Beauty

by

A Plant I Like

This is a plant that I like named Cornus Sericea. It is better known as a red osier dogwood. During the Summer months, the leaves of this dogwood are a beautiful green and white color. The white color is so light it is almost like silver. In the Winter months, this plant has so much appeal. The twigs actually stand out against the dark colors and snow in a reddish blaze. It is nice to have a plant with so much Winter appeal. Everything looks so barren during the dark Winter months and this red osier dogwood’s branches give a little pop of color to an otherwise bleak landscape.

The red osier dogwood is a pretty easy plant to grow and is also widely found in nurseries with an even better low price. This plant transplants readily from a container, ball and burlapped or even bare root and they adapt well to most soil types and are also great plants to grow in area where you fear that you might have erosion issues, like a sloping area in your yard. Red osier dogwood does best in full sun to develop the blood-red stems.

Clusters of tiny white flowers appear in the Spring and will continue to bloom sporadically through the Summer. The flowers are attractive, but do not make a dramatic display. The fruits are white and usually go unnoticed. This dogwood has a purple to red fall color, but can be variable.

They grow pretty rapidly and are best trimmed in February or March by going in and cutting out the older, thicker twigs (which are darker in color than the newer ones) close to the base of the plant. They grow around six feet in height and are an excellent addition to any garden. What are some of your favorite plants in your garden or yard?

by

A Non-Traditional Strawberry Shortcake

This is my take on strawberry shortcake.  I love strawberries, but place them in a traditional strawberry shortcake recipe and I don’t really care so much for them.  I think that the strawberry sauce with its syrup is too sugary sweet for my liking.  The shortcake is another thing I don’t like either.  A homemade shortcake tastes like it has too much of something in it.  Maybe baking powder?  Then when it is topped with whipped cream, that does it for me.  Just too much sweetness.  I guess I don’t really strawberry shortcake on second thought.  So I wanted to create my take on traditional strawberry shortcake that takes all the sugar and sweetness out of it.  I want sugar, don’t get me wrong, but I also want it to have a little kick as well.  Something that plays off the tongue.  So this is my non-traditional strawberry shortcake recipe that uses a honey vanilla pound cake and balsamic strawberries.

Ingredients:

For the honey vanilla pound cake:

  • 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 1/4 cups sugar
  • 4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons honey
  • 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
  • 2 cups sifted cake flour
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

For the balsamic strawberries:

  • 2 pints fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
  • 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease the bottom of an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 2 1/2-inch loaf pan.  Line the bottom with parchment paper, then grease and flour the pan.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for 3 to 4 minutes, until light.  Meanwhile, put the eggs, honey, vanilla and lemon zest in a glass measuring cup but do not combine.  With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the egg mixture, one egg at a time, scraping down the bowl and allowing each egg to become incorporated before adding the next egg.

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.  With the mixer on low-speed, add it slowly to the batter until just combined.  Finish mixing the batter with a rubber spatula and pour it into the prepared pan.  Smooth the top.

Bake for 50 to 60 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool for 15 minutes, turn out onto a baking rack and cool completely.

About 30 minutes before you are going to serve the pound cake, take the sliced strawberries and mix with the balsamic vinegar, sugar and ground black pepper.  Stir to mix all ingredients.  Cover and place back in the refrigerator to chill and blend flavors.  Cut the cake and place an appropriate amount of strawberries over the pound cake.

There you have it.  My non-traditional strawberry shortcake.  Even though it’s not my speed, a little whipped cream on top would be pretty good too if you choose.  It’s your choice.  We were so lucky to get some great strawberries at the farmer’s market.  Very fresh and pesticide free which is always nice to have.  Farmer’s markets seem to be everywhere these days so take a trip to your local one and pick up some great fruits and vegetables.  It may cost a little more but the flavor boost is worth it.  What strawberry recipes do you like that you could share on Acorns On Glen?

by

More What’s Blooming – A Virtual Garden Tour

This is a shot that I can’t even believe I took.  Even with temperatures stuck in the high 80s and many times in the 90s, a dragonfly still has the energy to fly over and enjoy the bloom of a butterfly bush in our front yard.  Even better, the dragonfly waited around long enough for me to get a couple of shots with my camera.  It doesn’t usually happen like this for me when I’m out taking photos.  Most things fly away faster than I can aim, focus and snap a picture.  Yes, Summer is here.  Temperatures are high, rain is scarce and there is a lot of humidity.  That doesn’t mean that flowers and plants aren’t blooming here on Glen Road.  To the contrary, a number of plants are in full bloom even with the harsh conditions.  So we hope you take a few minutes and enjoy a virtual garden tour of what’s blooming in our garden right now.  Here is what is happening:

We hope you liked our little virtual garden tour.  It is amazing that there can be so many blooms given the temperatures we have been dealing with here in Connecticut.  It just goes to show you that there is always a flower of some sort for every season.  All of the plants in this tour require very little water and still show off a dynamic and beautiful display of blooms.  What, if anything, is blooming in your neck of the woods given the hot temperatures we have been having?

by

A Toad’s House Or Did We Buy Some Bad Real Estate?

