You know what I love to eat? Appetizers! Not like the giant appetizer sampler plates with the fried cheese, buffalo wings, fried zucchini, fried mushrooms and a big, ole fried onion blossom. I like little tidbits of this and that. Tapas is (are?) one of my favorite ways to eat. I love Café Seville in the Gaslamp district of San Diego, but I don't get to go there often enough.

Last week, Mr. HeyLucy brought home the food section of the paper, because he liked the looks of some recipes in an article about skillet suppers (from this cookbook, which I now think I might need to get). I made the baked ziti, and it was, indeed, quite tasty. When I saw the recipe for Spanish-style garlic shrimp, I knew I had to try making some tapas this weekend.

My extensive research consisted of googling "tapas", which led me to this site. I decided to try this, this, and this.

It might look like a lot of work, but it wasn't too bad, really. I boiled half a dozen eggs while cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast, and then made the stuffed tomatoes. They were a little labor-intensive, since you have to peel and hollow out the tomatoes, but not difficult. I think I'd like to find a different stuffing recipe, because this was just a very plain egg salad. Not too exciting, but not bad.

Next was the potato salad, and I saved time by using teeny tiny potatoes that I've been buying from Trader Joe's lately. I think they're Yukon Gold potatoes, and they really are tiny, at about an inch in diameter, and they are so delicious. They are almost creamy when you cook them, and don't need any butter at all. For the salad, I just cut them in half to cook. I'm not crazy about anchovies, so I skipped the anchovy-stuffed olives and just used some big green olives. I also forgot that we were out of Dijon mustard, so I used some hot-sweet mustard instead. It was so delicious, I may have to use this as my standard potato salad recipe from now on. Not only delicious, it was so pretty too:

 

The mushrooms on toast was just about the easiest thing ever, and I just used store-bought mayonaise. I'd love to try it with homemade aioli sometime. Either way, I think you should make some this week. I already feel a craving coming on.

 

I'm having some leftover potato salad for lunch.

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Yesterday I spent the day at the home of my friends Naz and Adam. Cary was there too, taking a much needed break from working hard on the road. Naz took Cary and I to her favorite massage place and we had a little pampering. I went for a little swim, and we cooked a delicious dinner. I hope you have a friend like Naz in your life. Everyone needs one.

 

Tonight I'm making sorrel soup, for the second time. It's going to be especially nice because I harvested a few Yukon Gold potatoes from my garden.

I think one of my little hens might have laid her first egg. There was a small, pretty grey-green egg in the coop today.

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I actually started this post a few weeks ago, but never got around to finishing it, so here you go, a post all about some good food I've been making and eating lately:

Cooking and gardening is about all that's been going on here lately. I need to do some sewing soon, it's been so long. In the meantime, we've been eating quite well, especially since Mr. Heylucy (not the tidiest person I've ever known, for the record), thought it was time to clean the oven. I'm not going to say how long it's been since that has happened, but we have lived in our house for seven years, so it's been less than seven years, that's not too bad, right? We ran the self-cleaning cycle, and almost had to spend the night outside it got so smokey. Oops. I think we'll do that on a more regular basis from now on.

Back to the cooking, I never mentioned that I made the Chili Pea Puffs. I highly recommend the recipe, they were delicious, and gobbled up before I took any pictures. So I suggest you make them. I used panela cheese (a Mexican fresh milk cheese) in place of the paneer, and it worked out just fine. I experimented with folding them several different ways, but I liked the simple fold-in-half-diagonally method the best. Serve with a little chutney, yum!

Last week at the farmer's market I got the biggest artichoke I had ever seen. Mr. HeyLucy is not a fan, so it was all for me. Feeling confident after my hollandaise sauce success, I decided to make a lemon garlic aioli to go along with it. That turned out to be a pretty good idea. Here's the recipe:

Lemon Garlic Aioli
1 egg (very fresh, be careful with raw eggs of course!)
1 T. grainy mustard
1-2 T. lemon juice
zest of one lemon
2-3 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 c. olive oil

Combine all the ingredients except the olive oil in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. With the motor running, slowly drizzle in the olive oil until the mixture thickens.

Speaking of sauces and dips, how about a little guacamole? I like a good guacamole with chunks of tomatoes and some creamy sour cream and all sorts of good stuff, but sometimes you don't have everything you need, and you just want some guacamole right now. Here's what I do in this kind of situation. Dice up a little bit of onion, and make sure it's nice and fine. A couple tablespoons is all you need. I prefer red onion, but yellow will do in a pinch. Put it in a bowl. Cut an avocado in half and remove the pit. Score the flesh lengthwise and cross-wise into a small dice, and scoop out with a spoon. Add to the onion, season with salt (I prefer kosher salt) and a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce. I'm partial to Cholula, but Tapatio is good too. Even Tabasco will do if there's nothing else available. Stir it all up with a fork and get yourself some good tortilla chips. There you go,guacamole in just a minute! You can squeeze a little lime if you have one, but I never bother. It's usually all gone before it has a chance to turn brown.

