May Flowers

I picked these lovelies last weekend. We got the funny bowl/vase thing at a garage sale years ago. I just love it and it always looks great with the hydrangea . I have to jump on the hydrangeas to pick them between when they bloom and when they fry because they are planted in far too sunny a space. It would be such a monster bush to move though.
http://photos12.flickr.com/16817885_94e109e46e_m.jpg
Here are some roses too. I love the bright roses.
http://photos12.flickr.com/16818095_a160fef1fc.jpg
And finally, here is my may month of softies submission. I went practical and fun this month. Especially in summer, its always fun to have bags to choose from. Maybe that will be my month of softies theme for the next couple of months. Bags around the theme. Hmmmmm.
http://photos11.flickr.com/16818096_66e91de821_m.jpg
Sweet dreams! Mo

summers over- again

Well, the sun has left. We had two days of 90 and 98 degree heat, only to go bak to the mid 60's again. In a way its good because I still have so much planting to do and the heat like that is not good fo fresh transplants. We have a nice long flower box that runs the distance of the walkway to our door- got to love your 60's tri levels- and it is now full of more begonias , the wintered over licorice plant (chartruse one) wire vine, lamium and some other stuff I cant remeber names for from last year. I love walking to and from our house with the flowers all there. I will take photos and add them later.
Im feeling a little pins and needles today because one of our most favorite couple friends had a plump sweet little fertilized egg implanted today. They have had their share of trials and disapointments where this baby making stuff is concerned. There are people out there who really do deserve to be parents because not only are they phenomenal people, they would be phenomenal parents. Now they have to wait for two weeks of wondering and hoping and imagining this little baby growing inside them to see if it took. It must be pure torture.
I am getting excited to get the estimate for the website I am hoping to get built. I should hear tonight or tomorrow. I am so hoping it is within reach so I can actually get going with this dream business of mine in a real and all over the internet kind of way. I did three new designs for nirth announcements tonight so it feels good to check those off the list. I am hoping to do 7 more designs before the site goes up.
Good news on the pumpkin front, the seeds have germinated and shoved their first leaves through the soil. I say shoved because these giant pumpkins are pretty big from the start and the grow at an alarming rate. David dug and filled his hills for transplanting. Please, god of the pumpkins, give this man a decent pumpkin this year. I hate to see a gourd break his spirit.
Time to finish up my month of softies submission for May. Always at the last minute! I am pretty close to finishing and an evening of sewing will be nice. June is somthing like "June bugs" which sounds like a lot of fun. Im off to finish! Mo

Cookie bloat

I made my famous chocolate chip cookies for the neighborhood barbeque tonight. The ones with three kinds of chocolate. It didn't take many to get me all bloaty but here I am. So i figured I might as well share my chocolate gateau recipe now. get it all out of my system at once. So here you go.

Chocolate gateau

8 oz. bittersweet chocolate
1 cup butter room temp. (butter only- no margarine or lard or any other poor ridiculous substitute for butter. There is no substitute for butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla ( i tend to be a bit liberal here yummmmm vanilla...)
4 eggs
1/2 cup all purpose flour. be sure to use the scoop and level technique so you dont over flour it.

Preheat oven to 350
Place chocloate in top of double boiler- I chop it into equal size peices first-and heat until melted. Meanwhile ,in a medium mixing bowl, whisk butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Slowly stir melted choc and mix well unitl well blended. Add the vanilla and eggs one at a time, until blended and fluffy. Slowly add the flour.
Pour batter into ungreased 8 or 9 inch springform pan. Bake 45 minutes or until the center feels firm to the touch. tested with a toiothpick the gateau should be moist and crumbly, not dry. remove from oven and cool on a rack.

Variation: fold three tablespoons of your favorite liquer into the batter after flour is added. ( I add gran marinier)

I top this with mascapone cheese. I buy a small tub of mascapone and whip it up with sugar and tons of vanilla or more gran marinier. Plop all that on top and drown it in rasperries. fresh ones, not frozen. You dont need the berries but they are so yummy on it.
Its a crowd favorite. As soon as the warm weather comes, I just want to cook for people and get them in my backyard playing horseshoes and croquet til the wee hours. I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend. Mo

Yay!

