Gettin' My Drink On

It's almost summer and time to kick back with a refreshing summer cocktail.  Here are two recipes I've been playing around with using herbs from the garden.

Orange Mint Mojito

This recipe uses the orange mint that I've been growing, but regular mint would work too if that's all you have.


5-6 fresh orange mint leaves
1/2 lime, cut into wedges
1/4 orange, cut into wedges
2 tablespoons white sugar
ice cubes
2 ounces white rum
club soda


Place mint, lime wedges, orange wedges and sugar in a glass and muddle until the the citrus juices are released and the sugar is dissolved.  Don't rush this step or your finished drink won't be as good.  Fill the glass with ice.  Pour rum over the ice and top with soda.  You can do anywhere from just a splash of soda to a 1/2 cup depending on how strong you like it.  I tend to like a little more soda, but I'm also a bit of a lightweight.

Madagascar Sunrise

This drink gets its name from the combo of vanilla vodka and citrus.  It doesn't taste strongly of any of its individual ingredients.  It is just sweet, light and fruity.  Some of my favorite adjectives!

1 1/2 ounces vanilla vodka

1/2 ounce orange liqueur

2 ounces lemon juice

1/2 to 1 ounce lavender simple syrup, to taste (recipe follows)

In a shaker, combine all ingredients with ice and shake until well combined.  Strain into a glass and garnish with a lemon twist or small sprig of lavender.

Lavender Simple Syrup

1 cup white sugar

1 cup water

3 tablespoons dried or fresh lavender buds (Note: You can use either fresh or dried lavender.  It will be less strong with fresh)

Combine sugar and water in a saucepan over medium heat and cook until all sugar is dissolved, stirring occasionally.  Remove from heat and add the lavender.  Let lavender steep in the sugar mixture until cool, then strain to remove the buds.  Store in the refrigerator for about a month.

Syrup can also be used to sweeten tea or lemonade.  It doesn't taste overly strongly of lavender to don't worry about overpowering your drinks.  It just adds a nice floral element to the background of whatever you are making.

Happy Memorial Day!

I love all holidays so I couldn't resist getting into the spirit and dressing up a few of my planters with some cute patriotic pinwheels.

I also made this flag cake in honor of the holiday.

I've seen cakes like this in blogs and articles for a few years now, but they always seen to involve lots of cutting of cake and reassembling it.  I don't have those kinds of cake skills (or time) so I wanted to find an easier way.  My dad's favorite cake is checkerboard so I already had a set of checkerboard cake pans.  I made one solid red layer and one solid white layer.  Then I filled the outer ring of the checkerboard pan with blue cake batter and filled in the rest with red.  Then its easy...just bake, stack and frost.

My sister's dog seems to like it too.

Have a safe and happy Memorial Day everyone!

UPDATE: I've had some questions about what a checkerboard cake pan is...check it out here:
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?sku=2105-9961

Sweet Feet

Lt. Dan Taylor: Two standing orders in this platoon. One, take good care of your feet. Two, try not to do anything stupid, like getting yourself killed.
~Forrest Gump

It's almost Memorial Day which most people consider to be the official start of summer.  This means it is also sandals weather for us girls.  I've always been one of those people who is kind of weirded out by feet so I try to keep mine looking cute.  I've started making this easy foot soak.  Its a great way to keep my feet refreshed and pedicure ready and also a great way to use up some of the giant mint plant in my parent's garden.  Mint is naturally soothing and deodorizing so its great for tired summer feet.

All you need is some epsom salt and plenty of mint.  I used orange mint in this picture because it was what I had handy, but you can use any kind.

Fresh Mint Foot Soak

1 gallon warm water
1/2 cup epsom salt
As many sprigs of mint as you want.  At least five, but really you can't have too many.  I leave the leaves on the stems because it makes it easier to fish them out when I'm done.

Is Gardening Lame?

So whats up with gardening?  Is it cool?  Is it boring?  Is it only for baby boomers?  Or little children?  A series of unrelated events have me questioning the perception of gardening.


Event 1:
My friend who is in a union for work received a packet of tomato seeds.  The seeds were supposed to represent that if the union couldn't reach some sort of agreement successfully the employees would all be 'reduced' to growing their own food.


Event 2:
This article http://www.gardenrant.com/my_weblog/2012/05/one-rises-another-falls.html
I really like this blog.  They are really serious about gardening and very dedicated.  I can only hope be be such a good gardener someday.


The part of this article that really struck me though was that it is mentioned several times that gardening is something that people get into more as they get older.


Event 3:
My sister is moving into my grandma's old house very shortly.  There is a big yard that she will not be using most of so I requested that I could plant a small pumpkin patch there.  This is apparently very embarrassing to my sister and she said she would have to explain it to her friends and make sure they knew it was my pumpkin patch and not hers.


