My journey of cooking, gardening, preserving and more
An obsession with Dahlias began last year. We tried digging them up and over-wintering them but didn’t have any luck. If you have any awesome tips on doing so, please let me know. This dahlia here is my favorite, so far; the bloom is around …
The first week of August here in Northern Illinois felt more like late September: cool and cloudy with a chance of meatballs. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. So, needless to say, I made meatballs twice in two weeks. These came out so great the first time …
An amazing sight in my garden this weekend: I was harvesting fresh dill for pickles and found not just one but two of these beautiful caterpillars on my dill plants. After a bit of research, I discovered they’re destined to be black swallowtail butterflies, of which we’ve seen a number of this year. Turns out these caterpillars like dill (and parsley and fennel)…I had no idea!
Luckily, they were both quite cooperative; it seems that if you bump or disturb one, they send out a horrible odor as a deterrent.
It looks like I’ll be leaving some dill up strictly for our newest garden members.
I love a big dish of spicy, messy chicken wings sometimes! I’m a crispy-wing kind of girl though; I like the skin to have a bit of crunch to it, so cooking them on the grill is an easy way to achieve this. If you …
When the thermometer is rising to a triple-digit heat index and then barely dropping to 75 in the coolest hours of the morning like it is in my area at the moment, heating up the stove or oven is not on my list of things I want to do. Break out the grill.
Place everything but lamb chops and lemon juice in a large bowl & whisk together. Add lamb chops (but not lemon juice), cover, refrigerate and marinate at least 12 hours, turning once in the interim.
One hour before grilling, remove from refrigerator and add lemon juice to chops and marinade, tossing well to coat.
Preheat grill to medium-high, about 400°
Pat lamb chops on paper towels to remove excess marinade (thereby reducing the smoke factor) and grill for 5-6 minutes per side for medium-rare.
Remove from heat and let rest 10 minutes before serving.
I made these a few nights ago and served them with steamed sugar snap peas. The fresh herbs and lemon juice mixed with garlic give them a wonderful flavor on the grill!
I love summer.
My lavender is so beautiful and fragrant right now…definitely picture worthy. Have a great weekend!
