Wacky Weekend

Don't know about you but as far a I'm concerned the weekend starts on Friday the minute I step out the office door. And this one had me all excited going in. First, Frank was working from home which meant a hard stop at 5:00 PM and no waiting for his 1 1/2 hour commute from the hinterlands of Brooklyn, second, the weather promised to be fairly decent if only with a passing shower both Saturday and Sunday at most which meant some much needed gardening time, third, lots of cooking fun since we had nothing planned but to hang around the house and play in the garden, and last but not least, it was three days. So we opened a bottle of wine, put on some music and... wait, what's that noise? Look out the back door, oh my!

Hail!, the size of golf balls

and it's covering everything

and Frank needs to go out and play in it.

Hmm, an inauspicious beginning to our much anticipated weekend.

Saturday starts out quite cool as Max and I go for our walk, it's predicted to warm up though to a very comfortable 74F. Wrong! Stays cool and rainy all day, so much for gardening. We'll make the best of it though. Let's start working on dinner, something fun...crab cakes.

and caesar salad

Sunday starts out a little warmer and soon we are outside surveying the garden

Huh???? what happened here? The hail from Friday night tore into all the hostas, and also into my newly planted coneflowers

replacing the ones the roofers and gutter guys stomped all mover last year, Ugh! The surveying does improve as we walk down the garden path.

The poppies are up and blooming and multiplying like mad. I'm very happy about this since they are actually on my neighbors' side of the shared flower bed but with much coaxing and hoping their self seeding selves have started to pop up on my side. Hail yes! (Couldn't resist:))

As I walk towards the back I am happy to see the honeysuckle growing like a beanstalk.

Unfortunately it is not fragrant but still quite beautiful. I expect it will really take off once we have the very sick crab apple cut down. I hate bringing a tree down but both my crab apples are more than half dried so it's time to face the truth, the honeysuckle and dogwood hide underneath one so it will be interesting to see where they go once the big tree is gone.

The wisteria has lost most of it's blooms. It had a very short blooming season this year as a lot of other early spring flowering trees and bushes so as I walk around it trying to find a bloom to take a picture of, I find this little beauty growing through it,

a mini me wisteria? a weed? who knows, it sure is pretty though so weed or not, it stays.

Time for some more fun food!

The Sunday NYTimes magazine has an amazing rib recipe from Mark Bittman, we'll have some fun there!

Braised Spareribs with white wine garlic and anchovies, adapted from Mark Bittman

• 1tablespoon olive oil
• 3to 4 pounds spare ribs, cut into individual ribs
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 4garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
• 3or 4 anchovy fillets, chopped
• 1cup dry white wine
• Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish.

*note, I did not have spareribs, I had country style ribs-boneless, which worked just as well

1. Put the olive oil in a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, add the ribs, meatiest side down; sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cook, more or less undisturbed, until the meat browns nicely, 5 to 10 minutes, then turn and brown some more. You can brown the ribs in batches, but perfection is not imperative.

2. If there’s too much fat, spoon some off; add the garlic and anchovies, and stir a minute. Add the wine, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan; bring to a simmer, then cover and cook, adding more wine if the pot gets too dry, until the ribs are tender, about an hour. If the mixture is soupy (unlikely), turn the heat to high, and cook until some of the liquid boils off. Serve, garnished with the parsley.

I served it with baked potato because I was too lazy to make any other kind and it was so scrumptiously delicious I barely had time to take a picture before it was all gone.

And where's Max?

Camera shy all of a sudden.