So I put together a salad recipe that I hoped would save them. And even though we’ve eaten our way through the giant radishes, we’re still enjoying variations of this salad with the more appropriately sized roots!

I have also been using a recent addition to my pantry in this salad. Browsing the vinegar section of a local grocery store, (I know, who goes searching out vinegar for fun!) I found a store brand bottle of rosé vinegar. Being a bit of a rosé enthusiast, I couldn’t pass it up. Deliciously pink, the vinegar has a bit of a sweet hint. It adds a lovely flavor to the radish quick pickle, but if you can’t find any, I can’t help but think a champagne or similarly mild vinegar would work out just fine.

Radish and spring green salad

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Serves 2

Radishes, about 8, thinly sliced and cut into matchsticks
1 tablespoon rosé vinegar
Sprinkle of salt
2 cups mixed greens, baby arugula, pea shoots, fresh herbs, etc.
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
2 chunks of feta cheese

Combine radishes, vinegar and salt in a small bowl and let sit for at least 10 minutes. Toss radishes with salad greens and olive oil and arrange on two plates. Season to taste. Top with the feta cheese and serve.

Breakfast is a meal that I can’t live without. I am starving when I wake up in the morning and even after a good breakfast I am ready to eat again before noon rolls around. On weekdays I keep things fairly straight forward, steel cut oats with cinnamon and fruit, the weekend is a different story, I like to leave things open for meals that are a bit more exciting. After last weeks rhubarb blitz I have been feeling ready to embrace the flavours and bounties of spring. Asparagus is another seasonal veggie that I often forget to enjoy when it is actually fresh and local. Usually by the time I remember that it is asparagus season, the best of the spears have long since be snatched up by other foodies like Ginger, who must have some sort of alarm system set up in their smartphones reminding them which items are currently in season! At any rate, the grocery store was full of local asparagus this past weekend and I greedily snatched up a bag full with the hopes of turning it into a weekend breakfast delight.
The internet seems to be teeming with spring asparagus ideas, here are a few that I have been excited about trying out:
Asparagus, Zucchini and Ricotta Tart
Asparagus Leek Flatbread 
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Asparagus with Fried Eggs

I decided to start with The Jewels of New York’s Spring Breakfast Tart, mainly because the photographs looked so lovely. Yes, I am a sucker for a good looking photograph, and if there are no photos with a recipe, well it is like the recipe didn’t even exist. Keep that in mind if you are trying to get me to make one of your recipes :). With cheese, eggs, bacon and asparagus (I had to ditch the arugula flowers because my local grocery isn’t cool enough to carry them) this tart is sure to impress any breakfast guest!

We have all had a few tragedies in our day I’m sure, but some of us have had a few more than others. The word tragedy is perhaps a little strong as it conjures up more serious events, I however am talking about “tragedies”. Those events that were so totally devastating at the time but now, in hindsight, are actually pretty amusing and are the stories we often share and laugh about. I have had my fair share of these sort of tragedies. For me, tragedy started striking early. There was the time that I fell down a flight of concrete stairs with my arms zipped inside my jacket, the time I decided to draw a raggedy ann doll face on my own face with markers, then there was the time that I ran over our dog Max while racing down a hill on my bike, and the time I was biking so fast that I missed my corner and hit a telephone pole… the list goes on.

But aside from the physical tragedies, kitchen tragedies also started early too. There was the cornstarch and powdered sugar debacle (which I may have mentioned before), the time I sneezed into the cookie dough and of course the time Ginger and I did an extra thorough cleaning job on my grandma’s cast iron pan. As I’m sure you can see, I didn’t have a smooth start in the kitchen.

While I may not be the most graceful person around town, I have gotten things a little more under control. It has been so long since my last kitchen tragedy that I really couldn’t even tell you about it. Now instead of kitchen tragedies, more often you will see what I like to call “kitchen disaster bombs” around my house. The disaster bomb differs from the tragedy as it isn’t rooted in failure, but rather it refers to the beautiful mess left by a cooking project. This delicious, tart and sweet rhubarb crumble was a total kitchen disaster bomb! The remains of which can still be found sprawling across my kitchen.

One of my favourite and regularly under used spring time treats in rhubarb. This vegetable, as it turns out, is often times just a conduit for strawberries. Strawberry rhubarb this and strawberry rhubarb that, what about just rhubarb? Last spring, a favourite dessert to come out of my kitchen, was a plain old rhubarb pie. Calling it both plain and old really isn’t fair, because it was nothing of the sort, but it’s simplicity was delightful. This spring I am hoping to make a few more rhubarb-centric kitchen disaster bombs, starting of course with this Rhubarb Crumble, which was inspired by a crumble over at Local Kitchen.

Rhubarb Crumble

Filling
½ brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
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zest and juice of 1 lemon
pinch of fleur de sel

Topping
¾ cup flour
⅔ cup almonds, toasted and chopped
½ cup old fashioned rolled oats
⅓ cup brown sugar
½ tsp fleur de sel
⅓ cup butter, melted
pinch of fresh ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Make filling: In a medium bowl mix together sugar and cornstarch. Add the rhubarb, lemon juice and zest, and salt. Mix well to incorporate all the ingredients. Set aside.

Make topping: Combine in a large bowl flour, oats, almonds, sugar, salt and pepper. Using a fork blend in the melted butter.

Make crumble: Transfer rhubarb and all its juices to a 9-inch baking dish. Using your hands press the crumble into large chunks and place it on top of the rhubarb sprinkle with remaining smaller bits of the topping. You can use your hands to even out the crumble so that all the rhubarb is covered.

Place baking dish in the oven on a rimmed baking sheet, in case of drips. Bake until golden brown and the juices are bubbling, about 40 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature and always topped with ice cream!

