You Grow Garden

 

I'm so delayed on posting that I just wanted to share how lovely our garden is growing these days. During my detox I was looking out at a straggle of grass and yuck. Many of these photos are from over a month ago. More to come soon. Humor me while I take another blog break. The first one was so productive and I've now lost 14 pounds on Kasia's Whole Foods plan. The garden has a white, lime green and red "theme" with hints of lavender coming later in the summer.

E. ordered our mulch and we hired some help but did most of the mulch ourselves over a weekend. It is such rewarding work. Very much like polishing silver. You have an immediate sense of gratification.

I moved these hosta's from a sad little area in the corner of the yard and they have flourished here!

E. and our great pal Brad hung a new glass door in our old shed. E's been working on this baby all winter and it is nearly finished. We found this fabulous green lamp at Housewerks. It is from the Natty Boh factory and E. had it rewired and mounted outside. How Baltimore is that? We had dinner watching the sunset in our little red chairs. We dream of a deck here one day.

My sweet Charlie has also created a real live orchard at Stone Hill Farm. We have one  apple tree (shown on the left) and three pear trees (to the right). He chopped the taller branches down so the fruit will stay lower to the earth and we can hope to have more fruit. It seriously looks so different now. There is more light on our fig trees and the upper part of the garden.

The side yard now has white impatiens after the beautiful pink peonies died off and our hot, hot pink azalea leaves dropped.

It is a happy day when you fold up your mulch tarp for the season.

I hate this grass and need to dig the stuff up. It would be awesome if it actually worked like a border but alas, I've tried and tried and it just clumps up.

Hydrangeas are one of my all time favorite flowers. We had them all over our wedding too. I love this pre-bloom photo.

 

We've planted red geraniums every year in these pots that were left at the house. This is in honor of our honeymoon location at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island. The red pops of color makes me so happy throughout the garden.

Our back yard finally looks good too. Some of the hosta's and sedum came back up.

The Shasta daisies are up now and I've pulled out the white leggy pansies from the winter and replaced them with white impatiens.

We have worked hard to kill the weeds this year. Say some prayers the new grass seed and weed killer works. I've enjoyed watching the redheaded woodpeckers during our breakfast. We truly lucked out when we found this place and all of the hard work is so worth it.

Blessings to you my Charlie for all of the hard work you've done on the yard. Can't wait to watch our garden grow this summer.

Valentine's Day African Ground Nut Stew

This is how much I love my Charlie. I researched lots of African Ground Nut Soups and came up with a recipe that would be perfect for us on Valentine's Day. I was inspired by Carla Hall's win at the US Open Top Chef "match". I skipped her bay leaves, parsley, lime and bean things but think a little lime at the end would be awesome too.

African Ground Nut Soup

• 2 Tablespoons peanut oil
• 1 large yellow onion
• 3 large fingers of Ginger, about two inches each, peeled and minced
• 8 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 3 pounds of sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into one inch chunks
• 1 1/2 15 ounce can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 quart vegetable stock
• 1 cup fresh peanut butter, no sugar (I got ours from Whole Foods)
• 1 Tablespoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• Kosher salt and black pepper 
• fresh cilantro, garnish
• roasted peanuts, garnish

I truly think the ingredients made all the difference in this soup. Start with roasting raw peanuts. I got these in the bulk section of Whole Foods. This is about two cups. I used the whole nut as a garnish. The homemade peanut butter sans sugar at Whole Foods is also perfect for this dish.

The peanuts will burn in a second if you aren't careful. I took a silicone spatula and pressed down on the cooked nuts to remove the skins. Set aside to cool.

We love a ton of ginger here at Stone Hill. It simply is the star of this recipe. Use a teaspoon to peel ginger. It is easier than the peeler and you don't loose the nibs and knuckles of this delightful root.

I love a good mise en place and always try to get my non-crying items chopped before I dive into the onion and garlic chopping.

Saute the onion and garlic in the peanut oil. Add the ginger once the onion is translucent. Use your Valentine's Day spatula to stir. See the little hearts? I've had this baby so long and I can't remember if it was McCall or Kristen who gave it to me when I was a singleton. They probably both gave it to me. Kristen gave me the best heart shaped cupcake pan one year. And these California divas even gave me lingerie another year! God bless the best friends who love you enough to give you lingerie when you are alone and single. Thank you sweet girls. 

Add the chopped and peeled sweet potatoes and the vegetable stock. One box of the Kitchen Basics green box worked perfectly.

Use one full can of diced or crushed tomatoes. I used a half can extra and stored my remaining tomatoes in this awesome Ball Jar with fridge lid. These lids are so useful for leftovers. I have to give credit for the find to Darby over at Fly Through Our Window. We gave our family left over gravy in these babies at Thanksgiving.

Add a cup of peanut butter. This was thick as all get out. Mix it well.

