Choice Morsels

Here's something we had for dinner this week: Lombardy Chicken & Corn on the Cob! Lombardy is a region of northern Italy, which is perhaps where the name comes from. Dishes in that region of Italy are more meat-based & buttery. For Chicken Lombardy, I buy packages of thin sliced chicken breast, though I think pork scallopini, which comes thin-sliced would work just as nicely. You can, of course, slice & pound your own boneless chicken breasts if you prefer. I use a mix of flour & cornmeal seasoned with salt & pepper (about half & half) to dredge the chicken slices before frying in butter.  This gives a nicer crust then just flour. For something so simple, Chicken Lombardy is deliciously cheesy and rich tasting! The corn is something we got from the local farmers market held on weekends at a nearby plaza. Hubby picked up more ears at the Commissary last Sunday, so we grilled and enjoyed more corn for lunch today! Tonight: left over Panda Expr

Today's Garden Pics: I saw this box turtle enjoying wading around this dish of water I have out for the birds a few days ago, at least until she saw me with the camera, then she froze. That eye is looking right at me! I took the picture and she crawled out of the desk shortly after. I recently caught this tree frog peeking out of my patio container reservoir hole. It has a couple inch space for water and the tree frogs like being in there and stick their heads out to catch passing insects. Raised Garden Bed Progress: First one is filled and yesterday I did some planting: a purchased tomato plant & bell pepper and some seeds: purple bush beans, zucchini, beets, butternut squash. It's important to space certain things out, so you don't get a ton of stuff all at once, so I'm just planting beans in quarter rows, a week apart.  Beets will need thinning out once they spout, so I left a blank row to move those two. I like them for greens. Th

Since grocery shopping is challenging right now and it might be difficult to find specific ingredients, I'm just going to show you photos of meals we're eating.  I have plenty of stuff on hand for some cook home eatin'! This was dinner yesterday: rosemary-garlic thighs cooked on the grill.  Hubby likes to fold a piece of heavy foil into a pan shape and cook our chicken in that vs directly on the grill. That way it's tender, but not burned. Plus I made sauteed sweet potatoes and microwaved Green Giant Brussels in Butter Sauce. I think sweet potatoes are at their best just peeled, sliced into strips and sauteed in an iron skillet in olive oil with minced garlic and a little salt till tender. Delicious! Tonight, I'm making soup with the remaining 3 thighs, plus carrots, baby potatoes, cabbage and barley. Seasoning will be rosemary and garlic. Yum! Soup will make the thighs go further, so we'll get at least 3 meals out of it.

The Mama Kat prompt I've chosen today is to "Show Us Something Beautiful." My Dutch Iris have been extravagant this year! I have a vase of them in the house. Very cheery. It's the reason I grow flowers---to have a free vase of flowers in the house!  And My Favorite Azalea's This one Azalea in my back yard is the only one that bloomed profusely this year! I love the large these large fluffy single blooms! Thanks for Visiting!

Two pictures for today: one is my container garden and the other is our progress on the raised garden beds: Pretty In Red : I added a red Million Bells, a Red Saliva and a curly parsley to shade my stone hippo in this container. Red flowers attract Hummingbirds, so I always like to have Red Salvia in all my containers!  There are two other containers, each with a curly parsley. One has a pink Million Bells and a Red Salvia; the other has a curly parsley, a Red Saliva, a Lemon Thyme that's a permanent resident I think plus a Petunia that wintered over. Raised Garden Bed Progress: They're finally ready to be filled with soil! We plan on working on filling one first and hope to buy bags of garden soil this weekend! You can see the block work between the beds we worked on last weekend and you can see the gray landscape fabric layered in the boxes. There's actually 3 layers there: two layers of landscape fabric and between them a fine quarter-in steel mesh c

I found this soup in a group of recipes for beef entrees, so it calls for beef meatballs. I use Cooked Perfect brand of frozen Angus beef meatballs, since I don't like making meatballs, but you can make your own beef meatballs first, then just add them to the broth instead of frozen. The recipe is for the base meatballs, seasoning and broth, then you add whatever greens or veggies you prefer plus choose your own preference for pasta or couscous. The original recipe called for plain pearl sized Couscous, but Hubby prefers anything to that, so I used wide whole grain noodles in my most recent batch. And I dislike kale, so not the greens of my choice. I noticed soft greens like spinach "melted," if cooked too long, so if you like spinach, add it during the last few minutes of cooking. (photo is my soup topped with a little shredded Mozzarella) Beef Meatball Soup Ingredients 1 20oz bag frozen beef meatballs (about 20 for 4) 2 cartons of vegetable stock (3

