Preparing the Feast

Yesterday (Halloween) was Gloria's birthday, so it was time for a birthday celebration.  We usually stay home to answer the door for trick or treaters so I get to have fun in the kitchen and pull out all the stops for a birthday dinner.  This year we also have her Mom living with us so it was a formal dinner for three.

Soup

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Entree

Crown Rack of Lamb

Warm Mustard Sauce

Parsleyed Red Potatoes

Sauteed Vegetables Provencal

Dinner Rolls

Far Eastern Shore Autumn Swan

Dessert

Smith Island Coconut Cake 

Before I got busy in the kitchen, I needed to set the table. The presentation is important, and it gives us a chance to use the good china and crystal that we usually keep in the china cabinet behind glass doors.  We like to actually use it (once in awhile) to be able to enjoy eating off of it instead of just looking at it. When Mom saw the table set she asked "is someone coming over?" I said no, it's just the three of us. I guess she's not used to making a special meal just for the special people we live with.  But I figure, the people we choose to share our lives with are the ones most deserving of a special effort. 

Table for Three

Had to be sure we had all the flatware, china, and crystal that we would need in place.

Also had to be sure there was space for the serving dishes and the carving set was sharpened and serving utensils in place.  Can't overlook any details that would distract from the experience.

I set the table early in the afternoon to have time to get into the kitchen and still have dinner ready by 6:00. I wanted to eat a little early because we expected the trick or treaters to start coming by after about 6:30. In years past I've done dinner later, but it was interrupted repeatedly so I went for an earlier service where we could enjoy the dinner.

Before we started eating I told Mom what each of the different pieces of silverware were for so she knew which one to use for each course.  She's never eaten such a formal dinner before and I was hoping she would enjoy the experience since it was just family and she didn't have to go out to a fancy restaurant, but she could still have a fancy dinner.

I also went out and cut the last of the daisies that looked presentable for a formal dinner.

Most of the daisies have withered now that we've had a couple of cool nights, but there were enough left to decorate Gloria's dinner table.

After a couple more hours in the kitchen, it was time for dinner.

The lamb is ready, the soup is hot, and the wine is open.

I surrounded the lamb on one side with the potatoes and on the other with the vegetables. The potatoes were made with parsley fresh from our garden.

The vegetables were a mix of red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, yellow squash, and onions sauteed in butter and olive oil.

We were lucky and there were no interruptions until after we finished eating dinner, dessert waited until later (we were all full.)

It was just the right size for three and coconut cake is one of Gloria's favorites. Tonight, Jacob and Amanda are coming over and we're having home made pizzas.  We'll keep the celebration going, but more casual tonight.

I put the snow shovel away

Enough of THIS:

We had a chance to get beyond basic clean-up of the garden over the weekend.  We’ve been talking (and researching) about different options for a raised garden bed for a few weeks.   In a couple of the places we’re lived, I’ve build garden beds for Gloria to plant flowers or vegetables.  Last spring we got a couple of big planters for the patio (a ½ whiskey barrel and other pot just a little smaller,) but this year we wanted to go bigger.  But we also wanted something high off the ground that would be easy to tend.

I’ve looked at plans for DIY beds and at kits available from local sources.  I wasn’t sure about the DIY options because I didn’t know how we would be able to get the lumber home so that I could start working on it.  Not to mention that the scratch built boxes are a lot more work.

So last week, Gloria found a kit at Lowe's that makes a 4 foot by 4 foot by 6 inch raised bed. They’re designed so that they can be stacked. We were out most of the day Saturday, but after we got home and took care of the kids, we went up and picked up 4 kits. So I had the makings of a box 4’ x 4’ x 24 inches.

Sunday’s project was putting it together. It was pretty easy and went together quickly. It was also nice that the corners are designed with a spike that anchor it into the ground and serve to lock the upper layers together.

½ way up

The completed box

Then it was time to add the dirt.

This is most of it, I had to go back and get 3 more bags of garden soil.  It totaled to 30 cubic feet of dirt. I had 12 cubic feet of plain topsoil and 18 cubic feet of flower and vegetable garden soil. 

The bird seed was also in the Rav and had to be unloaded. I left it up there for the picture figuring on making a comment like:

I wonder what I'll get from these seeds?

I did a little research this morning and it came in somewhere around 2600 pounds of dirt.  I put in over 1 ¼ tons of dirt yesterday.  The research was after taking a couple extra strength Tylenol.

But now it’s ready for planting.

Gloria has already picked out a selection of bedding plants to go in there and in the two planters from last year.  She has 3 kinds of tomatoes, 4 bell pepper plants, some romaine lettuce, a rosemary plant, and some basil. (There might be something else, but I can’t remember all the specifics from as far back as Saturday, it was a long weekend.)

While I was working on the new garden bed, Gloria was cleaning and putting preservative on the patio furniture.

They've gotten a "weathered" look that we're trying to recover from.

I did take a break after the box was built and started working on dinner. I butterflied a whole chicken. I made a rub of pesto and some roasted red pepper sauce we had and rubbed it under the skin of the chicken. I put it back in the refrigerator for a couple of hours while I filled up the garden box with dirt. Gloria made our springtime favorite salad – asparagus and tomatoes. We had some pasta salad and I decided to cut up a pineapple and grill some spears since I had the grill hot.

