MILESTONE
Last week we celebrated a milestone in our extended family. My sister and her partner celebrated 20 years of being together. I remember when they first met up, and it seems like only yesterday. It has been the perfect match for them with both of them bringing something different to the relationship. I think those kinds of relationships work out the best because then you get the opportunity to develop your compromising skills, LOL! Anyway, I felt like I should give them a shout-out for reaching this milestone, and I hope they have another 20+ years to go.
ST. PATRICK'S DAY
Last Friday was St. Patrick's day, so in honor of that occasion I decided to cook something Irish. Since I had never made it before and I am on a baking kick, I decided to do Irish Soda Bread. It was a pretty straightforward recipe and didn't take a long time (unlike a lot of baking recipes). I used a recipe from King Arthur Flour, and if you'd like to check it out you can find it here. My favorite type of flour to bake with right now is King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour because it gives you all the benefits of 100% whole wheat flour but also is lighter in texture and taste than regular whole wheat flour. If you have never tried it, I highly recommend it for all your whole wheat baking needs. It is especially good to use this type of flour if you are accustomed to eating soft white bread but now want to eat whole wheat because it's better for you. So, my Irish Soda Bread turned out really nice. It is a crusty, crunchy bread into which I added some raisins. Give it a try, but don't wait until next St. Patrick's Day to bake it!
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SPRING!
Linda and I both hesitate to proclaim "It's Spring!" ever since the first year after we moved to Yakima. We were accustomed to Spring beginning in March back in North Carolina. But Yakima is a whole different story. There have been some years where it snowed here at the end of March. The low temperatures are now just barely getting above freezing, and it is still below freezing some nights. But the first thing we look for to know that Spring is definitely on the way is the crocus flowers. They have been up a week or so, and now a few of our bushes and trees are starting to have leaf buds. After the constant snows of this past winter, we are more than ready for Spring to arrive. There is something so comforting about seeing the little flowers and leaf buds appear. Of course, as soon as Spring arrives, my thoughts turn to...Summer! Below is a lovely picture of a crocus that Linda took.
SEEDS
With the arrival of spring comes the time to start planning the garden for summer. In recent years past I have not done much growing of my garden plants from seeds. I usually get them as small plants from either the Master Gardeners' sale or from our local Farm & Garden Center. But this year I got a seed catalog in the mail and I have been perusing it all winter. I finally decided on what I wanted and put my order in this week. Of course, the one seed I wanted the most to order was not in stock. It was seeds for a habanero pepper that is "not hot," called a Habanada. I love the flavor of the habanero pepper and have planted a couple each year for the past several years. They are an absolutely lovely plant with the most colorful peppers, but those pretty little peppers are so doggone hot! I never know what to do with them so I usually wind up making some kind of jam or BBQ sauce with them. But if they weren't so hot, I could grill them and maybe even Linda would be able to give them a try. Anyway, that's why I was hoping for the Habanada seeds. I have asked them to notify me if they get more of those seeds in stock. In the meantime, I had to order some of their Zavory Habanero seeds. This pepper promises to be "mildly spicy, without all the heat." We shall see. If you are interested in buying some seeds to plant in your garden (they have plenty of pepper seeds that are not hot at all, in addition to lots of other seeds), you can find the Rare Seeds website here. Below is a picture of some of my habanero peppers from a couple years ago.
PIZZA
Lately I have been on a search for the perfect pizza dough recipe, and I think I may have finally found it. I made pizzas a couple of weeks ago and although the end result was very good, the dough was extremely hard to roll out. Linda suggested that I check out the recipe for Barbara Kingsolver's Friday Night Pizza on her website (found here). I made it last night and it was absolutely yummy! It made two very large pizzas, so we are having pizza again tomorrow night with enough left over for lunch, too. Once again I used King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, but I do believe next time I will put in a bit of white flour just to tone down the whole wheat taste (which can be a little overbearing at times). But this recipe was a dream to roll out, which makes for much less cussin' and fussin' in the kitchen! Check out the pizzas from last night below.
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