I justlove the facts that people leave comments! Again, not so technologically inclined. I keep trying to write back to the people that leave comments to say, hey thanks and all that but I can't seem to figure it out. I did check out Anessa's blog though which I loved and Im probing the depths of my brain for a name for you so I can win the contest. I have to say though that I am one of the folks who likes "pink fifi portraits " I did think it was just for dogs though so I guess I can see why you are looking for a new one. I cant seem to find Mandy's blog though I would love to check it out.
You know when you haven't experienced something for a really long time and you know you love the thing but its been so long that when you do experience it again, you can't believe you lived without it for so long? Thats how I feel about leaving the window above my bed open all night and letting the night breezes blow in. It is finally dry and warm enough to have them open and I cannot beilieve it has been so long! It was so nice. Especially sitting here last night on my computer, warm breezes blowing in, the calls of the wild peacocks that live in our neighborhood every so often. It jsut felt really right and good. David told me he saw them flying (they do fly- i was sort of surprised, they are a bit large) from our humongous fir tree in the backyard. I thought it was so great and magical that they had been in our yard. They apparently felt great and magical about being in our yard because there they were at 3:00 a.m. howling their yelpy howls. And at 3:30 and at 4. Are they nocturnal?!! They woke us all up so we had to close the windows. I still think its kind of fun though. What if they were laying eggs? That would have to be good ju ju.

5432345!!! technology!!!

P1040782,
originally uploaded by meaux mo.

I know this isn't how you are supposed to get the %&&**^$#!!$%& photos on the site, but I can't seem to figure this one out. I keep clicking the picture looking icon in the compose field but it wont give me the box to put the url of the photo in. And while Im at it, How come even though I have a photo saved as a jpg ,it still wont post in my profile section because it says it is not a jpg? I hope someone is out there who knows!

P1040783

P1040783,
originally uploaded by meaux mo.

P1040788

P1040788,
originally uploaded by meaux mo.

Treasure Dive #3

P1040790,
originally uploaded by meaux mo.

I am in a women's artist collective. We came together and formed the Treasure Dive Collective last September. In what has been a pretty short amount
of time, we have really gelled and been able to pull off some pretty great show/sales. There are five of us total and for the last show and going forward we are inviting two or so guest artists to join us. It is a way to offer something new each show and also meet more artists in the community.
Between the five of us we offer a pretty nice range of product from jewelry to cards to paintings to kid's apparel to collaged painted works. As varied as our work so too are our personalities and it has been nice riding this wave with four other like minded but very different women. we have managed to find a way to compliment each other's strenghts and weaknesses.
Being part of the TDC has been such a great catalyst for me to get off my butt and take care of some business. I have such a better focus than I think I would have had had I beed floundering around on my own still. I would love to take the idea to a bigger scale and get an internet collective going with all of the amazing talented people I am meeting on these blogs. Stay tuned, Im sure I will get around to that one of these days.

Mo 1971

Mo 1971,
originally uploaded by meaux mo.

Pedicures and pastries

Hi!
Imagine my excitement when I saw I had actual comments on my last post!!! All thanks to Lorilyn, www.dreamlifestudio.blogspot.com my blog mentor and internet friend. I am still trying to get my photo on here and figure out my new flickr account (also thanks to the fabulous Lorilyn). I am on a mac and I find its a bit glitchy with these things.
I had a very nice morning. I woke up to actual sun- and it is still shining. I love Oregon and all that but May has been painful in the amounts of rain that shower upon us EVERY DAY. To have actual sun two days in a row has lifted my entire mood. So my sister and I went out and had pedicures and lunch and pastries from this little bakery. I rarely get to be so indulgent so it was very nice. I picked out a color, sort of deepish sparkly purple red called "Yukon do it" . (I love OPI polish because they put a lot of effort into their names.)
The it I am hoping to do is blow out my little business I do here on the side and get it really going- create a satisfying cash producing work set up. Where I am the boss. I have been the on again off again design freelancer for years now. Its a great gig- if you can get it. Great money and interesting work. The hard thing is here I have been out of work for the last five months and I am not sure when I will work again. We have always been able to get through the leaner times but it really is feast or famine. I have always been entreprenurial and have ,over the years, done all sorts of things. I had my first business at around 18- I made jewelry under the name "Moriginals "(it was the eighties!) I made these paper watercolored earrings . It was pretty sucessful- all my parents freinds would say, you'll be the next Laurel Birch! At any rate, that ended finally though I dont really remember how or when. I got sick of it, I think. My thing now is an invitation/cards/announcement business. I call it Froy and Olo. It is really something that has taken off on its own and now I just want to get a website up and going. Controller that I am, I want to do the site myself- I am a designer- shouldn't I do it myself? Im starting to think no, I need to just pay someone or the site may never get up! I have as much as a homepage www.froyandolo.com. I have had that for like, three months. I need to bite the bullet but we are in a "famine" period so Im not sure how to get one made and paid for! At any rate, thats where my head is today. I think I will go dif through the recipe files so I can pass along my choco. gateau recipe by the weekend. Mo

