Veg Garden, Polenta

Pumpkins

Sugar Baby - http://articles.latimes.com/1999/nov/21/food/fo-35818

 

Cinderella - http://chiotsrun.com/2009/01/26/cinderella-pumpkin-rouge-vif-detampes/

Mike's first tomato, he's worked hard to get it.

I was worried a cold snap would hurt the apple blossoms but the trees are loaded with maturing apples.

at the edge of the garden

he's not supposed to be in the garden, but he follows Mike everywhere

Yesterday's meal at La Cucina inspired me to make this meal which turned out pretty good.  We're trying to reduce our carb intake (Mike has lost weight but no such luck for me) The stone-ground cornmeal is a complex carb, not that we could have polenta often but it is high in fiber.

This is mostly what a Sunday afternoon looks like at our house.

La Cucina, Lye Soap, Bob-White eggs, & "Royal" Palm Tom Turkey

a darling place in Mountain City, TN

Mike had the Brasato with Polenta (pictured) and I had the Meatballs with Polenta.  Oh my, all of in the place were raving about the delicious food. I've got to try and duplicate that polenta, don't know Matteo's recipe but I found some online  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/basic-cheese-polenta/  real comfort food. and the good news is, complex carbs, doesn't raise blood sugar so much.

 

 
Matteo and Gracela Torri

http://www.matteotorri.com/Matteo 
Matteo was a professional photographer for 40 years.

Panna Cotta.  Wasn't mine, the gal at the next table let me take a photo of hers.

That's Gracela's eye on their business card.

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Remember last weekend I was at the goats-milk soap class? Has me interested in Lye Soap, I bought this bar that I ran across today.

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I bought a dozen Bob-White eggs BUT my friend Matt Arnett says this on FB.
Matt Arnett Joanna BooneDocks Wilcox: It would be best to hatch the Bobs in an incubator. If the hen hatches them then you will need to have her in a cage surrounded by hardware cloth. Anything larger then a half inch hole and they will be gone. Also, they will not respond to her as a mother like chicks would. If you raise them yourself then you need high protein game bird feed. I used 30% Purina for Bobwhites. I raised 20+, so I used a large cardboard box. At 3 weeks they go out. I set up a feeding station for ours in a 6x10 pen that was safe for them to hide in at night. Other then that I let them come and go. By that winter we had over 30. They had brought in some wild friends. The next Spring they slowly paired off and disappeared. Technically in NC you are supposed to have a permit to even have Bobwhites.

Today, we traded our two aggressive Bourbon-Red Turkey toms - Washington and Jefferson - for Royal, a Royal-Palm Turkey tom and a very nice cage. Out two toms had been chasing BarbaraJean, Jack, jumping on chicken hens who have little chicks under 'em, and harassing me.  Those who remember Franklin, he got an injury to his beak, and we had to sell him for meat a few months ago. Franklin was my first love in turkeys, he was always so sweet. Royal better be sweet too or...

Rhudolf got a haircut yesterday.

Mike put Royal up in his bedroom.  At night, all our birds get up on these overhead boards in the back side of the barn and sleep until daylight.

It's 10pm on Saturday night, like every Saturday night, Mike and I are watching back-to-back episodes of The Virginian on the INSP channel and after I blog, I'll be playing FB WORD TRICK with my California cousin. Life is good.  :-)

Goat Pics