Gardening and reflecting
plus a recipe for grain free (gluten free) chocolate chip muffins
Happy Friday, beautiful souls. How has another week passed?
Does anyone else look at the photos on their phone a year, two years, five years ago and compare where life has gone? Or is it just me? I have found myself doing it more with Giovanni because I have a difficult time recalling in my mind’s eye how tiny he was. He looks to me like he has always looked but when I compare photos I see that he has gone through various evolutions of himself and will more. Like we all have and do.
I spent a good amount of time this week gardening. I wanted to get my tomato plants in pots with some good nutritious soil. The weather is warming up and I can’t wait to have vine-ripe, homegrown tomatoes. Nothing screams summer more than freshly picked tomatoes. Maybe also ice cold watermelon, warm cherries, and drippy ripe apricots but I’ll stick to my container garden dreams for now. So I got my tomatoes in their various pots around the deck and front of the house. I also potted our blueberry bush. Giovanni loves blueberries so I got him a plant so he could see where they come from. He loves watching the strawberries grow—we check on our mighty container garden every day—and when there’s a strawberry that’s ripe (since our little strawberry plant seems to only produce one at a time…for now) he gets so excited to pick it and we wash it and cut it up and he gets to eat it. It’s pure joy.
But one of the most frustrating things about gardening is the pests. So I’ve got these small slugs—at least the one I’ve caught was small. And they are eating my beautiful dahlia plant as well as my recently planted lemon tree. It’s so frustrating because every morning there are glisten-y lines criss-crossing all over our small patch of garden and over the cement from the neighbor’s garden to ours and back. I bought diatomaceous earth that was recommended at the home and garden center and I don’t think it’s working. I just see the slimy trails over the white powder now…maybe the snails are diatomaceous earth resistant…? Interesting fact, diatomaceous earth is made from the fossilized remains of tiny, aquatic organisms called diatoms. Their skeletons are made of silica and the silica disrupts the bugs by drying them out. “Disrupt” is a nice way of putting it. And I’m so sorry snails but you have got to go.
And if that doesn’t work I’ll resort to beer traps which I have done in the past with success. You simply bury containers with beer (please, the cheap stuff) at earth level and the smell attracts snails and slugs, they crawl in and die (again, sorry!). Last year I’d go out early in the morning to check my traps and throw out downed snails. I think I’m going to have to do this again because these little buggers are persistent.
Well, beautiful souls, I hope your garden is providing more zen than slug headache. And that you find as much glee in homegrown strawberries as Giovanni does. It’s almost Mother’s Day so whatever that stirs up in you I hope it’s more sweet than bitter. Have a glass of champagne for Mother’s Day…you know that’s my favorite?
Grain Free (gluten free) Chocolate Chip Muffins
This recipe is adapted from one of my dear friend Laura’s recipes. She is the best cook I know—brilliant in the kitchen, garden, and academically as she’s an economics professor while also being a gourmet cook and amazing gardener. We used to live together at Casa de Messy-haired Bibliophiles and she would often make me breakfast, like poached eggs with tarragon from the garden or the best skirt steak tacos you could imagine alongside an arugula salad. And the cocktails…that was a whole other thing. She would mix big batches of our favorite cocktails (du jour) and leave them in the fridge so I could have a filthy gin martini whenever I wanted. And in the garage she barrel-aged Manhattans. Basically anything she touches is magic. You can follow her blog here.
These muffins are gluten free and super moist. I think I prefer them to traditional, flour muffins.
7 oz. cassava flour
1.75 oz. almond flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
8 oz. apple sauce
4 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
4 eggs, beaten
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
1 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
Heat oven to 350˚F.
In a medium-sized mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients (cassava flour, almond flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt). In a separate bowl, blend together the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in the chocolate chips.
Distribute the batter evenly in a 12-cupcake tin—you can line the cupcake tin or not.
Bake for about 15 minutes or until the top is boingy and dry to the touch.
Enjoy!
