Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 33: August 20, 2022

The huckleberries are ripe and berry-stained fingers tell the story of a good day’s picking. Western huckleberries are one of the jewels of our part of southern Oregon, along with Lost Creek Lake, numerous waterfalls, mountains robed in pine and fir, and winter snow.

I packed a simple picnic of cold chicken, homemade bread, and cheese, and we treated ourselves to nature’s dessert. You simply cannot improve on fresh-picked berries!

Huckleberry bushes grow 18-36 inches (45-90 cm), which means a lot of bending over. The berries are half the size of blueberries, or less, and painstaking to pick without squishing!

The thought of sourdough huckleberry pancakes, muffins with pebbly streusel tops, cobblers mixed with blackberries, and winter oatmeal makes the effort worthwhile.

Sam and I have a friendly competition when it comes to picking berries. I nearly always win, and he eats most of the berries, so maybe he wins after all.

I spread the small bounty of berries out on 3 large cookies sheets to tray freeze, all the while remembering the spectacular sight of a goldenrod meadow ringed by pine trees.

Tray freezing is simple – spread berries out in a single layer on a rimmed cookie sheet and freeze, uncovered, until solid. Once frozen, transfer berries to labeled freezer bags or freezer containers and get them back into the freezer asap.

Psst! If you’d like to receive my scrumptious recipe for Crumb Cake Muffins, which are a perfect vehicle for berries, visit my home page. Scroll to the bottom and request the recipe by signing up for my newsletter. I’ll send you a worksheet to walk you through choosing a name for your home and give you the recipe as a gift.

New video

Are you suffering from zucchini overload? Whip up a big batch of Zucchini Velvet Soup! You can serve part of it for dinner tonight and freeze the rest for future meals. Zucchini Velvet Soup tastes fresh and buttery and comforting all at the same time – you’re going to love it! Even people who think they don’t like zucchini like this soup! It’s easy to make and freezes beautifully.

Printable recipe for Zucchini Velvet Soup.

Here are a few more zucchini recipes for you: Spiralized Zucchini Butter Spaghetti

Cooking from the garden

Pesto Party basil, a favorite that blooms very late. This means more leaves…more pesto. Adding basil generously to a Chicken Rag-out and just about everything else I cook!

Nasturtiums skirt the perimeter of the garden teepee. Their cheerful blooms arrest my gaze every time I visit the garden and both leaf and flowers are edible!

Small town festival

Great fun to be had at the annual Prospect Jamboree and Timber Carnival in August each year! The event begins with a pancake breakfast sponsored by the Lioness women’s group, proceeds with a parade, then a carnival at the park with a beer garden and timber carnival events all day.

Pearl bids you farewell. Thank you for visiting!

Blessings,
Michele

Chocolate Box Cottage Diary, Volume 2
Week 32: August 13, 2022

The screen door is open most evenings, a small holiday in itself. The yellow Adirondack chairs are pressed into service, the front porch is abloom with pink and red geraniums. It is too warm for supper there, but the garden teepee is becoming a favorite comfortable spot again as greenery wends its way up.

Could anything be more fitting than zucchini, in some form, for dinner in the teepee? That’s how Sam and I celebrated our First Date Anniversary, with grilled burgers served on zucchini slice “buns.”

Sam and I met through mutual friends, TJ and Charity Weber, who thought we were perfect for each other and decided to play matchmaker! I worked with Charity at the local Grange Co-op, Sam and TJ worked 2 jobs together at the time.

Sam came to meet me for the first time at work and asked me out to dinner. Our first date was to take place Sunday July 13, 2003. Tragically, my Dad died unexpectedly the night before our first date.

We didn’t go out until more than a year later, August 14, 2004, after a chance meeting at the Post Office. Coincidence is God’s signature and we quickly fell in love.

We celebrate all the special days: First Date Anniversary, Proposal Day, and our Wedding Anniversary. And we celebrate many other small things!

We have invented a basketful of small holidays and sprinkled them through the calendar:

First Day of Summer – with homemade ice cream

First Zucchini – with fried Zucchini Moons

First Tomato – we share it

Wisteria in Bloom – with pictures

Locust Tree Flower Flurry – grilled supper under the falling petals

Final Load of Firewood – a nap and a movie

This is just a sampling of small holidays of summer. We also celebrate clean floors, internet outages, and new baby animals of all kinds.

We are ready to mark any occasion, especially the small ones, with a special dessert, a picture, a picnic, a walk, or whatever suits.

How about you? Do you celebrate any private or “made-up” holidays? Do tell!

First sunflower… another small holiday? Chocolate Cherry Sunflower is a show-stopper.

Thornless blackberries mingle with wild ones along our garden fence. First ripe berries means blackberry cobbler or pie!

Gorgeously flavored Amarylla tomatillos are best when fully ripe, so sweet! This Polish variety was bred to thrive in the cooler summer conditions of inland eastern Europe. I didn’t used to consider tomatillos desirable as an out-of-hand snack, but these have changed my mind.

Our little dog, Squirrel loves to spend time in the garden with me, nose in the dirt. On this day, she uncovered a treasure: skin shed by a snake!

Small Chamomile harvest to be dried for tea. The variety is called Zloty Lan and I appreciate the extra-large size flowers. Larger flowers equal more tea. They have a fruity floral scent that is calming to the tummy and the disposition. I left plenty of flowers to self-sow. 

Another variety of chamomile, Kelway Golden, used for dyeing, is just coming into flower against a backdrop of Persian basil.

Goldenrod – a gift from a friend, Michael Villareal. In search of a cup of red wigglers (worms) for a new worm bin.

New video

A garden tool basket is almost like having an extra set of hands in the garden! No more lost time hunting for missing pruners or gloves; you will know right where they are. All those small items, too, like a tape measure for measuring off planting spaces, pencil for making notes in your garden journal, and more. You can bring your water bottle along, effortlessly, so you stay hydrated in the heat!

Zucchini Slice is a dish that Australian friend Amanda Roberts has been prodding me to make for a while. I finally made it and it was an instant hit. Sam makes waffles for breakfast.

Mix up a big batch of bread dough once a month with my Whole Wheat Freezer Bread Dough recipe, either by hand or using an Ankarsrum mixer. You can thaw and bake a loaf each week to keep fresh bread in the house and if a piece of dough hangs around too long in the freezer, it’s still great for pizza night!

Recipe for pizza sauce made from a can of tomato sauce or from tomatoes you’ve dried from your garden (pictured) is included in the pizza recipe! Make pizza just the way you like it.

A delicious summer meal of tabouli salad made with spelt grain, spiralized curly fries cooked in a cast iron skillet, and grilled steaks. Feeling blessed.

We said goodbye to our beloved Pastor Dennis Mortimore and his wife Joy as they retired to Grants Pass. Tom and Sheryl O’Neal, Pastors of a neighboring church, gave a beautiful tribute to Dennis. 

We make Tea and lunch at Mom and Rolly’s a small holiday. This week included a bunch of grandkids, so fun! Sisters Savannah Hulce, and Gigi and Alyssa Hill, Miriam and Mom’s BFF Joy Longiotti joined in the fun. Joy brought a newly finished quilt top to show and lunch was open-face egg salad sandwiches, fruit salad, sliced garden cucumbers, and iced tea.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next week!
Blessings,
Michele