Everything's GROWING!

It's finally gotten warm enough and dry enough for me to play in the yard and garden.

The garden has lain mostly fallow the past couple of summers, but by golly, I'm going to have a garden this year!  So I got out a couple of days this week and started digging in the dirt and touring the yard.

And like a good tourist, I took a boatload of pictures!  Here we go!

Peonies have flower buds!

A tiny buckeye forest!

A violet carpet! 

Golden forsythia.

One of ninety-six yellow
daffodils in the back.

Asparagus, at last!

Wildlife in the garden!

A fancy daffodil by the porch.

Some random tulip!

Agnolotti with Creamy Pesto, Peas, and Asparagus (Comfort Food with a Difference!)

This is a pretty, really GREEN dish!  I found this recipe in a magazine quite a while ago.  That Boy isn't a big fan of vegetables, so he picks out pasta and chicken for his plate, leaving more lovely peas and asparagus for the rest of us!


Agnolotti with Creamy Pesto, Peas, and Asparagus

3 T butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c flour
2 1/2 c milk
1/2 c pesto
1 t salt
20 oz agnolotti, tortellini, or ravioli
1 lb fresh asparagus, 1" pieces
1 lb frozen pea, thawed
1 c diced cooked chicken (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a 2-quart saucepan, melt butter and cook garlic.  Blend in flour and cook 1 minute.  Blend in milk slowly to avoid lumps.  Blend in pesto and salt.  Cook 6-8 minutes until thick.

In a 4-quart pan, boil agnolotti 2 minutes.  Add asparagus and peas to pasta and cook 2-3 minutes.  Drain.  Add chicken, if desired.  Stir in sauce.

Transfer to a 9x13 baking dish, sprayed with non-stick spray.  Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.  Let stand 5-10 minutes before serving.

Ah, Spring at Last!

It finally feels like SPRING!  Not that the winter was so terrible.  We had hardly any snow.  There were no ice storms.  The temperatures weren't anything to get excited about.  But winter in central Indiana isn't pretty.

Winters here are an ugly dark gray/brown, wet, and cold, with an occasional frigid day or week.  Snow makes things look bright and cheery for a bit, then it melts in the late afternoon and refreezes at night.  Or it rains during the day and freezes overnight.  Or there's freezing rain.  Or the ever-popular "wintry mix."  UGH.

Mostly it's hypothermia weather - wet and cold-ish.

Then there's the precursor to spring - rain and wind and mud - oh my!  Still not pretty.

But this past week - suddenly SPRING!  The grass glows with the color of a green crayon. Dandelions and violets have invaded the yard!  Daffodils and tulips bloom in their beds!  Peonies, day lilies, and hostas poke up from the ground!  Asparagus begs to be cut in the garden!  Fuzzy ducklings and goslings block traffic at the marina!  Tree frogs sing in the evening!  Magnolia, dogwood, and redbud trees bloom in a riot of magenta, pink, and white!  All at once!

Nature has had enough of winter, and as my dad would say, "Spring has sprung!"