Spice It Up + Mt Rose Giveaway
I’m a huge fan of herbs and spice and try to incorporate as many of them as possible into our diets on a daily basis. The herbs I don’t grow in the garden, I buy from Mt Rose Herbs. I started buying from them years ago because they had great quality and have a great collection of organic products (did I mention they have great prices too) If you look in my spice cabinet you’ll see their labels dominate my jars.
When Mountain Rose Herbs contacted me about trying their new line of Epicurean products, I said “Sure” and asked about doing a giveaway. They sent me a few of their new products: Black Salt, White Peppercorns, Garam Masala, and Curry Powder. Typically, I mix up my own garam masala, and my recipe is great, but I thought I’d give theirs a try. I think these spice mixes might end up in my camping pantry. The pepper grinder container will be going in my purse so I can have freshly ground pepper anywhere.
You’ll notice that I have a link to Mt Rose Herbs in my sidebar and have for a long time. If you do purchase from Mt Rose Herbs, come to this blog and click through first. They give me a referral fee % of your order and it helps pay the expenses associated with this blog.
People ask me all the time about where I get my organic herbs and spices, Mt Rose Herbs I always respond. Mt Rose Herbs is going to be giving one of these spice collections to one lucky reader. All you have to do is comment below. Winner chosen, Congrats Troy who said this:
What’s your favorite herb or spice?
For more reading on the health benefits of spices:
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Quote of the Day: John A. Shedd
“A ship in harbor is safe,
but that is not what ships are built for.”
John A. Shedd
I have been thinking about this quote as I’ve been letting Dexter take forays out into the garden. You see, Dexter is not an indoor cat. We tried to make him one and he literally went crazy. As much as I’d love to keep him safely inside, I realize it’s not really the healthiest thing for him.
All this week I’ve been taking him outside for little jaunts while I work in the garden. The first day I let him outside, he caught a mouse within five minutes as if to prove his point. Each day, he gets to spend a little more time in the garden with me and gets to wander farther away.
He thrives on hunting mice, rolling in the dust, sniffing the fresh air, eating grass, climbing trees, chasing insects and padding about the garden. Dexter is a much happier cat when he is able to be outside. I can totally understand that, as I’m much happier and healthier when I can spend time outside as well.
Yesterday he even went on a three mile hike with us, running ahead as a dog would and waiting for us to catch up. He was a bit winded by the end, but he thoroughly enjoyed himself.
It’s a dangerous world out there for cats, they can be eaten by a variety of predators and risk injury from other threats; I’m OK with that. I’d much rather Dexter lead a short happy life than a long miserable one.
The same holds true for my life, I hope I never allow fear to hold me back from experiences that could be great but come with risk. I guess if I did I’d still be living in Ohio. I want to live my life to the fullest and to do that I must take risks!
Do you ever let fear hold you back?
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Mushrooms Galore
This past Tuesday evening, Mr Chiots and I attended a seminar at our new local library about mushrooms. It was led by Greg Marley who wrote Mushrooms for Health.
It was mainly geared towards the health benefits of mushrooms and why you should add them to your diet. I’ve read a lot on this topic and we try to eat a lot of mushrooms, both because we like them and for their health benefits.
He also brought in loads of mushrooms to look at and identify. They came in all colors, shapes and sizes and were so fun to look at.
He also talked about which edible mushrooms you could find in Maine, specifically, which ones we could find this fall! I knew many of the mushrooms we had in Ohio. Mr Chiots and I harvested morels in our own backyard. I even grew some of my own mushrooms last fall from logs I had inoculated with spawn plugs. I am looking forward to learning all the edible mushrooms we have here on our property. We certainly see mushrooms by the hundreds when we’re out hiking.
Greg definitely knew a lot about mushrooms, I was very impressed with his knowledge. He collected mushrooms all over the Northeast and sells tinctures and mushroom tea. You can read more about him and see his products on his website Mushrooms 4 Health. I’ll definitely be reading his book soon and all the other books he recommended.
Mr Chiots and I are even going to talk to him about partnering with us in a new project we’ve got in the works (more on this exciting new in the coming months).
Greg is leading other seminars in the area this month, I may just have to attend one on mushroom identification. I would love to learn a lot more about all the wonderful mushrooms I find, both edible and not. There are always books (a few that he recommended are listed below), but there’s nothing quite like hands on study when it comes to something like this. A photo in a book doesn’t come close to seeing something in person.
Have you ever harvested mushrooms from the wild and eaten them?
For more reading on this topic:
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Friday Favorite: Lamps
Mr Chiots and I were talking the other day about how much we love lamp light. We don’t use a lot of overhead lighting in the house because we prefer less direct lighting. We also don’t like a lot of bright light in the evenings.
There’s nothing more cozy that sitting by the warm glow of a lamp in the evening reading a good book (with a cup of tea of course). Around here it has to be an incandescent bulb, no CFL or LED bulbs allowed. As a highly sensitive person, these kinds of lights really bother my vision, give me migraines and cause sleep disruption. I can’t even be on my laptop within an hour of bedtime or I have trouble getting to sleep.
I think that’s one of the things I love about Christmas so much, the warm glow of the lights on the tree and outside.
My #1 favorite light source is the sun, as it’s natural and free, but it doesn’t stick around super late in the evenings, especially in the winter. It’s rather difficult to read by the light of the moon most nights, so lights are needed. Now that we have a larger house, I’m in need of a few more lamps. I guess I’ll have to start looking around for some sconces and lights.
Do you have a favorite type of lighting?
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Le Potager du Chiot’s Run
My to-do list is super long, especially when it comes to cleaning, office work, and other things. All of those things are being put off in order to get the small potager behind the house planted in crops that will hopefully provide something fresh for our plates this winter. It may be too late to plant things, but I’ve got nothing to lose but a few packs of seeds.
This garden is approximately 20 feet wide on all sides making it almost a perfect square.
Before I could plant anything, the garden needed clearing of weeds and past prime plants. The weed were tall and all going to seed, not a good thing. Letting weeds go to seed only means much more work in the future. Surely you’ve heard the quote “one year of seed equals seven years of weeds”. I will do just about anything to not let weeds go to seed in my garden.
This garden is a small kitchen garden located right off the enclosed back porch. I will use it for herbs, lettuces, and other edibles that I want to grow in small quantities and things that are harvested while I’m cooking. Back in Ohio, I had all my herbs growing in the flowerbeds directly around the house for quick harvests.
While I was filling my wheelbarrow with weeds, I spent my time making future plans for this space. I’ve always wanted a traditional four square garden filled with mostly herbs (here’s a great illustration of a four square garden). This little garden will eventually morph into that. There will be rock walls on the lower side to hold the soil back in the garden, on the upper side there will also be rock walls to hold the lawn back out of the garden. By doing this I can level this space a little more for my traditional four square garden.
I’m going to call it “Le Potager du Chiot’s Run”. It’s kind of funny that the name of this blog is French, since I don’t speak it, but I do speak Spanish. I decided that all things around here will keep with the French theme. The chicken coop will be named something French as well, perhaps “Chez Poulet” or “Maison pour le Poulets” (any suggestions?).
Until that happens, it’s going to be a small working kitchen garden. Yesterday I managed to plant a whole mess of mesclun, ‘Winterbor’ kale, a few different kinds of carrots, and cilantro. Then I got rained out.
Hopefully today I can plant the remainder of the cleared area with beets, more kale, spinach and radishes. While I’m doing that I’ll keep dreaming and planning the future of this space.
Do you have different garden zones for different kinds of edibles, close to the house for quick harvests, main crop areas, etc?
