I got up this morning, had my coffee, put oats on the stove for our breakfast and sat down in my rocker.  The realization hit me I had nothing to do!  Wow, this happens about a handful of times a year.  First I started grilling my man for what he wanted for supper.  I mean, come on, after awhile finding something new and different to eat, well, I just seem to come up with zilch.  He's still suffering from all the Chicken Parmesan he ate last night, but don't blame me!!!  I didn't make him eat "the whole thing".  Obviously, he was no help.  He just said, "something light" and tripped off to feed the dog and the horses and then went off to work.  Duh!  Now what?  I went to the frig and opened my lettuce drawer and nearly cried.  With all the hub-bub of Thanksgiving, I had forgotten about my passion fruit.  There they were laying there all shriveled up.  I was just disgusted with myself. 

I grow passiflora incarnata, passion fruit, or Maypop, as they call it here in Indiana.  If you look on my home page you'll see the arch that leads into my garden.  First I planted roses on it but it just didn't have enough cover, so I also planted the passion fruit vine.  Maypop will trail on the ground or it will also climb a trellis.  Needless to say, the roses and the purple flowers look amazing toward the end of Summer.  My Golden Shower climbing roses bloom first and then slow down and toward the end of the season Maypop crawls up and starts to shine with beautiful purple blooms that bees and butterflies adore.  At the end of the season Maypop dies and I pull it off my trellis so nothing kills my roses.  They work together perfectly! 

At the end of the growing season these little green fruit appear, about the size of a large chicken egg, and after a hard frost you can pick them.  Now most people think they are inedible but - not true.  Open the Maypop and there is a sack of seeds inside, each seed being enveloped with a delicious membrane.  Put these seeds through a food mill and you get a very nice juice with a tropical-like flavor.  I usually add pineapple juice or something along that line to the juice and make a sorbet.  But alas, not this year!  I am so disappointed in myself. 

My decision is made.  I'm fixing breakfast for supper.  I'm fixing my husband's favorite meal.  When he was young his Mom used to make Chocolate Gravy and biscuits for her kids.  It's probably not the healthiest meal but every once in a while I give in and fix it for him.  Sometimes I fix it for family when they come for a visit and spend the night and he gets to explain how to eat it.  First you put a split hot biscuit down on the plate, put a pat of real butter on each half of the biscuit and pour hot chocolate gravy over it and then the best part, top it off with more real butter.  That's it!!!  His favorite meal and not real hard to make either.  Check out my Recipe page.  I'll have it there for you.

Ever come home from work and you'd give just about anything if you had put just a tiny bit of thought into what you were going to be preparing for dinner that evening because all you want to do is drop?  Yep, that's me tonight.   And stressed!!!  Mercy, there are so many people out there with negative attitudes.  After awhile, if you're not careful, you get negative as well.  On my drive home from work I decided I was going to make more Lavender Antiseptic and Calming Spritzer.  I usually make a batch for the Winter.  I rarely need it in the Summer.  All I need is a nice walk in my herb garden; but Winter is different.  I feel like I'm locked in a room with no green and no sun and no dirt.  If I just had a big old hickory growing in my kitchen I'd be just fine.  I have 2 bay trees but even at 8 feet each they just don't do the job.  So I get out my spritzer and go around the house spritzing everything and since it's antiseptic it's really nice in a house that's been closed up during the cold months.  It's great for use in bathrooms and nice when you are traveling and staying in hotels.  But tonight I'm spritzing for stress relief.  Lavender always makes me feel calm and I NEED CALM!!!  I'll put the directions on my Recipe page for you.  You'll just love it!!

I made Chicken Parmesan for dinner tonight and we had our leftover Walnut-Gorgonzola Bread dipped in oil.  Man that was good!!  People think that dipping oils are some big deal, but they're not.  Get yourself a really good olive oil and Italian Seasoning.  Now don't get that cheap Italian Seasoning (if you're buying it) because generally it's 3/4 oregano.  While oregano is great - it's simply not the only herb ingredient that goes into Italian Seasoning!  Try making your own.  Homemade Italian Seasoning is unsurpassed in quality and imagine making it from your own homegrown herbs!  Oh, man, now I'm drooling, again!!!  Anyway, I'll put the dipping oil on the Recipe page as well.  Needless to say, I'm going to have to work a little bit harder on this "girlish figure" thing because it could get away from me real quick.  I love to eat.

