Thank you for visiting my blog on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday! I am so grateful to my faithful readers and all the new people who are joining us every week. Your comments and questions make my day. Since many of you are new, I thought it might be fun to share some oldies but goodies. Let’s call it Life at Bella Terra’s greatest hits!

Here at our home, we have the good fortunate of space where we enjoy everything from gardening to outdoor entertaining. Here are a few areas of interest.

Gardening and Chickens

My blog post Gardening 101 stemmed from the question, “does gardening take a great deal of time”? After the initial garden plan, the actual work to plant, harvest and maintain a garden is minimal and seasonal. And the benefits are enormous! To see this detailed post, click here.

Another popular post is about Composting 101, which is an ideal project to start during COVID. Being home and creating more waste, composting is the answer to having great soil for your garden. If you could recycle 30% of your trash to make rich fertilizer, why not? See that post, here.

Before and Afters

Don’t you love to look at other people’s homes? I certainly do! And it is a bonus if there are good Before and After pictures. I actually have a file where I keep renovation photos of other projects as inspiration.

Our historic home is always going through a constant renovation. However, the initial restoration was the most significant. In an attempt to capture that journey, I am writing The Restoration Chronicles. So far there are 5 chapters and if you haven’t read our story, click here for Chapter 1.

Entertaining

COVID has definitely put a monkey wrench into our socializing and entertaining. We feel blessed to be the stewards of this unique historical property and share it often to host everything from charitable events to proms. The orchard is one of the areas of the property we use for large sit-down meals. For more details about one of our dinners in the orchard, click here.

I long for the day when we can open up our home and our arms and welcome guests again. If you are dreaming of when we can all reconnect, here is an autumn entertaining post.

Cooking, Baking and Making

The summers do put a cramp in my cooking, as it is almost painful to turn on the oven in the triple-digit heat. However, the minute there is a touch of autumn in the air, I am back to baking. This past year, I learned how to bake sourdough bread from scratch, using starter that I carried home on a plane from Washington, D.C.

If you need a new project while we are all stuck at home, baking bread using a natural yeast, is so rewarding. I just recently shared more sourdough starter with someone who reached out to me and now I have a new friend. Bake bread. Make friends. Check out my post, Sourdough Starter Basics here.

Of course, there are all sorts of recipes in the files of Bella Terra. But here are a few favorites. Key Lime Pie post

Together we made Preserved Lemons (see recipe here) and then we used them in some fabulous recipes, like the one above. This delicious chicken pasta salad is ideal for the summer~as it can be eaten warm or cold. Check out the recipe here.

DIY and Home Improvement

I am not much of a crafter, but I do like to tackle projects myself, sometimes moaning along the way.

The most recent is a hand stenciled tile bathroom floor in our pool house. If you missed that post you can see it here.

We have accomplished quite a few projects this year, and several with your helpful comments. From the great advice on the vintage mailbox above, to helping select a front door color, your feedback is gold! See that post, here.

Organizing

Staying organized is such a challenge, but I am inspired to be better at it when I see others accomplishing these tasks. This year, getting the master closet organized was a big win. To see the embarrassing before pictures and the fabulous after shots, click here.

Keeping heavily used spaces like the pantry is always a challenge. But it looks so nice when it is neat and tidy. See the improvements here.

Pets

For those of you who have pets, you know how important they are to family life. Our two dogs, two cats and numerous chickens are all part of our daily existence here. The Best Kind of Friend is a blog post about the bond we have with our pets, how they shadow us daily and love us unconditionally. Read it here.

Thank you for all your kind words during Sox’s recent back injury and Tippy’s current failing health. We share in the joy of their presence and the grief of their loss.

Just Getting Through Life

You have provided loving ears to some of my life’s challenges as we enter new phases of maturity. It was only a year ago, when I was struggling with empty nesting (see post here). But with the pandemic, nearly everyone is home again! Now, next week I will do a repeat performance as we move our daughter out of the house to start her sophomore year in college. Ah, the ups and downs!

We have talked about Kindness (see post here) and how important it is to Smile (see post here) and how to age well (see post here). Even though we cannot get together physically, we have such a supportive community right here on this blog. The goal with each and every blog post is to provide you with something interesting and important. And I’ve learned so much from all of you along the way.

Again, I cannot express how delighted I am that you have been with me from the beginning and I extend a warm welcome to new readers. In a world that seems to be filled with division and anger, it is my hope that Life at Bella Terra will be a bright spot in your day.

Happy Tuesday, my friends! If you ever want to see more content on any topic~gardening, recipes, home improvement, decorating, seasonal, whatever it is, please let me know! Thank you.

This post shared with Tuesday Turn About #61

I am not a breakfast person. The thought of any meal in the morning is almost hard for me to comprehend. So I struggle with what breakfast options are healthy, quick and not big in volume.

Collagen Peptides

Every morning starts with my delicious Nespresso coffee with foamed milk and two scoops of Vital Proteins Collagen Peptides.

Vital Proteins provides 18 grams of protein, which is just enough to sustain me through my morning workout. But there are days where I am more hungry, especially if I skipped dinner the night before. Sometimes grabbing a quick hardboiled egg (pre-made and in the fridge) does it, but other days, I need something with a bit more substance.