Saturday I went to a beekeeping class, but I made sure I had time before hand to stop for my current favorite sandwich. My current favorite Vietnamese restaurant is called Pho Superbowl, and while the pho is good, I am always looking for an excuse to go there for a banh mi sandwich.

I like the traditional pork, and here the owner recommended trying it with an egg on top. I had my doubts, but ordered it over-easy (they'll also do scrambled), and it was delicious. Underneath that egg is cilantro, fresh jalapenos, pickled, shredded carrots and daikon, and, of course, slices of pork (tenderloin, I think). The baguette for a real banh mi is made with rice flour, and it's so crisp and light and tasty. Also, they are cheap as can be, just $3.95 for a very filling sandwich.

And one last little tasty treat, also from 101 Cookbooks, and easy-peasy, Grilled Fava Beans! I happened across these at the Mexican market I shop at regularly, and this method of preparing them couldn't be easier, although they are a little bit of work to eat. It's fun work, though, and definitely worth it.

I don't read a ton of food blogs, but there are a few I visit on a regular, albeit occasional basis. Of course I love Orangette (who is finally back, by the way, yay!), and the hearty stuff the Pioneer Woman makes, and obviously I visit 101 Cookbooks. But then I was reading Design Sponge today, and happened across this post. I would really like someone to make me these, any volunteers? I'm too busy with other things to have the time to make them, but I really want to eat them. Anyway, that let me to Lottie + Doof, which is now bookmarked, and will be visited regularly. I love this little food pop-quiz he posted recently. Feel free to play along in the comments or on your own blog:

Sweet or salty?

I really like a little something sweet after dinner, and I've always had a sweet tooth, but more and more I'd say salty

Chocolate or vanilla?

Vanilla. Although I do like chocolate quite a lot.

Hot or mild?

hot hot hot!

What won’t you eat?

liver, unless it's dressed up as paté

Most memorable meal?

there are quite a few, but I loved the breakfast I had a little hotel in Gent, Belgium (home of my favorite bakeries). Bread and cheese and jam and some of the best hot chocolate ever. So simple and so perfect.

Favorite object in your kitchen?

my cheese slicer. I brought it back from the Netherlands 19 years ago, and use it not only for slicing cheese (which it does, perfectly. yum, cheese!), but it's so great for thinly slicing mushrooms, carrots, zucchini, potatoes, everything!

What are you scared of in the kitchen?

yeast. scared is perhaps a little strong, but I seldom have good luck with yeast doughs, so I don't try baking with it very often.

Do you prefer to cook alone or with others?

with others, but it's nice alone, too. very meditative, I find.

What country would you move to for the food?

Italy, no question. Even the food at the truck stop we had was good.

If you were to come back as a fruit or vegetable, what would you be?

I do love figs, but I'm not sure how that translates personality wise. I'm soft and delicate maybe? ha ha!

What’s for dinner?

I really want to try making some sorrel soup tomorrow night.

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While last Saturday may have made me feel like a failure as a farmer, things are not all bad around here. Despite the  fact that the chickens continue to think my vegetable garden is their own personal dust bath spa, a few things are growing quite nicely. I harvested my first radish this week.

This is a salad rose radish, they are, obviously, a long variety. This one was about six inches. I left it for Mr. HeyLucy to eat, because radishes are one of his favorites. He pronounced it delicious and very spicy. The chickens did a bit of damage to my radish section, so there are only three others there. They grow so quickly, I'm thinking of filling in a few squares with more radish seeds, so we can enjoy a few more harvests. I'll also be adding some chicken wire covers to the garden, and hopefully that will keep those rascals at bay.

I also discovered that what was burning my plants was actually a freakishly late frost (we had frost until June 22!), so I lost my beans, a couple cucumbers, and the cinnamon basil. I thought that three of my four tomatoes were goners, but only one actually died, and the other three are looking good. My red grape tomato is huge, and there are even a few tomatoes ripening. The other two tomato plants have a ways to go, but I'm hoping we'll still get a few by the end of Summer.

Here's the whole garden, it looks pretty nice:

The sorrel is doing really well, I've trimmed it a couple times to share with friends, and I'm going to try and make some sorrel soup this week. I'm not sure if my peas are going to do much more than they're doing now. They're the four right front boxes. As you can see, they have no interest in climbing the poles I've rigged for them, but there are quite a few pods. It may be getting too hot for them, so once the pods are ripe, I think I'll harvest and pull them out and replace them with something else.

