Sweet Pickles Farm: An Easy Evening

Just a glimpse of spring...

We are still alive, hehe! As usual, we have had a busy week. Friday was a long work day, then we had plans to attend a convention out-of-town on the weekend, so we had to kennel our fur-babies. Then we went to stay with our friend whom we mentioned in a previous post that had just lost her husband. She is 93 years young, and it was so much fun to be with her. Her friend, (85 years young) joined us, and we had such a good time! She fed us well, and was such good company-being the hoot that she is. She has requested that we come back soon and have a slumber party, where we will watch old movies and eat some junk. That sounds like a great plan to us!

Yesterday was a long traveling workday, and Mamie decided to get car-sick, with four hours of driving to go! Ugh-there is almost nothing worse than being nauseated to her. Poppy was so sympathetic, that he decided to forgo eating so that Mamie would not be alone in starving, but also not make her smell any stinky food. However, we made it home and she is feeling better today.

We had nice plans of making a dinner that is a staple in our house: Chicken Cassoulet that is low in fat but great in taste. However, come late afternoon, we both ran out of gas and decided to just whip up some cornbread (not from scratch tonight, just the good ol' Jiffy mix that is kept on hand in such emergencies), and some of our beloved swiss chard with bacon. It is such a good feeling to go out into the garden and cut vegetables that you grew yourselves from seed, knowing that there are no chemicals on it and it is as fresh as you can possibly get, without eating it while still in the garden. :-) We will make the cassoulet later in the week and post it for posterity.

A few shots of the garden today:

Peas growing to maturity

So glad we put some cover cloth over our eggplants. Usually, the flea beetles have had their way with them already, and they show they are suffering; but with the cloth over them, they look fabulous.

Here is the star of tonight's dinner...swiss chard snipped right out of the garden...

Here is the bacon ready to be crumbled up into our swiss chard...

And here is our dinner- a simple, but oh-so-delicious sauteed swiss chard with crumbled bacon, along with cornbread, butter and honey...mmm mmm good!

Why relegate your choice vino to some far away occasion that may never happen? Sometimes, the most simple meals call for a special spark to make it over-the-top memorable....

You can say, "Oh whatev- but let us tell you---this was SOOOO delicious!!! Okay, we may be middle-aged and our tastes are very REFINED (cough cough), but come'on, this is GREAT!

We have plans for tomorrow to refresh our pots that we have around the house- we purchased our plants last week, and tomorrow will be the first opportunity to get to them. Our deck is looking lonely, and these potted plants always bring so much color and life to it! We are so looking forward to some balmy evenings on the deck, grilling and listening to our dinner music, sipping on some sort of refreshing beverage, and visiting with each other-with or without a few friends, but always with our furry companions.

These are the plants ready for their pots...