Supper Thyme

Did you ever put thyme in pie?

If you haven't, consider putting it in blueberry pie now that summer is here. 

Here's the link to Southern Living's Thyme-Scented Blueberry Pie.

I added a cup of frozen cranberries to the recipe because I didn't have nearly enough of the

blueberries the recipe called for.

RH said it was the best blueberry pie I'd ever made, but maybe that had something to do with the crust. The recipe calls for refrigerated crusts, which I've been known to use, but I had been wanting to make a crust with vodka so tried it.

Oh, my word, the vodka does make it so tender!

Recipe here from Cook's Illustrated.

The recipe called for the crust to be made in a food processor. I had never done this but I bet many of you have. I am directions-challenged but read the recipe over and over and finally did it.

You can't possibly know how proud of myself I was to do this instead of using my trusty old pastry blender.

I'll tell you one other thing I did last week for the first time in over a year--I drove myself to the grocery store and shopped alone, carried in the groceries alone when I got back home.

And I was so proud of myself! You see, part of what I've been doing the two months I was on my blogging break was going to physical therapy two times a week, three times a week the first month.

I've had bad knee pain since January and was diagnosed with patella femoral pain syndrome, similar to runner's knee. The therapist also discovered I had tibialis anterior tendonitis. 

Since I had felt this winter that I was soon going to need a walker to get about, I have been faithful to my PT appointments and doing the exercises at home. And next week, God willing, after almost three months, I will be finished with PT but of course must continue the exercises at home--if I know what's good for me.

So that, combined with my computer being down for three weeks, made it easy for me to almost drop out of blogging. 

But a blogger I am and so to blogging I returned in my last post. Just as once again driving gave me a renewed sense of independence, so blogging gives me that indefinable unexplainable feeling of accomplishment too.

Those of you who blog or are on Instagram, etc., do you feel this way too?

No one may really care what we had for supper except ourselves, but isn't it fun to share?

The organic vegetables above went into Jacob's Lentil Stew, recipe here. I also added a couple of turnips to it as we really like the tang they add to vegetable soups.

Thank you for reading my rambling supper post. What are you having for supper?

Here is supper. It smells good.

It looks good. It tastes good.

It is good.

All good things come from You.

Gunilla Norris in

Being Home 

 

Roses and Cake and A Gardener

I was a mere 17 years old here in my father's rose garden, celebrating my birthday, even if I do appear to be a serious matron.

Is it the hairstyle or the dress or that I'm scowling into the sun? At least I had a waistline back then and the only one I'm willing to share here now on the www. 

That didn't keep me from wanting a birthday cake recently and this lemon bundt cake from Cook's Illustrated was yummy, even if I still miss the strawberry shortcakes that Mama made me every year on my big day. 

I still prop my birthday cards up somewhere for the whole month to enjoy as long as possible.

And RH gave me a rosebush for my birthday.

 We were surprised that there were no roses planted at this 1935 house when we moved here except for this huge wild one growing in the hedgerow with honeysuckle and blackberries.

Deer nibble on almost everything in our front yard so we haven't been able to decide where to plant roses since the back garden is pretty full now. 

I'll always love roses and associate them with my birthday and with my father who always had rose gardens.

RH reminded me recently about the time each spring when my father would have a special rose sale at his two garden centers. 

He ordered so many each year from a Texas grower that after they had filled all orders they'd offer Daddy a tractor trailer load of leftover bare root roses free if he'd pay the $250 freight bill.

RH remembers unloading them when they came in on Friday and on Saturday Daddy would have our local WENO country music radio station (now a gospel station) send out their mobile unit and it would broadcast live from the garden center, advertising 10 cent roses. 

 [newspaper photo with my father in the center,

my uncle on the left, brother-in-law on right,

and RH kneeling]

Cars would line up all up and down the road with customers for our traditional annual sale. Obviously there was no profit on the bare root roses but most people ended up buying so much else that it was well worth it, plus a lot of fun. 

Until the very end of his life my father always gardened. He had since he was a small boy helping his mother work in her flower and vegetable gardens while his older siblings helped his father on the farm, and he never let old age or illness stop him.

I know he's beautifying heaven's gardens today and making sure there will be plenty of roses there for my mother who loves them.

My father and I share birthday months and so I always think of roses on both our birthdays and birthday cakes--strawberry shortcake for me and sometimes German chocolate cake for him.

But mostly on his birthday I think of the best father four daughters ever had and the best gardener I ever knew.

 [more about this gardener here]

Garden on, Daddy!