Add your spices.

Simmer for 60 minutes on the stove covered. 

Empty your dishwasher during your hour and think of Darby who made this beautiful dish mat for the counter. It's for the wet stuff that never dries all the way. I seriously felt like I won the lottery buying this at o'dark thirty on New Year's Eve after a glass of wine and E. fast asleep on the sofa. I love how joyful it is and wish I had a fabric store in Baltimore with way cool patterns. Baltimore friends, can you help me find an awesome fabric store up in these parts? The one on Falls is no bueno.

Check the soup after suggested cooking time and make sure the sweet potatoes are tender. I contemplated pureeing the soup. I think either way it would be good but I think the texture was better unpureed. 

E. said it was the best meal I've ever made him. That was worth ever bit of chopping for this excellent, spicy, romantic, adventurous soup. Maybe next year I'll add a few beets to make it bright red. 

I hopped over to Hampden to find a treat for my sweet man earlier that evening. Ma Petite Shoe was packed on Valentine's Day with men, women and children all sporting pink and red. It was a scene to behold in this tiny little shop on The Avenue. I even ran into a Stone Hiller.

Charlie got my favorite Mouth Party Salted Caramels.

He also got the deepest, darkest chocolate bars with sea salt and coffee, cayenne pepper and almonds.

He devoured the Salazon bar with sea salt and crushed coffee nibs.

He even shared his caramels with me. Such a sweet man!

To all my vegan pals out there, cheers! Please tell me how you like the recipe and if you would do anything differently. E. Lover, I'm sorry you've been so slammed sideways to Saturday at work. One of these days we'll get to enjoy that firewood and snuggle soon. I love you more than Sea Salted Caramels.

My Valentine

My sweet man left me this gift for Valentine's Day this morning, on the front porch. We have two fireplaces at Stone Hill and haven't had ONE fire yet this year.

We met at Mandarin Oriental in January 2005. This photo was taken four months after we started dating and I knew that I would marry him after this trip to Lake Michigan.

Charlie, I love you more than my Tory Burch bag. You know the way to my heart. Thanks for the best Valentine's present ever. A fire in which to snuggle with you. See you later alligator. It's been a great six years so far. Happy Valentine's Day.

Celtic Solstice 5 Miler

I signed us up for the Celtic Solstice race a few months ago after talking to my buddy Pete at the Falls Road Running store. Seeing as the event was in Druid Hill Park and we live next door I figured we had to run this race based on convenience.

I went to pick up our bibs on Thursday after our second snow storm. It took nearly an hour to get there in the traffic on the JFX.

Photo credit Falls Road Running Store

The race began Saturday in front of the Stieff Silver building. The energy of the crowd was awesome. The bagpipers, kilts and 3,000 runners were a sight to behold. What a huge motivator. That dude is seriously brandishing swords! I'm mean if that doesn't get you pumped up for battle what does? I registered to get the cool shirt and didn't want to wear it without finishing. So we were pumped up.

It was a great race. I was so proud of myself for running as long as I did. I only stopped a few times to catch my breath. It was wonderful running into our friend Heather. Such a motivator to see a familiar face at the finish line to give me a HUG. Thanks sweet Heather!  I know our buddy John G. was there too but we didn't see him in the sea of people. We were pretty chilled afterwards so just jogged home to warm up. It was perfect!!!

2203 227/237  Nelle Somerville                              63:21 66:50 

E. finished in 54 minutes.

I had been marinating Chicken Marbella which meant we only had to put it in the oven for dinner that night. It's such a great low maintenance meal which was exactly what we both needed.

If you haven't ever made this recipe you MUST. It is from the Silver Pallet Cookbook and is our staple winter meal. We usually serve it for Christmas or New Years Eve. Here is the recipe. We used drumsticks and thighs but you can use two cut up chickens. You can even use all breasts if you like. The oregano is key and you must marinate it. I usually do so for two nights. E. would put two cups of brown sugar in the sauce if it were up to him.

You need a very large dish for all the pieces. You should baste it a few times during the hour it takes to cook. It is a show stopper for dinner parties. I think it is our generations Boeuf Bourguignon.

Serve it over rice or cous cous. We love this dish so much that we nearly served it for our wedding. It was a real treat to enjoy after our successful race day.

Thanks to Jim and Pete at the Falls Road running store for offering to comp our registration because we lived so close. I wanted the shirts and registered for the full price which was worth every penny. It was so organized and the music was inspiring to this Scotch-Irish girl. Charlie, thanks so much for running with me. I didn't mean to mislead you into thinking it was a 5K. You have had one of the busiest weeks of the year and really appreciate you motivating to run with me. I look forward to many more. Heather! It was so fun getting a huge hug from you at the finish line. Thanks again for the fun Facebook fist pumps and cheers along the way.