What's for Breakfast?

Decided to try a new recipe from Martha Stewart for "Sugar Buns," or as we call them here in Wisconsin, "Morning Buns" ...bundles of cinnamon-sugary goodness! The featured image above shows them rising in my grandmother's vintage muffin tins.  Below are a few photos of the process, followed by the final product. I must say, they turned out pretty scrumptious. :-)

I even had a a little dough left over to make a mini "Monkey Bread" - a pull-apart loaf that's fun to eat. I'll freeze the little pan below and bake it up some cold Sunday morning in the future.

Begonia

I received this pretty coral pink begonia a few years ago from my mother-in-law. It spends summers on our patio and in "over-winters" in our chilly dining room during the winter.  This year, it took almost all summer to finally re-bloom and now it is quite spectacular!   (Thanks, Dolly!)

Jack and the Beanstalk

Happy 'sunnies' for a Sunday. Each year I grow a row of dwarf and hybrid sunflowers in the back of our veggie garden to use for bouquets throughout the summer.  Most of the plants reach anywhere from 4 to 6 feet tall.  However, this giant sunflower stalk was a "volunteer" in the middle of the garden this year and topped out at over 12 feet!  It looks somewhat shorter here because the multiple sunflower blooms were weighing it down a bit. The Goldfinches are in heaven!

Neon Sunflower

Autumn is closing in upon us and all the sunflowers in our garden are in bloom. This pretty one stood out especially because of the neon-green center.

Pucker Up!

Dill is in season and our garden is loaded with it.  We dry the wispy green fronds to use as an herb in cooking and salads all year long.  Chopped fresh dill is also amazing sprinkled on baked cod or sole. It adds a wonderful bright, tart flavor to the dish.

Fresh dill is also what we use when making anything pickled - especially "Wild Bill's Dilly Beans"! - which are a combination of tender green and yellow beans from our garden.  Great used on a relish tray or in a cocktail. The delicate blooms (shown above) remind me of little Sputnik satellites, and will also eventually yield dill seeds.

Clematis Bloom

I've been playing around with "Instagram" features recently and liked how this one turned out.  It's a clematis flower bloom from our patio.  The vine is doing quite nicely this year. Happy Summer!

Faith

Last night some places in western Wisconsin got over a foot of snow! Earth to Mother Nature:  "Hello! It's May!"

Thankfully, the Milwaukee/Waukesha area was spared this indignity. We do have sunshine this morning, but it's only in the 30's, and most flowers and trees have still not budded out.  That's why I am posting this pretty image of my blooming clematis taken in May a few years ago - to remind us that spring will eventually be here - even if she is taking her sweet time!

April Showers Bring Spring Flowers

Well, we've had lots of April showers (and hail and snow and sleet!) - but no sign of any greenery, much less flowers, outside of our doors up here in Pewaukee.  So, to brighten the mood, I'm posting a photo of a bouquet I bought recently for our dining table. COLOR! My heart lightens a bit just looking at it. :-)

Compact Kitchen Remodel

After 6 weeks and a few 'snafus', we're finally done with our little remodeling project!  While I wish we could have afforded a major overhaul by gutting the existing tiny kitchen and revamping the design to create a more open and user-friendly layout, it just wasn't in the cards.  

We had to keep the existing oak cabinets and white appliances, but by painting the cabinets and adding a new sink & faucet, redoing the backsplash with field and accent tiles, and replacing the worn white formica with updated quartz counter-tops, I think we've brightened up the place a little. Not shown is the the eat-in dinette cafe table which seats 4, located behind the counter stool area, and we kept that "as-is." It's a great place to have breakfast and morning coffee as we enjoy the east-facing view of the back yard out the bright patio doors. (Nik's favorite spot, too!)

The best part of the whole project is that we finally got rid of our old, tinny electric stove and replaced it with a sleek gas range. 

(For some reason, I can't seem to find my "before" photos - but if/when I do, I will add them.)

Remember the Night

One of my new favorite Christmas movies is called "Remember the Night" starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray from 1940.  It was a largely overlooked film until Turner Classic Movies (TCM) introduced it into their holiday schedule a few years ago.  A feel-good relationship story with a few tears and a great historical peek into the past, it includes a lovely performance by Beulah Bondi (George Bailey's mother in "It's a Wonderful Life") and a whimsical turn by character actor Sterling Holloway. Stanwyck, as usual, plays a bad girl with a good heart like no one else.

I recently purchased the video from Amazon for my personal collection, and curled up with a cup of steaming hot coffee and piece of home-made Blueberry Crumble Pie to watch it.