This is a toad house.  Have you ever heard of such a thing?  Neither had we until someone commented on Acorns On Glen that I should buy this guy a house.  Remember our little half-inch toad friend?

So we are told that these little guys like a house built for them that they can live under and not worry about predators likes snakes to eat them up during the night.  We guess we understand…who wouldn’t like a house built for them when they are born or when they get married?  Even more, would you like to get eaten during the night by a snake?  The little ceramic houses also protect them from the elements….sun, rain, etc.

So if all thing go according to plan, we should have a toad or two living in the two apartments that we constructed in a very short amount of time….one in the back yard and one in the front yard.  This is what we hope our happy toad family looks like in their new home.  Think ‘Extreme Makeover, Home Edition’ for toads.

Let us know….good idea or a huge rip-off?  Each house cost $13…not a huge investment and if it is successful, how great would it be to see where our toads live and be able to point it out to all of our city friends.  If it doesn’t work, can’t you buy plastic toads at the garden supply store and try to trick all your friends into believing they are real?  We’ll keep you posted on how they are received by the toad community.  I’m off to buy an ab cruncher and a few knives off the television.  Aren’t they guaranteed for success as well….just like the toad houses?  What do you think….will toads move in or will we have a vacancy all the rest of the Summer?

by

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – Dragonfly Dreams

This is a little dragonfly warming up in the early morning sun.  They always look so magical and mystical.  Friends with the faeries and gnomes that live out in the woods or so my little five-year old neighbors like to tell me.  Makes me want to curl up and lay in the sun all Saturday as well.  What are your plans for the weekend?

by

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words – Vacation Needed

This is where we might be spending our Summer vacation unless we decide on something to do as quickly as possible.  All of our friends are off to Europe, on cruises, at the shore.  Us….absolutely no plans.  While the hammock would be nice to lay in for a week, it’s not very exciting.  We need to make a plan and make it now.  What are your plans for Summer vacation this year?

by

Summer Update….Warts And All

This is a Summer update to some of the stories we have posted earlier this year on Acorns On Glen.  Can you believe it is the middle of July?  It doesn’t seem possible until you go outside and the hot sun beats down on you while you are gardening or messing around on the patio.  Time goes so fast.  I am remembering a saying that seems to hold some truth for us this year–the older you get, the faster time flies.  That sums up 2011 so far for us even though I am not admitting to getting any older.  On Sunday, we posted a virtual garden tour on what was blooming in our garden.  While we were walking around the garden, there were so many times we stopped and remembered that we had done a post on a certain flower or a certain plant earlier in the year.  So we came up with the idea of doing a post to show what has happened since we first posted the original garden or everyday life story all those months, weeks or days ago.  Some of the stories show progress and some show a different picture.  In the spirit of open and honest communication, we are going to share the good with the bad.  It’s what’s going on at Glen Road….warts and all!

In June, we posted an article entitled “Another Post About Legal Pot“.  We thought the title was funny as the post was about potting plants that we had purchased from White Flower Farm and not about the happy weed that most people would think about when they read the title.  Can you believe that it is one of our most visited posts?  We get it, it’s not the gripping story that unfolded, but the provocative title.  In our story, we show two collections of annuals that we received and planted in pots around our pool.  At the time we wrote the post, the pots looked pretty empty with the little plants placed in them.  Here are the pictures that showed the planting of the ‘Sunny Summer Annual Collection’ and the ‘King Tut Annual Collection’.  Pretty meager to say the least.

Well, we hoped in our post that our two collections would take root and grow and grow they did.  We have been lucky to have some long spells of sun interrupted by a few days of rain and this has been the perfect trick to grow our two collections into some impressive potted displays.  Here are the same two pots still sitting around the pool, but look at how well the plants have filled in.