I'm feeling a little better now. I'm spritzed, I'm full and I'm in my jammies.  WHAT A LIFE!!!

Whoa!!  This Wednesday has started out crazy.  Just because it's my day off from working at the law office, doesn't mean I stop working, little shot I have of that - it's laundry day.  Not my favorite thing to do but ya know, we need clean clothes!!  On top of that, I promised my Husband I'd make him an apple pie.  Just this Summer I canned apple pie filling for the first time.  Duh!!  Even I am amazed that I never ever thought about canning apple pie filling, but my friend has apple trees in her backyard and each year she is so gracious and let's me have all the apples I need, so this year I wanted to try something different.

All that being said, today I am making an apple pie using my own homemade pie crust with my own homemade filling.  I'm actually excited!!  Doesn't take much to excite me, as you can see. 

I'm also going to be making, as promised, homemade bread.  I'm making Walnut-Gorgonzola Baguettes.

Think I've got enough to do?  Not yet!!  I'm also making homemade Sloppy Joes for supper.  It's a new crockpot-freezer recipe.  Wouldn't it be nice to pull out some Sloppy Joes from the freezer and have them ready for company so you could actually enjoy "your company"?  I'm thinking - you know they're coming, so you make some cole slaw a day or 2 in advance, throw it in the frig; the day before your company gets to your house you pull out the Sloppy Joes from the freezer and let it thaw and then the next day you go to your office (or wherever your work might be) with the thawed freezer Sloppy Joes in the crockpot.  You come home and bingo - a quick supper for those traveling to be with you this holiday season.  Sounds good to me.
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The apple pie was a hit.  My husband had to eat Turkey Noodle Soup just one more time and I had to promise him no more Thanksgiving leftovers so the pie hit the spot.  I'm sure I would have had a revolt on my hands without that pie!!

The Sloppy Joes turned out pretty good too.  And the Baguettes?  Oh my!!  If any of you are interested in that recipe let me know and I'll get it onto my Recipe page.  The baguettes are perfect for dipping in oil.  I have to say upfront that they do take a little time, they are not hard to make, but you've got to be ready to spend a little time preparing on each step, but they are well worth it!!  They also contain my dough enhancer which IS on my Recipe page but at the rate my husband is going after the bread it won't have time to develop mold, let alone cool down!!

The laundry is almost finished and the day is waning so I'll talk to you tomorrow.  A new day, a new herb.  Wonder what the Herb & Spice Talk page will hold tomorrow.  I'm thinking something used in Italian cooking . . .

This is my very first post and my goodness I'm as nervous as a cat.  I'm sure I'll make mistakes but hang on!! 

It's cold here in Indiana and I'm already feeling house burnt and Winter isn't even officially here.  So I've made this master plan for December, January and February of items I can do to keep myself busy.  I decided to start a week early because I am going nuts.  So yesterday I made my own dough enhancer.  I've always wondered why my wheat breads were so heavy and you could buy wheat bread at the store and it was soft and pliable.  I've also wondered how the white bread I bought at the store lasted so much longer than my homemade white bread.  I can barely get it to last a week before it goes bad!

We here in this particular area of Indiana have a lot of Amish and Mennonite so I started checking out some of their little stores and lo and behold there was a dough enhancer and with a little further investigation I've managed to scrounge up a recipe for my own use.  Please note:  this is not my very own recipe but if you are reading this go to my recipe section and I'll have it there for you.  It's amazing!  Your breads will be softer, rise higher and last longer.  I've got a quart of it in my fridge ready to go.  Because Wednesday, on my master plan for December, January and February, is bread making day . . . tomorrow we start!!!