Inspirations

just gotta smileSince the name of our blog is “InspiredMumblings”, I’m currently  inspired to mumble about my inspirations. And, I think to myself, what a witty theme to flavor my future blogs. Because, yes, I’m going to write more entries.

So, I’ll start with some of my inpirings from the last two months.

Veggies

I have a delightful crop of spinach, although I’m learning you need to plant a lot of it to have a constant supply. I also had one random head of romaine pop up.  Must have been leftover from my attempts last spring.

I also planted a red bell pepper, but have failed to see them reach the large sizes you are used too. While waiting for them to grow more, they end up wilting and dying. I let them just die, hoping they will drop seeds.

I recently bought a yellow pear tomato plant and have lots of greenies on there, so I’m excited for those. I have never tasted a yellow pear tomato (they are grape sized).

I highly recommend a lemon thyme plant. I do not like thyme, but I love this lemon thyme! Delightful to throw into almost any dish you cook! Which leads me to my next inspiration….

Cooking

I have this cookbook, The Naked Chef Takes Off, that I’ve had for years and have never used, mostly because of its daunting recipes and hard-to-find ingredients. However, I finally delved in and found the recipes not too daunting and the ingredients not too hard to find! Such endeavors have included:

Mary’s Saturday Soup: A soup with dumplings that included lamb, sweet potatoes, yams, butternut squash, carrots, coconut milk, okra and chilies! As he (Jamie Oliver) says, “scrummy”.

Pan-toasted almonds with a touch of chili and sea salt: Just what it says. Delightful, except I burned my mouth off with the red chilies. Should’ve seen that coming, since I do not handle spicy well.

Mozerella, prosciutto, and basil pizza: using a pre-made dough from Sunflower Market, fresh mozerella balls, and well, the other ingredients in the title….yum.

And finally… many various pasta recipes using pancetta, proscuitto, and pangritata. All delightful.

One more recipe from just good ol’ Betty Crocker – My brilliant version of chocolate chip muffins. I used 60% cocoa chips in the recipe. Then I took the cinnamon streusel topping from the blueberry muffin recipe and sprinkled that on top. The results? Addictive. I have now made two batches which I have consumed almost entirely by myself.

Bulbs:

For the first time I tried planting bulbs. Guess what are peeking their shoots out of the ground? Irises and daffodils! I currently have four blooming daffodils in a jar on my counter, cheering me up every time I look at them.

No iris blooms yet, but I’m waiting impatiently!!! I planted these bulbs in the fall, but I recently planted the rest of the bulbs into little containers and they are sprouting inch by inch. This was not planned, but will stagger my blooms well into the spring (I hope!).

By Jenny Cain

Spunky musician, artist, seamstress and horticulturalist. More about Jenny...

3 comments

  1. ok! I’m great at flowers….still learning with veggies. But I’m making a huge, in ground garden on the side of our house this year – woot!

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