Sometimes your best intentions in the garden turn out to be disappointments.  Take our story in April on Grace Kelly coming to see us on Glen Road in the post entitled ‘Grace Kelly Moves To Glen Road‘.  If Grace Kelly visited or moved in that would be news to us because we missed it.  Our post was about a tree rose where a Grace Kelly rose bush was fused to a tree trunk and the small tree would bloom with Grace Kelly roses all Summer.  Here are a few shots of the tree rose that we planted and placed on our patio.  So full of potential at the time!

So to be honest, things looked great at the beginning of Grace’s growth.  She pushed out a few leaves on the top branches and hopes were high.  Then she just stopped, dried up and died…or so we thought.  At about the time we were ready to give Grace and her soil a final resting place in our compost pile, we noticed that she decided to change her mind and grow from the bottom of the container and not from the top of the branch like she was supposed to do.  So we have left Grace in her same spot to see what she produces from the rose branch that is growing from the base of the pot.  Do you think we will get a pretty pink rose by the time Fall comes to visit?  Look hard at the base of the pot and you can see the spindly little rose branch growing.

Remember when we were ‘Hot For Horseradish‘ and ‘Raising Rhubarb‘ in April?  We planted some horseradish and rhubarb at about the same time and we were so excited for them to grow and then come back in 2012 for some harvesting.  Well, we will have some rhubarb, but the horseradish had other plans.  Here are our horseradish and rhubarb plants from back in April.

Needless to say our horseradish patch is now a nice little track of dirt and mud.  Did the plants just pack up and leave?  Maybe they didn’t want to live by the sweet and sour goodness of the rhubarb?  Whatever the reason, our horseradish struck out while our rhubarb hit a home run this season.

There are even updates from our post on Sunday ‘What’s Blooming – Another Virtual Garden Tour‘.  In that post, we talked about our best garden buy ever, which were the long-blooming day lilies from QVC.  Well since that post where we showed two blooming varieties, a third one has opened its buds to display a brownish bloom that will last for a couple of months.  Maybe it’s the child of the original yellow variety and the coral variety that we showed you on Sunday.  Remember them?

We are not sure we remember this variety from previous years.  Can that be possible that it just came out of no where?  Doubtful, but stranger things have happened in our garden.  Again, notice the almost brown color of the petals.  As well, the dark purple middle is a killer.  So gorgeous and, best yet, long lasting.

Remember this little stunner from our trip to Christie’s auction house in June in our post ‘Lots Of Bling – Christie’s Important Jewels‘?

This little diamond ring set with an oval-cut diamond, weighing approximately 46.51 carats, flanked on either side by a pear-shaped diamond, weighing approximately 1.01 carats, mounted in platinum was estimated to go for anywhere from $2,500,000 to $3,500,000 in auction.  Guess what the final bid price was when the dust settled at the auction?  $4,226,500!!  A steal (or to steal it is the only way we would ever be able to own such a gorgeous diamond!).

Lastly, we had made a smart little comment about our Asiatic lilliums being some of the first flowers we planted at Glen Road and, while we were excited that they came back year after year, they were not the most vivid colors we had ever seen.  We tried to get out of putting them down by saying we weren’t the most vivid color either after six years on Glen Road, but it didn’t work.  Here is what we snapped on Sunday in ‘What’s Blooming – Another Virtual Garden Tour‘.

Well this morning on a little garden stroll, another Asiatic lillium had shown its face.  Guess what?  The blooms match our embarrassed faces.  How dare we make fun of our lillium tribe.  Our new bloomer is a dark red.  We may be less than vivid in our six years here on Glen Road, but don’t bring the lilliums down.  They are a diverse nation if we have ever seen one.

So we hope you enjoyed our little update of what’s been going on here at Glen Road.  The garden and everyday life are amazing and fun things.  With every great story, there is another one where things just didn’t go exactly as planned.  That’s life!  Well, for all our less than stellar performances, we guess there is always next year…or the year after….or the year after.  You get our drift.  What good or crazy things have been going on for you this Summer?

