On a quiet Saturday

These lovely cooler days of lately have me spinning 'round...  

Dancing in the garden...  

following mysterious black cats around... 

Have you noticed the shifting taking place in Nature?  

I love how the woods surrounding our little white cottage have started to change its colors

How lovely and precious these subtle changes are to me...  

I have been harvesting herbs and vegetables from the beds too...  

The pepper patch is having a fresh wave again.

I saved some time this week to freeze and preserve fresh herbs in olive oil...

Do you use your freezer to preserve herbs, vegetables, or fruit?

I freeze a lot of things for my juices and cooking...

...peeled garlic, fresh strawberries and pineapples, kale and spinach. 

It was also time to prepare my "sofrito".  Chop all your vegetables and herbs up a bit and toss everything in the blender or food processor. Then spoon the mixture out into ice cube trays, add olive oil and freeze. 

In our little white cottage 'sofrito' goes into everything: black beans, pinto beans, soups, 'pollo con papas', poached chicken breasts and rices. If it's heated, you put some sofrito in it!  Yum!

Preserving herbs in oil reduces some of the browning and freezer burn that herbs can get in the freezer.  It's also a great way to have herbs ready immediately for winter stews, roasts, soups, and potato dishes. These dishes usually call for oil to start with, and so you can take a cube of frozen oil out of the freezer and use this as the base of your dishes. Cook the onions and garlic in this herb-infused oil and let the taste of herbs spread through your whole dish.

I've been bringing a lot of roses and wildflowers inside these days...

I have always admired those bloggers and home makers out there who always seem to have fresh market roses and flowers of any kind on display... how do they manage to do this?  Market roses can be costly, and add to the expense if purchased on a weekly base... can you imagine?  

I cannot express enough how rewarding it is to be able to embellish your home with the products of one's own efforts and dedication and love of Nature...  flowers straight from your very own garden!  What can be better than that!

Of course, it helps a lot too, the amazing amount of wildflowers we get around here all year around. There's always something beautiful growing.  

I feel fortunate to be able to have cost-free fresh flowers most of the year to embellishing our little white cottage with.  Right now, even the herbs are putting out flowers... so I bring them in too! ;)

 Well my friend, hope you all have a lovely day today....

I am waiting for some very special people to arrive at our little white cottage
any minute now...
The fairies are all excited!
More soon!