Sunflowers

I added a few sunflowers from our garden to brighten up the small carnation bouquet from the grocery store. Happy September! :-)

Giddy Up!

This huge mushroom was straddling the base of an old maple tree growing in our tree line. It's hard to tell if it's a single organism split in half, or if it's two separate mushrooms grown together, but it was nearly 2 feet across! Dryad was a wood nymph in ancient Greek mythology, and so this fungus is called a "Dryad's Saddle" because they often have the appearance of a large saddle. They are also related to the "Pheasant's Back" mushroom, which I've posted here as well. Below is a photo of the creamy white spongy bottom of the Dryad, which almost has the look of a slice of bread.

Hibiscus

The oppressive heat has been good for at least a few things around here - one of them being our coral hibiscus.  (As long as I remember to water it once - sometimes twice - per day.)

Tu-Lips? No, Tree Lips!

The shelf mushrooms are back again this spring, growing on an old tree in our backyard.  There are two, one growing on top of another... they kind of look like a big pair of cartoon monster lips!

Sunny Delight

We are growing a variety of sunflowers in our garden this year and they are in full bloom. I love this burgundy/peach version, and apparently, so do the bees! If you look closely at the photo below, you'll also see a shiny metallic Japanese Beetle in the center. They were especially pesky this year and invaded many of the trees and gardens in our neighborhood.

Loud Mouth!

Every spring the Robins build several nests around our yard. For the past few years they have decided to set up shop on the lower branches of a tall spruce near our patio. Noticing the Mama Robin's busy flight to and fro, we suspected the eggs had hatched. Yep! This little baby is hungry. Another photo below shows them just before the "squeaky wheel" opened her mouth!

Nanking Cherry

Our old neighbors back in Wauwatosa gave us a little Nanking cherry tree seedling (Prunus Tomentosa) a year after we moved out to Pewaukee. I dutifully planted it back in our tree line and tended to it for the first few years, only to see it mown over by the subdivision groundskeepers. Heartbroken, I nursed the little stalk - which still had a few leaves - back to life, and put a small barrier of chicken wire around it. Surely that would deter the mowers. Nope! The next year we found the wire bent and twisted in the tree line and the little tree was completely gone! We sadly admitted defeat and soon forgot about it.

Last summer while cleaning out some brush in the tree line, I noticed a small bush near the edge that was overgrown with tall grass. A closer peak revealed that it was covered in tiny cherries. The Nanking had survived after all! Apparently over the past few years, the mowers had changed their boundaries just enough for the little tree to come back to life, yet still be hidden by other wild plants. We cleared it out a bit and put another, larger protection barrier around the slim trunk, and this year it's flowering beautifully. Can hardly wait for the cherries of summer!

Macro Geranium

I finally got a new camera. Much better than my old Canon Powershot A710 - but small enough so that I can still carry it in my pocket or crossbody bag during my walks and hikes. It's a Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS7 and I love it! Above is a sample from the first set of photos I took with it. It's a close-up/macro night shot of a single geranium flower taken during a light rain. Especially like the fact I could get such nice detail without any elaborate settings.

Amaryllis Redux

I know I've already posted images from my amaryllis plant earlier in the month, but the blooms of the second stalk are even more dazzling than the first, so I just had to share. As previously noted, I ordered a bulb from a girlfriend last fall who bought a package of a dozen from an online source. They were all mixed up and so we had no idea what color they might be. I potted it indoors in early November, and according to the directions, it was supposed to bloom by Christmas. No such luck. It only had a few inch-high leaves & looked like it would never grow.

By mid-January, suddenly several stalks shot up seemingly over night. The first foot-tall stalk had two flowers, but this one has four (!) dinner-plate sized blooms. There is a third stalk in the wings & hopefully, that will be just as spectacular.

I'm Over the Hill: Good Bye

As my masthead says: A year in four seasons. I started this photo diary of the Pewaukee area on January 24th, 2009 - and my goal of posting for (over) a year has been accomplished. I also included images from places we visited during the year, along with pictures of our pets and other objects of interest. It was a wonderful experience which helped me open my eyes to the simple (and sometimes stunning) beauty around us all. I also loved learning about many other new places via City Daily Photo, places I may never get to visit except through the wonders of technology. Thanks to all my "e-friends" who posted their comments and insight.

I will continue to post from time to time on my regular blog: MODERATION, a collection of recipes, nature notes - and anything else that strikes my fancy. Feel free stop by. Best wishes to you all!