I grew lovely broccoli flowers....

Somehow, I missed the cue that said "Pick the broccoli and eat it" and so I just have these lovely yellow flowers for a winter's worth of watering.

I've got to do a little more research on broccoli. In the meantime, I think I'll start some carrots...

I pride myself on knowing what my readers want.

You want to know what Johanna and I had for dinner last night.

Answer: turkey stroganoff with a side of cauliflower. But not just any cauliflower. Last week, Johanna's CSA provided us with a head of purple cauliflower.


How does one cook up purple cauliflower? We had no idea. We decided to try the old South Beach Diet recipe for fake mashed potatoes, which uses cauliflower, to create purple fake mashed potatoes.

We had no idea how it would turn out: is the cauliflower purple on the inside, or was it just spray-painted by a farmer?

Turns out it was purple through-and-through, as evidenced by how the steaming liquid ended up:

And here's how our meal looked in the end:


Bon Appetit!

The Gift of Gardening

I was home in Florida this Christmas and made the mistake of casually pulling a few weeds from one of my Mom's flower beds in the back yard. The weeds were all dead (thank-you RoundUp!) but they were dry, tough, and knotted up like a 2-foot x 5-foot ball of twine. My hamstrings are still tight days later but it was a satisfying job. I'm sure I wouldn't have felt the accomplishment as much if I'd known that my mom owned a Garden Weasel. Ah well. The soreness has inspired me to start my new year's resolution to exercise early!

Anyhoo. After the weeding, it was too easy to move over to the next patch needing attention. And then on to pruning the shrubs-turned-small-motorcycle-death-cage. By this time, Dan and the sibs were committed to making another Eden in Mom's backyard. Dan was especially excited when Mom brought out the chainsaw and discovered it wasn't broken. (Men and their chainsaws. : )

A couple trips to Lowes for mulch, sand, annuals, gloves and sundry, plus a good day's work by a team of slightly hungover holiday-goers, produced a beautiful panorama for Mom to enjoy morning coffee and paper with.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Attacking the Cage of Doom:


You can see the deck!


Dog beach (sand not warm enough yet)