Hardy Hibiscus

Good morning,

These pretty blooms are in our front yard near the street.

We have a lot of these bushes in the back yard so I transplanted a very tiny one that had grown from a seed to the front yard several years ago.  Just look at it now!

I kept the bottom branches trimmed so that the "bush" is more in the form of a tree.

So pretty!

Enjoy,
Lois

Cabbage, Lamb, and Fresh Bread - Comfort Food!

Good morning,

We eat a lot of salads in the summer, but every once in awhile, we need to pause for some comfort food.  Our friend, Bill, brought us three heads of very tender cabbage from his garden so My Honey just had to make Norwegian Cabbage and Lamb. 

The recipe is so simple:

Ingredients:

Enough fresh cabbage to fill your pot.  Cut cabbage in slices.

Chunks of lamb.  We use a lamb leg and cut it in chunks.

Pepper corns to taste.  We like a lot of them. You can put them in a bag and remove it when you serve, or as is done in Norway, you can fish them out as you eat. 

Directions:

In a large pot or in a crock pot layer cabbage, lamb, pepper corns, cabbage, lamb, pepper corns, etc. until pot is full.  Add enough water so that it covers about half of the contents in the pot.  Cook on low until the cabbage turns brown - this will be several hours.  Serve with boiled potatoes or, in our case this time, fresh bread.

Simple comfort food!

I baked my honey egg bread for the occasion.

 It goes pretty fast around here.

 I bake bread almost every day.  This is the bread I made the next day when we finished off the cabbage and lamb.  This is egg bread, this time rolled in corn meal before baking.

Click here for my bread recipes.

Ah, yes, food prepared at home.  Yum!

All the best,
Lois

Our Little Goldfish Pond

Good morning,

We have a small permanent gold fish pond in our back yard.  It was here when we moved in 34 years ago, but filled in with cracked pottery and soil. 

All those years ago we dug out the pond and found a perfectly sealed concrete pond that holds water without any repairs needed.  We added an electric line to the pond to supply power for a small pump and light.  In the winter, we put a pond deicer in there to keep it from freezing. 

The pond is self-sustaining and the fish live there happily all year round.  These two pretties have been in there for the past five or six years. 

What a pretty setting for some garden ornaments, too.  Our little bunny needs a little more cleaning.

 It took two days to drain and clean the pond.  I had most of it drained when a thunder storm arrived so the water lilies had to live beside the pond and the fish were in a bucket in the garage overnight.  I had a hard time sleeping that night, worried that the fish wouldn't be happy in that bucket  all night.

 In the morning, I was happy to find that all was well.  I finished cleaning out the bottom of the pond (a very dirty job!), refilled it with fresh water, ran the new pump fountain for a couple of hours, then returned the fish to their clean home.

The water lily roots will float for awhile when returned to the pond, will then slowly settle into place on their own.   In the winter the leaves die back and the roots settle to the bottom of the pond and remain dormant until Spring.

It takes a little work about twice a year, but it's worth it.  We love our little gold fish pond.

All the best,
 Lois

Happy Birthday United States of America!

United States of America

Happy Birthday!

Cincinnati's Fountain Square at Lunch

Good morning,

We made a quick trip downtown to go to the safe deposit box and walked across Fountain Square to the bank.  Fountain Square is Cincinnati's city center.

People are outside enjoying lunch at the tables provided on this gorgeous day.

This is another image that I took with the camera on my new Blackberry Z10.  These phone cameras are getting pretty good!

Enjoy,
Lois

Home Cookin'

Good morning,

We are home and enjoying our kitchen again.  I've been snapping a few pictures and am sharing some from the last three nights.

Above is onion soup that I made from scratch.  We both agree this is a good candidate to make for company, but it is so time consuming that it would surely have to be made the day before.  This is just an absolute favorite around here.

 This is my home made onion bread.  I've published quite a few of my bread recipes here on the blog.  Click here to see them.

 The next evening, My Honey prepared shrimp tossed in garlic, dill, and lemon.  We served it Norwegian style on my fresh bread with a little mayonnaise.

And, for another meal we had shrimp on our salad of green leaf lettuce, spinach, orange pepper, radish, egg, walnuts, cranraisins, tomatoes, green onions, and bleu cheese with a dash of raspberry walnut dressing.  This time it was served with my light whole wheat bread.

These are images I took with the camera on my new Blackberry Z10 phone.  Although not quite the same as my Canon cameras, I'm pretty happy with the quality of the pictures from the phone camera.

Enjoy,
Lois

Trumpet Vine on Fire?

Good morning,

I took this picture of the Trumpet Vine (also known as Hummingbird Vine) while the sun was shining through the pedals.  I was surprised to see how the image looked when I downloaded it.  Instead of playing with it in Photoshop, I am sharing it the way the camera saw it.  So vibrant!

This Trumpet Vine is huge with blossoms all the way from just a few feet above the ground to at least 50 feet up into a tree.  

Gorgeous!

Enjoy,
Lois