The gardens and landscaping are well documented on this blog.  Here are a few pictures of my house.

There is a front and back deck, plus a balcony off one upstairs bedroom.

The living room, dining room and kitchen are all open.

The garage has the potential for two car if another door were added.  Right now it is a workshop with a pool table.

My neighbors house is so unique inside and out.  The price is $215,000.

It has a beautiful stacked stone fireplace.

The driveway entrance is level, and has room for several cars.

This is just a part of the fantastic view.

If you are interested in seeing more pictures, asking questions or touring both houses in Waynesville, North Carolina contact me at katheygreg@yahoo.com for my house or lissacald@charter.net for my neighbors.

There’s a saying in this tar heel state that if God isn’t a Carolina fan why did he make the sky Carolina blue?

When I return from my garage these colors take my breath away.

These trees provide something to enjoy while I hang up clothes in the backyard.

As I walk to the garden this is what I see.

The blueberries in the foreground provide buckets of berries in the summer and many-colored leaves in the fall.

The beauty is fleeting, so I’m trying to enjoy every minute.

Mushrooms and Fennel

After cleaning the fennel I use only the base of the leaves.  The tops can be saved as garnish for salads.

After sauteing the mushrooms in a mixture of olive oil and butter add the chopped fennel.  Next add enough white wine or chicken stock to slightly cover the mixture.  Simmer until liquid is almost gone.

The optional step is adding cream and simmering until it has thickened.

Sometimes I use it as a  side dish.  This time I topped spaghetti with the mixtures and added Parmesan cheese.

When planting the Burpee Orion Hybrid below I was very careful to space them so they wouldn’t crowd.

And another gorgeous view, one of the last this year that will set in my mountain view.

The picture below is a shallot that was too small to pull last fall.  It made it through the winter and is growing big enough to pick this time.  I do plan to plant some this fall for an early summer harvest.

This sunset was just too beautiful not to share.

Since it was the first time, I just stuck them in the ground like they were onion sets.

They grew and multiplied in both places.  My son and his friends used all the shallots in Virginia.  After sharing with friends here I had many to use and save.  I made the mistakes not refrigerating them, so some rotted before I figured that out.  After using them in many recipes, I sadly used the last one in February.  By the time I went to the store that had them last year, they were sold out.  But I found some bigger and less expensive shallots at a grocery store sold by the pound.  Following Jim Crockett’s instructions from an old Time Life book called Vegetables and Fruits, this time I planted them two inches into the ground.

I’m not sure the grocery store variety will grow, and also wonder if they will do as well as last year’s.  Any one have any experience with shallots they could share?

The first sage I tried to grow was a pretty variegated variety.   It was in a potted herb garden which worked well.  When I put it into the garden it started sending runners everywhere and taking over, so I dug it up.  While visiting Mary Alice’s garden I saw her huge sage plant.  She generously let me dig part of it.  The transplanted sage is now growing well in my garden, but could not keep up with my new obsession.  Again Mary Alice was kind enough to let me pick some when I needed it.  This spring I will look for another to supplement the one I have.

The recipe below for sweet potatoes is so easy, especially if you have the recipe for garlic, olive oil and lime from Rick Bayless.  I use it for the gnocchi, as well as many other times when I want  to use garlic and olive oil.

Sweet potatoes with Fried Sage

Gnocchi with Fried Sage Butter

When using prepared gnocchi the ingredients are simple.   If you have Rick’s recipe on hand it can replace the olive oil and garlic, as well as save a step.

The gnocchi is ready when it floats to the top in just a few minutes.  Then the sage is quickly fried in the olive oil and garlic mixture.  Or you can use the processor to mix the garlic and oil in the original recipe.

This dish is quick and delicious!

It is scenic, especially the last snow that coated almost every twig.

My favorite snow-covered tree is the blue spruce below.

It collects the snow and holds on longer than others.  Even a strong wind has trouble dislodging the accumulations on the branches.

Every detail was outlines with snow this time.

On another the heavy snow is trapped in the branches.

The apple tree even kept the stacked snow on it’s sparse limbs.

The Supervisor hesitated to come along for the photo shoot.

Finally she decided to brave the cold, but stayed on the shoveled path.

trimmed and sliced okra

one 14.5 oz can tomatoes with the juice

one sliced carrot

two garlic cloves, chopped

one chopped red onion

one 15.5 can black beans with liquid

1/2 cup brown rice

2 cups chicken stock

1/2 cup frozen corn

fresh chopped parsley

1 T olive oil

1/2 loaf of lavash, toasted

After chopping the carrots, onions and garlic I sauteed them, then added to rice until it was translucent.

I added two cups of chicken stock.  After cooking for twenty minutes I added the tomatoes.  Then I cooked it until the rice was tender, 15 more minutes, and added the okra.  When it was just tender, I cooked the corn until it was heated.  (More corn would have been even better, but that was all I had.)  When I put it in the bowl I topped it with a generous sprinkling of parsley.

It was a substantial soup served with toasted lavash that hit the spot on a chilly evening.  The flavors blended overnight.  The soup was even better the next day.