Since I didn't like any of the Mama Kat prompts, we're going to look at garden stuff I was doing today! I ordered a live Stevia herb, a Roman Chamomile and a Caldoon Artichoke that will be arriving soon, so I needed to prep the bed where I plan on putting the artichoke.  The Caldoon artichoke is spineless--meaning it won't be prickly; unlike the class Imperial artichoke that is. I got the Stevia because the one I had for years died and the Roman Chamomile, which is true Chamomile, for a ground cover. I use Grower's Exchange for live herbs. Today's Project: Clean Up This Bed This bed is behind and higher ground then where the raised beds sit. I use it for flowers & herbs mostly, but I want to but the Caldoon here.   That tall shrub behind the bird feeder is a Rosemary. It got a trimming around the base today plus I planted 3 rows of flower seeds behind where the bird feeder is. This bed is about 6 feet wide, so plenty of room still. As soon as I

Once upon at time I bought a couple bags of red lava rock for landscaping use. It's red pumice and readily available by the bag in most big box store garden centers. Over time I noticed moss liked growing on lava rocks located in shady areas---particularly on the north side of the house.  Then I figured out I could pick up a moss covered lava rock and move it to a shady teacup with succulents or other container and the moss would continue growing and spreading. In general, moss thrives in deep shade, but it also likes dappled sunlight. In nature, it prefers the North side of a tree or rock. Today's Wednesday Pic is a couple extremely pretty mossy lava rocks in a novelty container in my front garden.  Moss blooms, then makes seed pods. Those little green things are seed pods or  maybe spore pods. I don't think I've ever had a close look at them before taking this picture. There's 3 rocks in this container 2 years ago; just one had moss already when I put i

I've made this twice now, it's sooo good! Easy. It's just a simple Marmalade sauce you serve over a skillet-browned ham steak.  I think the Marmalade sauce would be good over a baked sweet potato and any number of things. The recipe is enough for one ham steak. If you want to serve more then one ham steak, you'll need to double it.  (The photo is mine. I sauteed garlic sweet potato strips with apple slices to serve on the side.) Orange Spiced Ham Steak Ingredients : 1 ham steak, bone in, fully cooked 1 1/2 Tablespoons unsalted butter 2 Tablespoons water 1 Tablespoon Honey Mustard 1/4 cup Orange Marmalade 1/8 teaspoon Ground Ginger Directions: In skillet with a tad of olive oil, brown the ham steak 3 or 4 minutes on each side, drain, return to skillet. Orange Marmalade Sauce: In a small sauce pan combine butter, marmalade, ground ginger,  honey mustard & water. Bring to boil. Then spoon sauce over ham in skillet, cook covered 1

The Mama Kat prompt I chose today was, "Share a Recent Disappointment." Two recent ones come to mind. One was at a Long John Silver's in Indiana, while we home visiting recently.  Long John's has a new set of grilled tacos available and I ordered the grilled shrimp taco. It was a to-go order, but when I opened my taco pack, I discovered I only had regular fish tacos. The order was correct, so it was a miss on the part of the food prep people.  We'll visit again in due time and I'll try again. But that is a trivial matter compared to a greater disappointment I have with Zazzle. Disenchantment might be a better word. There are a number of online print-on-demand companies that specifically work with independent artists, like myself, providing a virtual 'store' space to post art on products those companies can then print when ordered. Those artist's earn a royalty per item. Zazzle is just one.  There are several others. I've had

I have a large container garden in front that I planted a large day lily in for a height several years ago. Overtime that day lily prospered and multiplied to the point it was taking over my container! In fact, I split that container just trying to get it out! I pulled out this huge ball of day lily roots, which you can see divided up and spread on the ground below: I learned recently that one blade stem with roots is called a "fan." There must be 50 fans in this clump. I'm working on transplanting them here and there as this is a very nice large, tall daylily with a pretty pinkish-orange flower and the greenery doesn't die back in winter. (Some day lilies do die back in winter then reappear in spring.) I purchased a new large container and to prevent the day lily from spreading too much, I potted it in a smaller pot to set within the larger one.  Also my Calla Lily bulbs have their own pot and the Million Bells, that wintered over, their own pot.