Welcome!
I have officially gone from blog voyeur to blogger today. It feels weird to be doing this and feel like I am not talking to anyone but I'm sure I will get used to it. I figured it would be a great way to learn a little more about how internet crap works. Now I just have to make it something I would want to read. I had a whole list of names that wouldn't work which is funny given that I made stuff up just to find an available name and it still took so many tries.
I wonder how I add pictures? I think at this point, for my first entry, I will share the lemon custard ice cream recipe I found in the paper the other day.

Lemon Custard Ice Cream
Makes about 11/2 quarts
The yellow outer skin of a lemon, called the zest, contains aromatic oils, which best convey its distinct sweet-tart flavor. This tartness is a perfect foil to the rich custard ice cream.
6 medium lemons (about 11/2 pounds)
11/3 cups granulated sugar (divided)
2 cups whipping cream
2 cups milk
2 egg yolks
11/2 teaspoons vanilla
Using a vegetable brush and warm water, wash the lemons well; pat dry. Using a swivel-bladed vegetable peeler, remove only the yellow zest of the lemon skins, not the bitter white pith. Set the lemons aside to juice.
In a food processor or blender, combine the strips of lemon zest with 1/3 cup of the sugar. Process until the zest is finely minced, about 30 seconds.
In a heavy, medium, nonreactive saucepan, combine the minced lemon zest and sugar with the remaining 1 cup sugar, the cream and milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is hot, 6 to 8 minutes.
Whisk the egg yolks in a medium bowl. Gradually whisk in about 1 cup of the hot lemon cream. Return the mixture to the saucepan, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring, until the custard thickens enough to coat a metal or wooden spoon (at least 160 degrees on a candy thermometer), 5 to 10 minutes. Do not boil or the egg yolks will curdle.
Pour into a bowl and cover loosely. Let cool 1 hour at room temperature.
Squeeze 3/4 cup juice from the lemons, discarding any seeds. Add the lemon juice and vanilla to the custard, stirring to blend. Refrigerate, covered, until very cold, at least 6 hours or as long as 3 days.
Stir the lemon custard and pour into the canister of an ice cream maker. Freeze according to the manufacturer's directions. Transfer to a covered container and freeze at least 3 hours or as long as 3 days.
-- From "The Best Ice Cream Maker Cookbook Ever" by Peggy Fallon

I think I want to try it with limes or oranges and plop it on this amazing chocloate gateau recipe I have. I will dig it out and share it another day. Yummy! At any rate, I am jonesing a little summer weather so we can sit outside in the beautiful backyard and have parties where we eat things like lemon custard ice cream on chocolate cake. And pie. And tons of tomatoes and basil.
Tomorrow it is supposed to not rain, though it has rained so much lately, day after day after day, huge heavy jumbo drops of rain. I suppose I should be thankful they aren't cold raindrops. I am going to plant my tomatoes rain or shine and David is going to try to plant his pumpkins. He is the brain behind our huge pumpkin grow off. He got everyone roped into it last year, handing out Atlantic Dill giant pumpkin seeds. Atlantic Dills are the world record holder for the biggest pumpkin which was like, 1300 lbs or some such craziness. Imagine the disapointment when after such careful nurturing (I am serious about that- he rigged up special tents with plastic sheeting and pvc pipes, kept the pumpkin journal, watered dilligently, hand pollinated etc. etc. etc.) and so much smack talking, Dave's prize pumpkin came in at 8 pounds. About half of the weight of my mom's cat. Granted its a hugely fat cat but that had to sting a little. Plus all the pumpkins ended up looking like boobs. Just the way the stems grew. He should have atleast been happy about that. This year he has selected a new spot for his pumpkins and is ready to jump in and redeem himself a little. As for me, I am putting in one early girl tomato in homage to my beautiful Grandma, a sungold- little orange tomatoes and a green zebra. I cant figure out why I feel the need to plant this one again since the last two years have been disapointing yeilds. It does look and taste amazing though with purple basil all chopped in with it. What you eat should be pretty.
As far as non food planting goes, I bought the most beautiful geranium called "midnight reiter". It has spiky dark dark purple leaves. I'm a foliage girl. Not that I dont like flowers, I love flowers, but there is some good foliage out there.
Off I go to try to figure out the rest of this blog thing! Enjoy the weekend!