cultivating me

Last summer I purchased dwarf citrus trees – lemon, lime, grapefruit and kumquat.  We already have a very large orange tree in our yard which we love and use on a regular basis.  Having citrus trees in my yard reminds me of the house where I grew up. We had orange, lemon and grapefruit trees [...]

Thursdays are usually left over nights in our house.  However, more often these days, leftovers get packed up in school/work lunches.  It’s not such a big deal except when I forget they get eaten and then, like last night, realize the one sole enchilada remaining wasn’t going to be enough.  As my son and I [...]

On Sunday it was decided that the family would come to our house for the holiday.  We’ll either be a family of 5, 9 or 12 depending on who actually shows or doesn’t.  Sweet’s family is more of a “we’ll wait and see” kind of family than mine is.  At times, I have a hard [...]

I have lots of memories when it comes to the holidays.  One thing I will always remember (and still enjoy) is my mom and grandmother serving up eggnog around Christmas. They always warmed it, added whipped cream a dash of cinnamon and nutmeg, and for the adults – a shot of brandy. Eggnog is still [...]

101 Simple Salads, #25 Ridiculously good.  This is another salad I would like to eat every day for the rest of my life.  As you can see, I added some pinto beans to this salad even if the recipe didn’t suggest it.  I’ve been eating these salads for my lunch and wanted to round out [...]

101 Simple Salads, #10 today i made a salad which included a type of green – arugula.  i am again using tomatoes from my garden. i only planted 3 plants this year:  2 larger variety (champion and best boy tomatoes) and 1 cherry tomato plant.  i have learned this gives us more than enough tomatoes [...]

101 Simple Salads, #13 i feel perhaps i might be cheating by choosing another salad which contains fruit.  but i currently have a refrigerator full of ripe strawberries and tomatoes from my garden so i decided to use what i had on hand. it was delicious and i would have loved to have served this [...]

101 Simple Salads, #4 after the way yesterday’s salad swept me off my feet, i had high expectations for this salad and ended up a bit disappointed.  this is not to say this salad was bad, it just wasnt’ as scrumptous as i had hoped it to be.  i think perhaps some of the problem [...]

Recently I read the book “Food Matters”.  In it, Mark Bittman argues that for a healthier world and healthier self, we should all eat less meat.  His premise is that the meat packing industry is one of the largest contributors to global warming and that with all the hormones, antibiotics and poor living conditions in [...]

I’ve been having so much fun reading through the comments left on my crock pot giveaway!  It seems there are a couple of dominant answers to my question of what is your biggest challenge when it comes to getting dinner on the table during the week. Number one on the list seems to be having [...]