Roswell Adventures

Some days, you just need a porch drink. You know the feeling. The day has had just enough snags to make you want to cry or scream or throw things. But when the afternoon is just right, you think, "a porch drink would be so wonderful!" Well, the next time you find yourself wanting a bit of adult libation to sip on while you enjoy a beautiful afternoon on the porch, consider the humble mojito. There isn't much to it, but mixed up right, it is refreshing and fits the bill. For our recipe, we reduced the sugar. A mojito that is too sweet just isn't as refreshing, in our humble opinions. Mojito by the Pitcher ~ 40 mint leaves 1 1/2 limes (or one really large one) 1/3 cup sugar 1 cup white rum 2 cups cold soda water ice Rinse the mint leaves, and place leaves (no stems) into pitcher. Slice lime into sections and add about 2/3 into the pitcher. Using a muddler (or wooden spoon, if you don't have a muddler...but why don't you have a muddle...

OK, this is about more than bales, but the focus of our garden is the bales. The berries are a new addition this year. This is our 4th year growing in straw bales, and we are planting 40 bales, just like last year. Trying lots of new stuff - we'll see how it goes. So here's the newest... Chuck strung new wire for our tomato trellises. He used a heavier gauge and put in two rows. Heard about this tip, because if you need to cover them for cold weather, you can slide plastic in between the wires then anchor it.  Our 4 sets of front bales. In this pic the only planting is the nasturtiums, which are supposed to help keep the squash in the next bale healthy. We'll see ;)  Nasturtiums up close and personal. Well, kinda... I added marigolds next to the Nasturtiums. Closest to the mail box I planted beets - Detroit Gold and Heritage mix. In the next set I planted two kinda of carrots (Scarlet Nantes and Danvers). I've never grown ca...

I love potato salad - and fortunately so does Chuck. I had gone years without making any - probably because I hadn't figured out a recipe. A while back, Chuck suggested potato salad would be nice. So, I went to work figuring out how I wanted it to look...and taste. Here are the basics...  Although my recipe calls for 5 medium potatoes, mine were a bit shy of medium, so I used a couple extra to make up for it. And, yes, those are eggs. The farm where I buy my eggs has a wide variety of hens...thus a wide variety of egg colors. It is a simple recipe to make, but there are two key things to keep in mind...start early enough to let the eggs and potatoes cool in an ice-water bath, and read through all the instructions first. Sure, I know you know how to boil eggs, but if you follow the recipe and add that vinegar to the water, it really does make it easier to peel the eggs. Oh - I forgot a 3rd thing. While it tastes great fresh, it takes even better once i...

Raise your hand if you understood my nod to the movie "Remo Williams...The Adventure Begins"! No, huh? OK, I guess it's just me. Anywho, while Matt was out we got our straw bales for this year's garden - 40 bales again this year! I will not ask for a show of hands regarding who thinks we may be a bit more than slightly insane. In preparation, we have been clearing out last year's bales. Much of the bales broke down during the gardening season - after all, that's what makes this work...you create your own soil as the bales break down. But there was lots left, and most of that has been relegated to one of two compost piles. We still have some to clear out, but we'll get there!  What is left from our main tomato bales. We'll plant tomatoes and basil here again this year - with marigolds in the side of the bales. These bales didn't break down nearly as much as some of the others. We may save out some of this straw for growing po...

Cold weather screams for soup...especially when you have had more than one day with temps staying stubbornly below freezing. Seriously - what part of "this is New Mexico" does Mother Nature not understand? This is what we woke up to Friday morning! The week before we had been preparing beds in the back yard so we could plant raspberries and blackberries, and thanks to the change in weather, I traded those visions of gardening for dreams of cooking up something to help us keep warm. Armed with leftover baked potatoes only slightly smaller than regulation footballs, I decided to tackle a soup I had been meaning to for quite some time - baked potato soup. I originally looked into all kinds of soups noting they were "loaded baked potato" variety of soups. Then I settled on a couple to merge and tweak and decided to launch my afternoon project. That we had diced, roasted green chiles in the fridge screamed out loud that I needed to include them in this r...

I have been wanting to make acorn squash stuffed with apples and Craisins, but I kept getting held up because I couldn't find a recipe I wanted. I will also admit that on these occasions I had not planned far enough ahead to allow myself some time to do research. I just wanted to magically land on the perfect recipe. Never happened. But what did magically happen is I finally started the process early enough to do some research and create my own recipe! And to keep life sane, I cooked it up in a slow cooker.  I think it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself ;) Wash you squash (hey, it's fun to say!) and cut in half from stem to bottom - you'll want to use a heavy, sharp knife for that. Clean out the seeds and squash strings - you have to scrape pretty good to get them out. Lay a strip of foil in your slow cooker and set the acorn squash halves in. Isn't it cool how you can crumple up the foil to help the squash sit level. Peel, core...

After I moved to Roswell, Chuck and I started looking for things we could experience together. That first December we learned about Christmas on the Pecos in Carlsbad, NM and, after a bit of investigating, we learned that the weekend we planned to go coincided with a new event - the Carlsbad Winter Wine Festival. Thus was born a new almost-Christmas tradition that occurs on the first weekend in December. It starts at 3:30 on Friday, when we bug out of work just as quick as we can, drive home to change and load the car and head down the road to Carlsbad. Our first stop is the Trinity Hotel, where we check in for the night prior to driving over for Christmas on the Pecos...which will be explained in pictures shortly. After the adventure on the river we head back to the Trinity for a fabulous dinner. The Trinity is absolutely amazing - and not just because of the fabulous food. The building used to house the bank and the water office where Pat Garrett held office. It was on its way to...