Happy Trails

Inspired

 

It has been a while! Let me catch you up on what's been going on around here...mostly focusing on the weekends, as that is when we have the most fun.

The past few weekends have been really wonderful in a lot of ways. There has been some sleeping in, and coming downstairs to the fire going, with the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the air. (Salmaan always rises before I do).

Two weeks ago on a Saturday morning Salmaan was lounging on the couch with a pile of new cookbooks looking pleased as punch. He treated us to 7 new tomes full of inspiration, and after a nice fluffy omelette full of ham, cheese, and assorted veggies, we cuddled up on the couch and read for hours, taking notes and sharing things that excited us along the way. And you know where we're going from here, yeah?

 

First up, a wonderful new way to use up leftover roast chicken (which we always seem to have a lot of, week after week). These quesadillas quite frankly rocked. We dressed them up with a dollop of sour cream, some ribboned romaine dressed with lime juice, and a bit of salsa. Mmm.

That following Sunday morning I woke up at 4:30, and couldn't get back to sleep, thinking about how much stuff I wanted to make. By 5:30 I gave up, and Salmaan and I made a batch of Curtis Stone's homemade Granola (which was fantastic--just go a little less on the initial baking time).

Homemade chicken soup was finished up and packaged away in the freezer for a day either of us has a cold and needs some comfort, and then we made a delicious brunch, consisting of poached egg inside of a crisped proscuitto cup on top of sauteed spinach and a toasted whole wheat bagel (also from Curtis Stone's cookbook).

It was our first time poaching eggs, and it turned out nicely. If we ever open a B&B, this is going on the breakfast menu for sure. For dinner we made Jamie Oliver's Mushroom Risotto.

Yes, yes, I gave risotto another try! We made this on Halloween night, and the risotto itself was quite delicious. The specialty grilled mushrooms on the top? Surprisingly not delicious. Not sure if it was the total lack of fat (oh butter, how I missed you), or too much citrus (he advises to dress the grilled shrooms with lemon juice and herbs), but it wasn't workin' for me. The base recipe, however, I would definitely make again, and butter up some bellas or shiitakes for the big garnish.

This past weekend both of us were feeling under the weather. In fact, we've both been fighting off a cold for about a week now. Instead of taking the chicken soup out of the freezer, we tried a new recipe--Tyler Florence's chicken tortellini soup. SO GOOD, and just what we needed. 

I pulled this out of the freezer last night, and it hit the spot for a quick and soothing dinner.

We've had a couple of friends over on the weeknights lately, and that has lead us to some new recipes that we will try again. Ina's new book just came out, and I made her turkey meatballs.

Very good. Her new book is a bit repetitive--not a ton of new ideas, really. But I like Ina and her sensibility, so it's fun just to read through it.

The next to last weekend in October, my parents came to visit us. They stayed the weekend, and we had a fantastic time. Saturday we went to the Powhatan Festival of the Grape, and sampled some tasty Virginia Wine.

Despite my ageeb looking face in this photograph, I really was enjoying myself...especially when we visited our favorite virginia winery--Horton.

Love this shot of my parents.

They really helped us with a lot of stuff around the house that weekend, including a raised bed that I'm very excited about:

Dad and Salmaan busted this out in only a few hours. The garden really went to hell this past summer (partly the terribly hot weather/water restrictions, partly my waning interest, partly the fact that the squirrels and chipmunks stole most of my yield), so it was time to scale back. I'm going to be using this solely has an herb garden, and we're going to seed the rest of the garden area with grass seed. We also took out the blackberry bushes, as I think I was only able to get about 15 berries all season, and they honestly weren't very good. Come Christmas-time (and my "extra" paycheck), we're going to sign up for a local CSA. I mean, have you seen the Rooster's blog? I've been inspired, and want to give this a go. 

Dad and Salmaan fixed some of our gates, too.

We may have put them to work, but we fed them well. Salmaan grilled up a beautiful beef tenderloin.

The dogs had a fantastic time, too. They couldn't have enjoyed the extra attention more.

As you can see, JJ is getting bigger every day. It's so cool to see the changes. His fur has gotten longer and CURLY, which is adorable, and his personality is really starting to be apparent--he dotes on River constantly.

And that's pretty much what's been going on at Chez K. A fair amount of knitting has been accomplished as well, but that is for another post. I'm off from work today, hence the time to write--and hopefully posted about some FO's! 

 

Operation TBTY Accomplished

To give you an update, the yard is totally done. And I feel pretty good about the work that we put into it. A few Saturdays ago, while Hubster put together the home gym (we decided it was crucial to the health of our marriage that I not be involved) I finished up the planting outside.

Somehow whenever I do anything in the garden I get covered in dirt. I really don't know how it happens. On the Tuesday following my gardening I wore my glasses to work, and a co-worker politely whispered, "Laura, I think you have some foundation on your glasses". The Ray Ban logos on both sides were caked in mud. I felt like Pigpen--'cept not as happily secure about being mired in filth.

Anyway, thanks to Hubster's constant vigilance with the watering, it's just been a matter of watching everything grow.

I really love the dark red marigolds. Thankfully this particular flower is really hearty, and can take the intensely direct sun that we get back there.

 

In all honesty, I think I'll never be entirely satisfied with the yard as a whole. The fence that shields us from the straight edgers is rotting all to hell, and our landlord mows our grass once every two months. Not to mention that the straight edgers never mow or do anything with their backyard area, making it a health hazard. No, seriously--the health department had to come out last summer and fine them. On multiple occassions. I wonder who called? I WONDER....Regardless, I'm pretty excited about certain corners of our little outdoor postage stamp--the ones that we've been able to make our own.

Happily inexpensive WalMart finds were the tastefully plastic Adirondack chairs, (which are surprisingly comfortable and don't aggravate my sciatica) and the wire fencing that has very effectively kept Puppers out of the mud. Even in this heat, it has become a place fit to enjoy a nice cold one after a long day. Garden Buddha is content once again.

 

Bring on the tikki torches!

Operation TBTY

We used to have a beautiful yard. It was small, but pretty nice. I had a garden, and we grew awesome tomatoes. Then, we got a dog. She ate the tomato plants, right down to the root. She ravaged the herb garden (all except for the parsley--she doesn't like parsley), and burnt the grass with her pee. The livable area shrunk down to the small back porch where we would slouch on the 4 steps, sipping our beer and lamenting the loss of what once was.

The spring, however, has brought  us new hope. Yesterday I was able to get the landlord to mow the backyard (it had become a veritable jungle out there), and he weed whacked it too. Looking out of the window onto this blank canvas this morning, Hubster and I shared the same sentiment--we want our yard back.

We're renting this place right now. While the house itself is huge and has a lot of character, it's in a bad neighborhood, and we're really ready to buy a house and become bona fide suburbanites. As such, we kind of had an unspoken agreement that we weren't going to put any money into this place. But that was before Operation Take Back the Yard. We went out there this morning in fighting form. "Grrrrrr."

Whew! Scary. We pulled, tugged, and flung invading weeds and debris.

Hubster raked up the grass clippings. Even River got in on the action. Well, she looked cute, at least.

Even though our work was rudely interrupted by a thunder storm, we still managed to get quite a bit done. (Well, Hubster did. I spent some of the time inside making banana bread). We're planning on making another effort an an herb garden (using some sort of fencing to keep Puppers out of the dirt). Mom bought me some pansies this weekend, so I'll get my flower pots back out and dot the yard with some color. Hopefully, in the next few weeks it'll be fit to sit out and enjoy a cold beer after a long day. Operation TBTY to be continued...