Asparagus Festival 2012

It looks like the weather is going to cooperate for this year's Asparagus Festival. We've had showers the last two days and all the set-up work has been done in the rain, but now it is sunny a bright. Thanks goodness. If you would like to attend the festival, here's their website: http://www.asparagusfest.com/  And here's a link  and another to previous Asparagus Festival posts.

Me and Teen2 at Easter.

When she was little I dressed her in frilly dresses.

When she got to be about 9 I had to pay her to even wear a dress.

Now she likes to dress up again.

In frilly dresses at that!

Will wonders never cease?

Latest Paintings

16"x20" Oil on Canvas

Last fall I showed you the start of this painting and now I'm happy to show you the finished piece. It's all done and even framed because I'm entering it in the Student Art Show at the college.

12"x16" Acrylic on Panel

I'm also entering this landscape that I did last fall.

18" x 24" Acrylic on Panel

And this Indiana Jones hat I painted recently.

36" x 48" Mixed Media Collage

And this large collage which I just finished. And if I get REALLY busy over the weekend, I may also enter the piece I'm working on right now. Which is due Thursday. Which is nowhere near ready. Sigh.

Mixed Citrus Salad with Escarole

We've been having this salad a lot lately and I thought you might enjoy it too. I wish I could upload a pdf file to Blogger, but I can't so here's the recipe in a jpg. Not nearly as nice, but if you add your email address in your comment, I'll send you the pdf version which will print out all pretty.
Basically it's an escarole salad with any kind of citrus segments, red onion, blue cheese and a vinaigrette dressing. The bitterness of the escarole is perfectly balanced by the sweetness of the fruit and the savoriness of the blue cheese. I usually peel the membranes off the grapefruit and oranges because they look so much prettier, but you probably don't really have to do that. Either way, it's delicious.
Enjoy!

Limoncello

When I made those limoncello cookies a while back, I used the last of my limoncello. So Friday night I started a new batch. First I picked 30 lemons and washed them in hot water.

Then I sliced off the little bumps and the stem ends to make the peeling easier.

Then I put on some Italian music and started peeling. You want only the yellow part of the peel with no pith on it.

Sometimes you get a long one. Anyway you drop them all into a huge glass jar into which you have already put 1500 ml Vodka.

Remember I told you we'd moved our kitchen table over to the window? See it there in the background. Here's a better picture of it. It's quite pleasant to sit there watching the squirrels and birds.

Anyway, just keep peeling until all thirty lemons are done......

and the lemons look like this.

Wrap plastic wrap tightly over the top of the jar. Now get a calendar and find the date 40 days in the future and the date 80 days in the future. Write all those dates on the plastic wrap and put the jar in a dark closet.

You probably should note it on the calendar too because in 40 days you will need to add the next ingredients to the limoncello. Then 40 days after that you will do the bottling so start saving clear bottles with lids.

The ingredients you need after 40 days are up are: 10 Cups of Water and 9 Cups of Sugar, boiled for 5 minutes, and cooled for 30. And another 1500 ml of Vodka. You add all that to the lemon peel mixture and let it sit for the second 40 days, then you discard the peels and strain the limoncello into clean bottles, cap them tightly and store them in a cool place, but always keep one in the freezer for immediate use. In Italy it is served after dinner (instead of dessert) in a straight sided liqueur glass straight from the freezer. It is so refreshing on a hot summer evening.

And here's what we do with all the lemons: cut them in half, juice them, bottle the juice, and use it for cooking or for lots of lemonade.

If you would like this recipe sent to you in pdf format, please leave your email address in the comments. I can't figure out how to attach a pdf file to Blogger.