Wednesday, February 18, 2015

How to Save LOTS of Money and Bring a Little Summer to Your Winter!

This is your two minute warning, or actually, your four month warning.

It’s time to start the petunias!

Okay, maybe you're not concerned. Maybe, like I’ve been told by at least one reader, you skip the garden posts on this blog. Fine. I take no offense. Really. I’ll just pick up my trusty trowel and slink away.

But for the rest of you – aren’t you itching for a little summer? Or more importantly, do you spend much too much money on annuals each summer? Have you ever purchased happy little seed packets of annual flowers, only to be disappointed when all they produce is leaves and die before a proper bloom can happen?

We are such suckers for a pretty picture. I gave up on the seeds years ago and started buying flats of annuals instead. It ate at me, though, because they cost a fortune and I am nothing if not a skin-flint. Yet I could never resist, especially the wave petunias.

Petunias are happy flowers, and better yet, they’re resilient. The perfect flower for the easily distracted gardener. They can look nearly dead one day, but a little splash of water and they offer a dozen more trumpet-blooms within hours.

They’re worth the price tag, right? Maybe. But what if you didn’t have to pay it? What if you could grow wave petunias from seeds? Instead of paying $5-8 for one wave petunia, what if you could pay $1.75 for eight? You can. But you need to get started.

 There’s really only one trick to growing your own gorgeous wave petunias from inexpensive seeds, like mine….

Thursday, February 5, 2015

The Wonders of Tumeric (or How I Fooled My Family)

Tumeric is everywhere. I can’t get away from it.

My mother-in-law was here visiting for two weeks and she told me how she takes it daily for her arthritis. I took a pottery class last week and the teacher said the same thing. I can’t open a magazine without seeing mention of it and many of the blogs and websites I follow fall over themselves to fawn over it.

To be honest, turmeric is new to me. I hadn’t heard of it until it started turning up in processed food as a natural coloring to replaced artificial colors. It’s bright mustard yellow. I could sort of remember seeing it in Indian food recipes. I’m not a big fan of Indian food, so the tiny little jar of turmeric I found in the back of my cupboard was from the original set of herbs I got at a wedding shower 20 years ago. I opened it and sniffed, but it smelled like the plastic jar it was in.

So I stopped by one of my favorite sources for spices (Park Street Pantry) and bought a fresh jar in a glass container. 
But what do I do with it? And what’s so great about it?

Tumeric is a tropical plant. It grows from root cuttings, not seeds and takes 250 days to harvest! It won’t stand for temperatures below 65 degrees, so that leaves out New Freedom, PA so I guess there will be no forthcoming post How-to-grow-your-own-tumeric-and-make-a-million (It’s the top selling herbal supplement as of press time).

Tumeric is closely related to ginger. In fact, it’s taste is described as “peppery, warm, and bitter” while it’s scent is similar to ginger. When I open the lid of my little jar, I smell Indian restaurants.

I searched in vain for a recipe for dish that my little finicky family might enjoy and finally opted for simply sprinkling it in recipes we already eat. You don’t even notice the taste. During our Super Bowl Commercial viewing party, I made this dip which was scrumptious with carrots, lightly steamed green beans, pretzels, cheese sticks, and tortilla chips.

Yummo Mustard Dip 

¾ cup sour cream
1 teaspoon agave nectar
3 Tablespoons Dijon mustard (less if you can’t handle the heat!)
1 teaspoon turmeric

Mix ingredients together and serve with pretty much anything!

Next I slipped a teaspoon in to the mac n cheese and although the color was shocking yellow, no one noticed anything odd (except me, I was certain I could taste it and had to work very hard on my nope-it-wasn’t-me face).