by

Chocolate Caramel Tart With Fleur De Sel

This is a little slice of heaven.  There is a thing with caramel and chocolate here on Glen Road.  Basically, we can’t get enough of them.  After I made the caramels with fleur de sel, I thought there must be a recipe that incorporates the same ingredients on a grander scale.  When I got my pies and tarts cookbook, I thought a tart would be the perfect way to put the same flavors to work.  After searching the internet, I finally found a recipe that would do the trick.  The recipe itself was one for 24 little tartlets, but I wanted to make the recipe and fit it into my 9 inch tart pan.  There was going to be some modification necessary to make enough to fit my pan.  The recipe I show below is my modification, but know that you will have about 2 cups of caramel left over and about 1 cup of chocolate.  Feel free to modify some more, but I was actually happy, because later in the week, I have some great toppings for an ice cream sundae or maybe spread on a graham cracker or two.  The recipe I found says it is from the pastry chef at the Gramercy Tavern restaurant in New York City and she actually served it at her wedding.  How could it be bad?  Give yourself some time to make this recipe.  It is not one of my easy and quick ones.  It took several chunks of one day to pull off.  The other thing worth noting is that getting the crust in the tart pan was challenging.  I literally slipped the bottom round under the chilled dough and lifted the round into the raised part of the pan.  There was some cracking, but the dough is pretty forgiving and you can mend it pretty easily with your hands.  Don’t make yourself crazy….the dough was delicious even after my mending it.  It is like a wonderful chocolate cookie.  So here is a wonderful dessert….our chocolate caramel tart with fleur de sel.

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Tart Dough:

  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar
  • 1 large egg yolk
  • 3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
  • 1/4 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

For the Caramel Filling (I made mine in 2 separate batches for ease.  I didn’t have a pan big enough to do it in one shot and it really bubbles up at the end–be careful):

  • 1 cup water
  • 4 cups granulated sugar
  • 1/2 cup light corn syrup
  • 16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 4 tablespoons creme fraiche
  • 2 pinches of coarse salt

For the Chocolate Ganache Glaze:

  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 7 ounces extra-bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
  • Fleur de sel for sprinkling

Directions:

Make the tart dough:  In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and confectioners’ sugar until combined, about 1 minute.  Add egg yolk and vanilla and beat until smooth.  Sift in flour and cocoa powder and beat on low-speed until just combined.  Scrape the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap and form it into a disk; wrap well.  Chill until firm, at least 1 hour and up to 3 days.

Preheat oven to 325  degrees.  Between two sheets of lightly floured parchment paper, roll the tart dough out to fit the 9 inch tart pan.  Place into the pan and trim away any excess dough.  Chill the tart shell in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.

Line the tart shell with a piece of parchment paper and fill with raw rice or dried lentils. Pull parchment paper together to form a small packet.

Bake for 15 minutes.  Remove the packet and bake until the pastry looks dry and set, 5 to 10 minutes.  Transfer pan to a wire rack to cool (the tart shell can be made 8 hours ahead).

Make the filling:  Place 1 cup water in a large saucepan.  Add sugar and corn syrup and cook mixture over medium-high heat, swirling the pan occasionally, until it becomes a dark-amber caramel, about 10 minutes.  Carefully whisk in butter, cream, creme fraiche and a pinch of salt (the mixture will bubble up when you do this so be careful), whisking until smooth (the caramel can be made up to 5 days ahead and refrigerated in a covered container).  Carefully transfer caramel to a glass measuring cup.

Pour caramel in the tart shell while still warm until the shell is about 3/4 full and let stand until the caramel is set, at least 45 minutes.

Make the ganache glaze:  Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl.  In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil.  Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let stand for 2 minutes.

Stir with a rubber spatula until smooth.

Pour the glaze over the tart while still warm.

Let the glaze set at room temperature for at least 2 hours before serving.

When dessert time rolls around, slice pieces of the tart and place on a plate.  Sprinkle some fleur de sel from the top to the bottom of the slice.  Trust me, there is something about the saltiness of the fleur de sel that plays off the sweetness of the caramel and chocolate that makes your tongue come alive with the flavor that hits it.  We hope you like our fleur de sel caramels blown out into a tart configuration.  If you have the time to work on this tart, you will be happy with the outcome.  The taste it unbelievable.  What do you think about mixing fleur de sel, caramel and chocolate altogether in a dessert?

by

What’s Blooming – Another Virtual Garden Tour

This is a little added bonus that we found as we were walking around looking at what was blooming in the garden.  Don’t be fooled.  This little toad was no more than a half an inch long….a baby.  When I was a little boy, my Grandma would always pull me aside when I yelled at the sight of a toad and give me the benefits of seeing them in your vicinity.  They eat bugs that devour your garden.  They save our garden.  Be happy when you see one near your garden.  So I will take her long ago given advice and be happy that our little friend is out protecting our garden.  Lot of plants are peaking in our garden right now.  Let’s enjoy a little virtual garden tour of what’s blooming.  Come with us….and Mr. Baby Toad.

We hope that you enjoyed our little virtual tour.  After a heavy rain this Friday night, things are looking pretty good and there is no need for us to haul the sprinklers out.  Let’s hope that we can continue to alternate between full sun and then some rain.  It sure makes things stay in bloom a lot longer.  What is blooming in your garden right now?