I am starting to get a little antsy for spring. We’ve had a few days of invitingly warm weather with all of the trimmings of spring—lovely temperatures and blue skies filled with drifting white clouds. The trees are beginning to send out anxious green leaves and the tulips are exploding with color. It seems like the season is taunting us though, because just when we set up the patio, the temperatures take a dive and we hurry back inside to warm up. I don’t really mean to complain, but this year I am really looking forward to the warmer months ahead.

Since the weather is not consistently cooperating yet, I’ve begun to force the issue at the table with our menu choices. The comforting and filling soups of winter are gone, saved for another season. My roasting pan is taking a bit of a break from cauliflower and cabbage. Instead, I’ve been looking to vegetable combinations in crunchy salads to make our meals feel a little lighter. I pulled my mandolin out of the pantry and I’ve been thinly slicing everything from radishes to fennel and endive. For some reason, the paper-thin slices of these vegetables evoke spring, even though they have been in my salad rotation for months now.

Our unusually warm winter may have had a hand in it, but I have a row of arugula from last year that is coming on in full force right now. It is a wild variety with leaves shaped like that of a small dandelion. Tufts of dark green foliage are sprouting up in the garden and growing at a surprising rate. While there are not enough greens to fill the salad bowl, I know I’d better keep them trimmed before they get ahead of our salad habit.

So when I found a salad recipe that plays the tongue-tingling pepper bite of arugula off of salty halloumi cheese and tart cherries, I was excited to give it a try. Around here, halloumi is known as “barbecue cheese” by my son. During the warm summer months, I like to throw a couple of slices onto the grill, pairing it with just-cooked vegetables or fresh salads. In this recipe, the cheese is cooked on the stove, which works well even if your patio is not quite ready for spring!

Spring greens and halloumi salad
Serves 4

Adapted from Sunset magazine

Dressing

3 tablespoons olive oil
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1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon dried mint leaves, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Salad
1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and sliced thinly
1 tablespoon lemon juice
5 cups salad greens
1/2 cup dried tart cherries
1 package halloumi cheese, drained and sliced into 1/4-inch slices
4 small sprigs of oregano

To make the dressing, combine the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Set aside.

To make the salad, toss the sliced fennel with the lemon juice in a bowl. Combine the salad greens and dried cherries on a platter.

Heat a large frying pan over medium-high heat, add halloumi slices and oregano sprigs. Cook, turning once, until the cheese turns golden brown. The cheese will give off some brine as it cooks. Once the brine dries, it will be time to turn the cheese. Cooking time will be about 4 to 6 minutes. Remove the pan from heat and discard the oregano.

Toss the greens and cherries with just enough dressing to coat, then toss in the fennel. Arrange the halloumi slices on top of the salad and drizzle with any remaining dressing. Serve immediately.

The Sound of Music may have had a significant role in my childhood, but I am not going to break out into song as I tell you about the lovely green hills out my back door. Every spring, I have this crazy wish to go drive through the countryside and soak in the green. The fresh color is fleeting and soon turns to golden yellow, then stubble. I do love the transition, but I think the spring green has to be my favorite.

Anyway, a week or two back, I convinced the powers that be to join me for a little picnic and country drive. I know, it is hard to argue with a picnic! And after a busy weekend of yard work and shrub planting, a little time away from the house was not a bad idea. We drove through some of the more quiet cycling routes around the valley. So beautiful!

Since I’ve been digging around in the yard and staying out of the kitchen, I thought I’d share a few links with you instead of a recipe this time. I hope you enjoy!

Round out your taco bar with one of these.

Drawing inspiration.

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Walla Walla Sweet onions are in season and I’ve been dying to try this.

I’ve already planted a few maple trees this week, but I wouldn’t mind adding one of these.

This salad is becoming a regular at our house.

Pondering life and rhubarb.

Oh, you have a sweet tooth, too? Check this out!

Coming off of basically two weeks of delightful weather, today was a little lack luster to say the least. So instead of dwelling on the present let’s focus on the past! The preceding sunny days have been a welcome introduction to summer, filled with evening walks, bike rides, fresh spring greens and summery drinks. These sort of days are meant to be taken advantage of.
Virtually every evening included a walk home over the bridge in the evening sun and a quick stop by the store for a few fresh dinner supplies.

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Last years parsley plant, which has gone to seed, proved useful in casting beautiful shadows and a few spring greens made some of the best dinners.
And as always Stanley Park didn’t fail to impress. If these last few weeks have been any indication of the months to come I must say that I really can’t wait for summer. I can only hope that the little rituals of sunday walks, bike rides and evening treks over the bridge and to the beach will become summer time habits.

We’re gearing up for some big excitement next week – Tina and I are running our first half marathon together. We’ve been training for 12 weeks or so and I’m looking forward to seeing our efforts put to the test! So, while I’m skipping the country for the next week, I thought I’d leave you with a few images of spring in my corner of the world.

These happy tulips line the driveway at our house. They never seem to last long – some crazy spring storm or another comes whipping through town and they are done for. But in those sunny spring days when the flowers are blooming, I’m always appreciative of my mom. When we moved into our house, there were some bulbs in the front flower beds, but I wanted to add more. So, I trotted off to the store and bought a crazy amount of bulbs – bags and bags of them. But then I got home to my one-month-old baby and promptly lost all energy for planting.
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Somewhere round about then, my mom showed up, shovel in hand. Now this flower bed is not easy digging – filled to the brim with rocks. She set to work on those bags of bulbs and managed to plant them all. In subsequent digging efforts, I’ve often admired her determination in planting all of those bulbs. I sure do enjoy them every spring – thanks, Mom!