More posts about animals and food (not by the Talking Heads)

Friday was a gorgeous day and it was topped off by having my beloved Heather come by our front yard with a bottle of wine. And, yes we most certainly finished that off. Daisy rambled around as we talked. She’s on a lead since we don’t have a fenced yard and periodically she gets tangled up on random plants or tables. Remember, she never barks either so we were sitting there and heard just the tiniest little whine. I looked over where it seemed to come from and I called her name. Suddenly, just her head poked out of the ferns. A moment later the whole stand of ferns started moving back and forth from the force of her tail wagging. Oh, Daisy. Heather and Ernie leaped to her rescue and they untangled her but I think we hurt her feelings slightly by laughing hysterically so she decided to go inside. We sat outside until it was cold and then we went inside where we watched Top Chef and ate potato chips. Yes, they made me feel kinda lousy yesterday but you know, it was a pretty great evening. And Daisy forgave us for laughing.

Last night I didn’t feel like cooking but Ernie said “WE MUST” and he was right. Since we’d enjoyed the swordfish recipe with green olives and anchovies the other night we decided to go with a similar theme. Ernie spatchcocked the chicken and I made a green olive and anchovy butter that I stuffed under the skin and rubbed a bit on top of it. Started it in a cast iron pan, and once it was sizzling I put it in the oven at 450 degrees for 35 minutes. Perfect. Ernie made some rice as we needed something to sop up the gorgeous pan drippings. I poured a bit of the drippings over the asparagus as I cooked it as well. It was absolutely lovely and although the flavors sound like they might be overwhelming they were actually were not at all. Pretty much perfect.

When we leave meat resting on the counter, after we’ve served, we usually just set an upside down colander over it. That’s only post-Rascal. Hattie and Bob have always ignored it but Rascal gets a bit more interested. Usually, the colander is enough to deter him even though he could knock it off if he really wanted to. Last night Ernie went to take our plates into the kitchen and he saw Rascal running out of the kitchen. He went in, only to see Daisy very happily munching a piece of chicken. Now, I know Daisy didn’t get it off the counter so I’m thinking she was the lucky recipient after Rascal guiltily ran off when he heard Ernie coming. And you know what though? We were kinda proud of Rascal. Our guy.

Today, by all rights I should go buy plants for my windowboxes but I’m going through a Danville Gardens Too withdrawal and Prairie Gardens just sounds overwhelming on a Sunday and even Country Arbors just feels like too much. Maybe we’ll skip over to Danville during the week this week. Besides, Heather just told me it’s a snakey day out there so maybe I’ll stay inside with a book. Sounds like good reasoning to me.

Best thing about today? I think some of my zinnias are up and my favorite peonies are blooming.

Bob, of course, made his plans for the day early on.

Onward.

Oh, and photo credit to Heather for the great shot of Daisy poking her head through the ferns!