in bloom

{from top: Angelique tulips, Japanese maple, dogwood, Tom Thumb pea shoot, herbs--yes, two-thirds are lavender, violet cake}

We celebrated all the spring flowers this week with a violet cake, picking the violets before the rainstorms rolled through one morning and letting their petals dry on our kitchen counter. We used the vanilla cake recipe from Apples for Jam, which yielded a simple, buttery cake and a sweet vanilla frosting. Definitely a recipe to pull out again and again, adding in berries, peaches, lemon balm, and mint as the seasons progress.

We filled our raised beds with soil, and now they're just waiting to be planted. I've got beans, cucumbers, carrots, peas, lettuce, chard, and flower seeds ready to go, but I need to figure out what to plant where. I'm thinking Companion Planting for the Kitchen Gardener by Allison Greer might help out (I love Allison's blog, Homesprout, and Liesl recently recommended this book on her new podcast).

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What's growing where you live? Have you been doing anything special to celebrate the seasons? We've been eating outside every chance we get. It gets so hot and humid in Kentucky during the summer, so we're taking advantage of the mild weather right now.

merry, happy, joyful

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! 

Wishing you lots of time with family and friends, good food, strong drinks, and plenty of naps. ;)

challah

A few of you asked about the challah in the last post. This bread is my favorite because it's rich with eggs, honey, and butter. Plus, the recipe is simple to make at home. You just fling all the ingredients together in a bowl, let the dough rise, and then put it in the fridge to bake at your convenience.

When I make a batch of this dough, I usually bake two larger loaves throughout the week and then use the final third of the dough to make cinnamon rolls (I use the filling and icing from this recipe). Yeah, challah-baking weeks are pretty happy weeks around here. It's just the thing to keep us warm and fed on gray November days.

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Also in our kitchen:

We've been loving these pumpkin doughnut muffins (thanks to Liesl!).

I could eat vegetable enchiladas every day.

Homemade pizza has been in heavy rotation. We like Mark Bittman's crust and this tomato sauce.

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What's going on in your kitchen these days?

there for the taking

I'm finding little things to appreciate lately, bits of joy there for the taking if only I choose to notice: treetops lighting up the sky, sunflower seeds to plant next year, warm challah with salt and butter, and a soft alpaca hat on the needles. 

Here's hoping you're finding your own bits of joy. I'd love to hear about what's making your moments brighter these days.

backyard strawberries

Nearly every evening for the past couple weeks, I've been visiting our little strawberry patch, a raised bed of 14 plants in our backyard. I planted maybe six or so last year and have happily let them take over the raised bed. Who needs carrots or lettuce? Bring on the berries.

All in all, I've gathered maybe a quart and a half or two of strawberries, some large and many tiny ones, all shot straight through with deep red color. They're sweet right out of the garden, but I haven't been able to resist tucking them into baked goods. I look forward to strawberry season every year because I love strawberry desserts. This year I made a strawberry cake and my annual strawberry cupcakes, along with the messiest strawberry galette, which broke free from its crust and flooded the baking sheet with sticky strawberry syrup that we ate up with spoons.

* * * 

What are your favorite strawberry recipes? I'd love to try them out!

baking season

Brownie roll out cookies from Deb's new book

There's been a lot of baking around these parts lately. The cold weather just makes me want to hole up in the kitchen for days and try out new recipes. 

I finally found a reliable, easy, all-butter pie crust recipe. It's from The Handmade Pantry and comes together so smoothly because it uses a stand mixer. When I used to mix pie crusts by hand, I always had to add more liquid than recipes called for to get the dough to come together, which made for a sticky mess on my counter and an unreliable end result. The Homemade Pantry crust comes out tender, flaky, and flavorful. Each batch makes two crusts, so I've been freezing the extra to speed up the pie-making process in the future.

Chocolate pecan pie. Just perfect with whipped cream.

I made this one with Wild Turkey bourbon for an extra dose of Thanksgiving.

Pretzel croissant from the farmers' market (not my kitchen, unfortunately). 

This croissant is what motivates me to get up on cold Saturday mornings to shop for kale. 

Sour cream apple pie (before baking). Mmm...streusel topping.

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I hope you are all staying warm and well-fed!

* * *

P.S. Thank you lots for your kind words on my pregnancy. You all are the sweetest, and I've tucked your comments in my memory to savor on days when I'm feeling less than my best. 

18 weeks: the quickening

This week I actually feel like a pregnant lady. For some reason I always say "pregnant lady" instead of "pregnant" and my sister makes fun of me for it. Anyway, last Friday I felt my ligaments stretching to make more room for the baby, and then I woke up on Sunday with a definite baby bump. So yeah, I feel like a pregnant lady now.

On Sunday night, I was lying in bed reading and resting my hand on my stomach. Then I felt a little tap inside my belly! All that ligament stretching must have given the baby enough room to start exploring. Korey was in the other room, so I yelled that I felt the baby move. After he came in, we talked for a few minutes and then I felt another tap. Someone's really in there! I've spent months just hoping everything is going all right, so it's comforting to feel that this baby is growing like it should.

