A Woods' Rose in bloom. After several years living in our garden, this native perennial has finally bloomed. This rose has slowly grown and spread each year, but hadn't bloomed until this year. I'm not sure what combination of events brought on the flowers, but here they are. And the Woods' Roses smell great despite their compact size.

More Info:

PLANTS Profile - Rosa woodsii Lindl., Woods' Rose

I also made possibly the greatest snack ever: cheese crackers. This was meant to reproduce that cheesy little square that doesn't turn your fingers orange. This was possibly the raging success of this tour through Make the Bread, Buy the Butter

We eat a fair amount of peanut butter in this house. I was completely excited about Jennifer Reese's Peanut Butter recipe. And it was as easy as promised especially with my new wonder food processor.

Then I moved on to oven fried chicken. I have made several different versions of this recipe always hoping for it to be just one step closer to the crispy goodness of deep fried chicken. I loathe deep frying and its mess and splatter and danger and leftover oil. Deep frying is actually quite tricky to get something crisp that isn't oil soaked.

Then it conveniently was Super Bowl time and a perfect excuse to make homemade onion dip. I have consumed many containers of the classic Lipton onion soup mix + sour cream dip at Super Bowl time. In fact, as one who is perpetually confused by the game of football, the dip was a major incentive to watch the game.

I got my hands upon Jennifer Reese's Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch. This seemed totally up my alley. Here I am trying to live this nouveau home-ec life and here is a kindred spirit in liking to mess around in the kitchen but it rather ended right there. Thankfully, Ms. Reese explained her situation otherwise I would have spent the whole book rolling my eyes at her yummy-mummy lifestyle.

The weather is warming, trees buds are swelling, irises are sprouting and it feels like spring. The Vernal Equinox is nearly here as a late winter storm passes through, and the trend is definitely toward Spring. I often hit a wall in late winter and lose my momentum. Spending time outside is one thing that refreshes and recharges me. Feeling the sun, breeze and nature around me clears my head and helps me move forward again. Going outside to walk, bike, garden, even backcountry ski are my Winter to Spring reset button.