Culinary Success

Last night we made coq au vin with one of the roosters. It was a lovely, winter dish. Our dinner guest, Craig, thought there should have been snow to accompany it. I served it with new potatoes, green beans we had canned from the garden and fresh sourdough bread (remind me to write about the "beast", that is the starter I created, sometime). The company was fine, the food was excellent (if I might say so) and a great time was had by all. I meant to post a picture of the finished dish, but I got so caught up in my role as hostess, that I forgot to take the picture. You'll just have to trust me that it was as lovely as it was tastey.

I'm thinking of making a doro wat with the other rooster. I love and miss Ethiopian food. Whatever I decide to do, it is going to be worthy of the bird.

Today it was sunny, but very chilly. Big Daddy and I did manage to plant the cherry trees - two pie, one sweet; and the fig tree. They arrived earlier in the week and I heeled them into the mulch mountain that just seems to never diminish. We moved a young pine that was in the way of the new orchard. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it lives, as its roots were a little sparse for the top growth. Now I'm just waiting on the apple trees to arrive. The tomato seeds arrived yesterday, so today we set up the starter flats. Big Daddy is taking them to work and will put them in one of the greenhouses tomorrow. I can't believe I've not started tomatoes from seed before. Wait, I did in Africa, but there I could just seed them directly in the ground. No luck doing that here, I'm afraid. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for them as well.