The past few nights I've read a few pages of Evangeline out loud for the baby (and me). It's never too early to start cultivating a love of literature, right? Korey and I both hope this kid will like to read. 

* * * 

This week I'm also gearing up for the start of holiday baking. I'm so excited about it! Tonight I made two pie crusts to freeze; I plan to make a chocolate pecan pie for Thanksgiving. I also made some gingerbread dough to freeze and bake next week. My grandma and I both really like gingerbread cookies, so I make them every Thanksgiving for her. And soon I'll get to start baking Christmas cookies!

* * *

Do you have any baking plans for the holidays? I'd love to hear about your go-to recipes!

kitchen scenes

peach pie and zinnias

popovers that taste just like the ones from jordan pond house in maine.

 homegrown garlic. the first thing i planted at our house.

homemade mozzarella for caprese salad. 

i'd highly recommend ricki's kit if you'd like to make your own.

broccoli and zinnias from the garden.

a new dishcloth. i want to knit a whole pile of houses!

here's the pattern. i found it via casey.

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What's been keeping you busy lately?

loving lately

Strawberry jam shortbread cookies from Apples for Jam

It feels like summer here. We've had hot days and warm nights. Last night we sat outside with friends, talked, and stargazed by candlelight. It felt like the perfect start to a summer of fun.

In the spirit of summer fun, here are things that have made me happy lately:

I fell into a local music hole the other day, and I never want to come out. I keep listening to Sweet Dark-Haired Man. Joan Shelley's voice sounds vintage and familiar (in a way that makes her songs feel like old favorites), and I love any song with a good whistle in it.

A post about endearing annoyances.

A strawberry cake in the woods. I need more picnics in my life.

As much as I love stargazing, I'm pretty much in the dark when it comes to constellations. The only one I can consistently identify is the Big Dipper! I'd love to wear this Big Dipper necklace (via blue moss).

And wouldn't this dress be fun for summer adventures?

* * * 

Speaking of summer adventures, I need to get busy and plan some summer getaways.

Have a great weekend!

*

P.S. Thanks for all of your well-wishes for my dad. He got great results back from the doctor!

good things lately

 Despite the recent storms, life has been full of some really good things lately. I thought I'd share.

{African flower hexagons}

Crocheting African flower hexagons outside is one of my new favorite things. I love having an outdoor space of my own now (except when the neighbor dog is out; she thinks I'm in her space and lets me know it).

{Our garden before the storm}

K made this raised bed with plans from The Vegetable Gardener's Book of Building Projects. It was his first solo woodworking project, and he did a wonderful job. The seats on each side of the bed make planting and weeding much easier. 

Also, even though the garden doesn't look as pretty after the hail storm, the plants are recovering well. I'm impressed by their resilience. We should have plenty of lettuce, chard, spinach, and kale in a few weeks.

{A new biscuit recipe}

We are breakfast-making people. Most weekends we'll make eggs or French toast or pancakes or biscuits. I usually make my tried-and-true biscuit recipe, but I just had to try out this drop biscuit recipe. The dough comes together quickly (great for bleary-eyed mornings) and produces light, slightly sweet biscuits. These biscuits are too delicate for our usual breakfast sandwiches, so we drizzled them with honey. Mmm... 

{A new mug. And a new class!}

I bought this mug at an art fair last weekend and love it so much that I signed up for one-on-one classes with the maker. I haven't been in a ceramics studio in six years! I'm so excited to get my hands in some clay.

{Game nights}

We have game nights several times each week. Sometimes it's just my husband and me, and sometimes we get together to play games with friends. Scrabble night doesn't happen often--we usually stick with newer strategy games. Our favorites right now are Dominion and Notre Dame.

* * * 

Also, today is the Kentucky Derby, which means drinking, gambling, and spending time with family. All good things.

What good things are going on in your life lately?

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weekend snippets: homebody

sweet sweets.

 

first attempt at basket weaving. 

as you can see, it's not quite a basket yet.

challah

i've wanted to make this bread for years and finally the stars aligned.

casting on for the knit along. 

 afraid those 160 stitches will intimidate the new knitters in our group.

 big curry noodle pot

perfect for warming up on a lazy winter night.

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how was your weekend? i'd love to hear about what you enjoyed.

christmas sweets

Hello there. These last few weeks have been busy at work and busy at home. I've logged plenty of hours in the kitchen--mixing, rolling, baking, icing, sprinkling. I had four generations of family over to help prepare the Christmas sweets this year! I've never been able to do that before, but with the new house we finally have enough room. Hooray!

We actually didn't go overboard with Christmas baking and making this year, but we definitely made enough to share. We made butter cookies, peanut butter cups (the best!), butterball cookies (I'm noticing a butter theme here), fudge, chocolate-covered pretzels, and Italian Cream cake.

butter cookies

Christmas pretzels

[these disappear as fast as they're made]

Italian Cream Cake

my sweet love-

roasting marshmallows in our living room

I've also kept busy with Christmas crafting, but I'll save the photos for after Christmas. I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise. I love surprises!

* * * * * 

Remember this? I was spot on for winter. 

Here's hoping I was right about the rest of the year, too.