So what should I make of these events?  Is gardening actually lame and I just didn't realize it?  I'm going to go with 'no'. Thanks to Al Gore it has become trendy to care about the environment.  And thanks to Whole Foods it has also become cool to eat local, healthy, organic food.  And nothing is more local than what comes from your own garden.  And for me personally, even tending to my own small garden gives me a sense of peace and accomplishment which is priceless.


I'm sure there will always be people around my age who would rather pull out their own teeth than pull weeds in a garden.  But I won't share my zucchini bread with them.  Just kidding, of course I'll share.  Because gardeners are awesome!

Flower Shopping with the Fam

It's amazing the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy.

~My Best Friend’s Wedding

Last weekend I went flower shopping with my mom and sister.  As we wandered around the garden section I got more and more jealous of the selection they had to choose from since both of them have plenty of sun in their gardens.  Although I’m getting quite an education about cool shade plants this year it is hard not to be jealous of all the beautiful sun-loving plants that other people get to plant.  I’ll admit I was pouting a bit, but then I found something to snap me out of my bad mood.

It’s a New Guinea Impatiens.  I was so excited when I saw a whole display of these.  I’ve already learned to make friends with impatiens since they do so well in the shade, but sometimes they seem a little plain for me.  I tend to gravitate towards the more exotic looking plants that almost always seem to need full sun.  This variety is the perfect combination of shade tolerant and flashy.  I love the really dark, almost black, foliage.

I was even more excited when I found coleus with similar shades of hot pink.  I’ve really come around on coleus.  I had always thought it was the kind of boring plant that everyone settles on when they need something to fill a shady area.  No matter how pretty, a bunch of leaves never seemed like an acceptable substitute for big, gorgeous flowers.  But now I realize how nice it is to be basically guaranteed color and texture in the garden all summer from the coleus leaves.  I don’t have to worry about how my plant will look once all the flowers have bloomed because coleus always looks nice.  It’s like I’ve been chasing the high school quarterback when really what I wanted was the class treasurer.  So now I’m “Team Coleus” all the way and I love how it looks with my new impatiens.

R.I.P. Hydrangea

Last month I wrote about how I had bought a hydrangea and that I wasn't sure how it was going to do since I'd never had luck growing them before.  Well I'm happy to report that it actually did very well.  It had beautiful healthy blooms for about a month.  Finally, some hydrangea success!  


Since the variety I bought wasn't an 'ever-blooming' variety (meaning it won't flower again this summer), I had to pull it out to make room for new stuff.  Ah, the circle of life.  It moves us all.  (Thank you Lion King).


I do have one small remnant of my beloved flowers though.  This little bloom wasn't quite ready to quit when all the others were so I decided to bring it indoors to enjoy.

Garden Friends and Pests

On every stem, on every leaf,... and at the root of everything that grew, was a professional specialist in the shape of grub, caterpillar, aphis, or other expert, whose business it was to devour that particular part. 
~Oliver Wendell Holmes

My garden has been visited by pests!  Specifically in the form of aphids.  So far they aren't too bad.  For some reason they really like the dill so they are mostly leaving the other plants alone.  I don't use any pesticide on my plants so I've been researching non-chemical ways of dealing with them.  Most of the advice I've found is to blast them off with a strong spray of water.  I don't have a hose or anything so I'm on the hunt for a spray bottle that seems powerful.  In the meantime I'm picking them off by hand and squishing them.  Its kind of gross, but it seems to be working.

But the aphids aren't the only unwanted visitors I've had.  The other morning I heard some light thumping outside.  I looked out the window and saw birds eating my strawberries!  They got the berries and all the flowers.  The strawberries weren't doing that well anyway so this wasn't a huge loss, but I was frustrated to lose the couple berries that seemed to actually be growing.  There is one bright spot to all this though.  Since my strawberry plants were pretty much destroyed, I pulled them out and now I have room for more flowers.  And the best part is that the strawberries were planted in a sunny spot so I'm not limited to shade plants for once.

I walked around the garden section of the Home Depot for at least half an hour trying to figure out the most exciting flowers I could get for a relatively small spot.  Eventually I settled on this pretty Dahlia.  I love the bright vibrant colors.

I've already professed a weakness for garden accessories so I thought I would share a few pictures of my garden 'friends'.

First up is Hootie...

Hootie seemed a little lonely so I had to get him a friend.  My Dad bought me this little fish.  Now I have Hootie and the Blowfish!  Cheesy I know, but it makes me smile.

And finally, what garden would be complete without a gnome?  So here is mine.  His name is Gnome Chomsky...