I got the chicken going and we got ready for our neighbor to join us.

On Saturday we had gotten some new wines form our friends at Far Eastern Shore Winery http://www.fareasternshorewinery.com/ . They have two new wines, Lotus and Dragonfly.

We approve of the new wines. J  We actually went through 3 bottles while we were relaxing from our toils of the day.  I think that had something to do with my not being too sore when I went to bed last night.

Well, dinner was relaxed with fun company and a feeling of accomplishment after a busy weekend.

I still have work to do in the front yard, and I need to put mulch down on the back garden.  But, I put the snow shovels away in the shed and we’re moving on to Spring.  (The final confirmation will be the cherry blossoms in the back yard.  They’re budding now and should be out within a week or two.)

Roast Beast Dinner

The gardening efforts of late have been restricted to plugging in lights at dusk and unplugging them before bed.  But life goes on through the holidays and there's time to cook.  Earlier in the month were rounds of Scottish shortbread, homemade chocolate candies, and several batched of Chex mix.  With the heart of the Christmas holidays, it's time for the savory specials.

We planned a special Christmas dinner, but by Christmas day we were too tired to cook it.  So we held off for a couple more days and last Friday I cooked our slightly delayed Christmas dinner.

The Menu

Standing Rib Roast

Asparagus with Dried Tomato Pesto

Sauteed Mushrooms

Mashed Potatoes

Pan Gravy

Scottish Shortbread & Homemade Candy

We picked up the roast about a week early and put it (unwrapped) in the spare refrigerator to let it age for a week before I cooked it.  I used Alton Brown's recipe for standing rib roast and it was very successful.

 Successful - OMG Delicious! It was tender and moist with a great crust.  The aging had intensified the flavor of the meat by letting some of the water in the roast evaporate.  Then it was cooked in a very slow oven, 200 degrees for about 5 hours in a stoneware covered roaster. Finally it was put into a 500 degree oven (still in the stoneware) for 15 minutes to develop the crust.  After the high heat, it was placed on the cutting board and covered with foil and allowed to rest for 15 minutes before carving.

The asparagus is a recipe I came up with last summer.  I melt some butter and oil in a large pan. Once it's melted I stir in a couple tablespoons of sun dried tomato pesto sauce.  Add the asparagus and toss and let it saute in the pan.  We like ours to still have some body, not overcooked and limp.  For this thin asparagus it took about five minutes.

The mushrooms were sauteed in butter and when they were brown I added some brandy and let them sit in the sauce while I turned my attention to the other side dishes. I added a little espresso salt after they were done to round out the flavor. They absorbed the butter and brandy while they were sitting.

The mashed potatoes and gravy were not given a lot of attention - I had too many other pots on the stove - but they were good.

I didn't get any pictures of the shortbread or the candy, maybe next year - there won't be anymore this year.

For next year - who knows.  But we have been making it a tradition for the last couple of years to have a crown  rack of lamb on New Years Day.  Here's a picture from 2 years ago. This is on my parent's wedding china.  Each of the kids have two place settings and we divided up the serving pieces.  It only come out for very special dinners with the love of my life

I don't want anyone to forget that this blog is not only about gardening and dogs, it's about cooking too.  

You can wipe the drool off your chin now.

Colors of the Season

These are just some of the colors of the season in my yard today.

This evening they were joined by some bright red fresh sliced tomatoes and toasty brown pan-fried crab cakes on fresh rolls from the farmers market this morning.

The peppers will be peeled and canned (whatever doesn't get eaten first - sliced up into salads or on sandwiches.) 

A Garden Visitor

We were having a cookout last night to celebrate a friend being in the country for the first time in 8 years (he lives in Thailand.)  We were sitting back with some other mutual friends after the cookout and enjoying the company and the evening.

After dinner conversation came to a halt as eight grown adults stopped to look at a baby rabbit explore the grass.  The cuteness factor won out.

We have a lot of rabbits in the yard and the yards around us.  Something I have noticed is a lack of squirrels. Every place else we're lived, I've always seen plenty of squirrels - and the dogs have loved chasing them out of the yard(s.)  But here we don't seem to see them very often.  Which is OK with the dogs since our current crowd are mostly seniors (ranging in age from 8,10,15,to 17.)  The only one who chases anything (one of the two who is not blind) chases birds.  She even started barking at a plane once as it appeared over the horizon at the top of the hill in back.

Fortunately for the rabbit population, our dogs don't seem too interested in them either.

We also have a couple of chipmunks out back.  I saw them for the first time last week. I heard them first and looked over in time to see two of them running down the pole at the top of the chain link fence.

While I'm talking about the kids, let me share a picture that one of them snuck into last night.

That's Truman at the bottom right.  He was trying to check out the buffet before we all had a chance to get to it.  I love the tongue hanging out!  We had Baltimore pit beef, steamed shrimp, hot dogs, seafood salad, vegetable pasta salad, deviled eggs, watermelon,and roasted vegetables.  Dessert was strawberry shortcake, homemade ice cream, and Berger cookies. Several bottles of Far Eastern Shore wine, a couple types of beer, and sodas rounded out the menu.

Did I mention that I'm hoping to include cooking, gardening, and the dogs in this blog?  I hit on all three today.