Here's what I'm discovering: when it comes to gardening, you can read and study and plan all you want, but the only way to really learn how to garden is to…garden. I know, that's so deep, but if you want to plant a garden, and you have even a little bit of space, I say go for it! You'll never be more ready than you are now, and some things will not work, and some things will be amazing. I think it helps to be out there in the dirt, as much as possible, too, and even just pulling a weed here and there is progress. It's so easy for me to look at my big garden area, where I want to plant berries and fruit trees and make about 8 more boxes and get overwhelmed, but I just keep reminding myself to be patient and just do a little at a time, and eventually I'll have my little Eden out there. 

Enough about the garden, remember how I started making a sleeve for my laptop? I finished it and used it while traveling last week. It worked out just great.

 

My laptop is my primary computer, so it's a big 17" one. I don't travel much with it, sand I have a case, but it's heavy and ugly, and it wasn't very practical. So I got myself a little rolling carry on bag, and filled it with a bunch of stuff, leaving room for the computer on the top. So much easier!

 

And it's cute!

One last thing, back to the garden. I decided to have some pretty yogurt for breakfast this morning. I picked a sprig of lavender and a sprig of mint, and added them to my Greek yogurt and raspberries. There's also a sprinkle of raw sugar for sweetness. It's quite tasty (I'm eating it right now!) and it smells so good.

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Here's what I've done so far. Made some cupcakes for a mini-shower for my sister, with the help from two sisters-in-law:

Filmed my brother playing a new song in the bathtub. The flashes are me, taking pictures. I get to be a guest on his podcast later this weekend.

UPDATE: Okay, Cary took his video off YouTube, so I'll have to load it myself, but I'm headed for the mountains this morning. I'll re-post it when I get back! In the meantime, enjoy a cute puppy!

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My final birthday giveaway plan has worked out, so you'll have to read all the way to the end to find out what it is! I'll draw the first three birthday week winners tomorrow night, and then the last three on Friday, so you'll have a little time to enter this one (as well as the last two). That way I can try and get everything shipped on Saturday.

Saturday mornings are all about breakfast around here. I love my yogurt and fruit breakfasts during the week, but Saturday is for something hot and hearty. I was feeling a little adventurous this past weekend and decided to try a little scrambled goose egg. I should have included a fork or something for reference, but that is one big yolk.

While beating it, it seemed heavier somehow and creamier, it's hard to describe, but it was quite good. I had it on top of my favorite potato hash (of which I make many variations-this one had lots of onion and some leftover pot roast). It was delicious, but that was a lot of egg.

A little story about something I learned this weekend:

The worst part about having chickens is cleaning out the chicken coop. Once I start raking all the shavings and poop up it gets quite dusty in there and I have to take frequent breaks to get some fresh air. It's not stinky, just dusty. I recently had the brilliant idea to get a dust mask to make the whole task easier and probably much healthier. I tend to do these dirty chores first thing Saturday morning before showering or anything, which is logical, right? But I also went out there with my dust mask just after finishing breakfast, but before brushing my teeth. And here is what I learned: do not ever wear a dust mask when you have nasty onion and cheese breath. Boy was that stinky. Now you know.

Lest you think I'm a complete idiot with poor hygiene habits I noticed today while at the bank that I have a real talent for pulling up nice and close to the drive up ATM. I laugh at the people who pull up and then have to open their door to do their banking (only in the most affectionate way, not mean-spirited). I love discovering hidden talents.

Have you seen the cover of Better Homes & Gardens April issue? It not a magazine that I usually buy, but I was completely charmed by this image:

So I've blatantly copied them and made my own version (it was pretty darn easy, so don't be too impressed. I also may have gone a little overboard with the little chick and the mushroom):

 

The pale pink violas are in a goose egg, and I used the ceramic egg carton my friend gave me for Christmas.

And now for the final birthday week giveaway! I wanted to find some more moss to share, but it's been dry lately, and while on my Sunday afternoon walk I only found little dried up bits of moss. The good news is that the dogs were very well behaved and didn't knock me over this time.

I wasn't about to give up, however, so I went to a favorite nursery on my lunch hour, and found a couple fun little mossy plants. The tag says one is baby tears, so maybe it will grow taller, but for now it's quite compact and flat, and the other is a creeping thyme, which I think is pretty hardy, so I hope it can take the high humidity of a terrarium. So I put together a little terrarium kit. You'll have to provide your own jar, but I'll send everything else! I think it will be so fun. There will even be three little mushrooms, because you know how I feel about mushroom-less terrariums.

Let's talk about breakfast for this giveaway. What's your favorite weekend breakfast? Do you cook? Or go out? We used to live in Mission Beach and The Mission was my absolute favorite breakfast spot. I loved the zen breakfast or the roast beef hash. I don't usually care for really sweet breakfasts, but their french toast-made from thick slices of cinnamon bread-was also always tempting.

I love violas, in large part because that was my grandma's name.

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