Breakfast Cookies

I started making breakfast cookies when I was the Food Mom for my son’s high school crew team. Often the boys would be up at the crack of dawn before a regatta wanting something light, but healthy to eat. Cookies, you say? For breakfast?

Blueberry Breakfast Cookies

Yesterday, I dusted off the recipe for Ambitious Kitchen’s Omega 3 Blueberry Breakfast Cookies and made a batch. Being challenged with too many apples, I found an additional recipe online from Kristine’s Kitchen for Apple Pie Breakfast cookies. Both recipes are chock-a-block full of fiber and goodness. So it is time to compare the two recipes.

The Blueberry Breakfast cookies are gluten-free and dairy free. Using almond meal, coconut sugar, flaxseed meal, rolled oats, chia seeds, banana, blueberries, walnuts and an optional add ~ dark chocolate, these large cookies are very flavorful and filling.

This recipe makes 8 large cookies. The most time consuming part of the recipe is gathering the ingredients! Using an ice cream scoop makes it easy to plop these down on a cookie sheet to bake. Prep time is 10 minutes with a cook time of 15.

Apple Pie Breakfast Cookies

The Apple Pie Breakfast cookies have similar ingredients~rolled oats, apples, oat flour, ground flaxseed, applesauce, maple syrup, egg, butter and spices. Refined sugar-free, this recipe makes 18 large cookies.

Similar to the first recipe, drop balls of dough on a cookie sheet and flatten with your hand.

These cookies are perfect if you have children or grandchildren that you need to feed quickly. They freezer beautifully and a few seconds in the microwave, you have a nutritious and delicious snack.

As food crew mom, at one point, I needed to feed 65 high school athletic boys. The Blueberry Breakfast cookie recipe is the one that they boys would shove in their mouths as they raced to their next regatta.

This morning, we sampled both recipes. My husband and I prefer the Blueberry ones, as we love the combination of blueberries, walnuts and dark chocolate. The Apple Pie ones were good, but I think I would make the apple pieces bigger as they got a bit lost in the cookie. Also, our apples from the orchard are Anna apples, which have a mild, sweet flavor. Using an apple with more tang will bump up the taste. But both are worthy recipes. Now they will be frozen for future use!

I hope if you are a non-breakfast eater like me, you will find these recipes to be a helpful addition to your morning routine.

Happy Wednesday! I am heading over to visit my elderly neighbor who lives alone and wants some company….of course, at a distance! Wishing you a day of wonder and love!

If you enjoy this post, please feel free to share on Pinterest.

This post shared with To Grandma’s House We Go Link Party 203

You know how much I love gardening, and I am far from complaining. But everything is reaching its prime at the same time. The peaches, apricots, tomatoes, figs, artichokes, fennel, sorrel and soon to be apples are being harvested now.

Tomatoes

But unlike store bought produce, my homegrown fruits and vegetables don’t last days on end. They need to be utilized immediately or they decay. The windowsills are full of tomatoes and there are bowls and bowls of apricots….coupled with a recent grocery store run where someone purchased several pounds of fresh strawberries!

I don’t like wasting anything so I have been making and baking all week. I prefer to space out my food blog posts because not everyone likes to bake or cook, but this task of produce management is dominating my week. It is food triage~~the items that spoil first get the attention.

Keeping up on the picking of the cherry tomatoes is nearly impossible. The neighbors are getting bowls of them but there are still so many of these ruby gems on the plants!

We just made a huge cookie sheet of roasted cherry tomatoes with mint and garlic. It is hard to describe what the mint does to the roasted tomatoes, but it tastes nothing like mint. I did post this recipe quite some time ago and it is still one of my favorite easy appetizer recipes using cherry tomatoes.

Spread a crostini with goat cheese and top with these warm (or cold) roasted tomatoes, and it is heaven! To get the recipe and see the original post, click here. Truly, if you have cherry tomatoes, you will love this!

Apricots

The best way to consume fresh apricots is eating them right from the tree, still warm from the sun. With the others, I made an Almond Apricot Tart with Whipped Cream last night. To see this Martha Stewart recipe, click here.

The crust is made with ground almonds and the custard layer has Amaretto as one of the ingredients. I love the combination of flavors coupled with the sweet, juicy apricots.

Though the recipe does call for whipped cream, we enjoyed it sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Today I will need to research more apricot recipes as we still have another whole tree to pick!

Strawberries

Now onto the strawberries! So far the recipes include Strawberry Rhubarb crisp and Strawberry Rhubarb pie! I like to experiment with different pie crusts, but my latest find is the All Butter pie crust from the book, Bravetart. If your kitchen is 74 degrees or more, the pie crust becomes more challenging and is difficult to manipulate. My basketweave pattern is a little wonky because the dough became so soft. But it is delicious anyway!

If anyone has another rhubarb recipe, please share as there is still several stalks in my refrigerator.

Peaches

The peaches are winding down and as I breathe a peach sigh of relief, I want to share another recipe that I previously posted. I hadn’t made this salad in quite sometime and forgot how good it is (and easy to make). It is a combination of the wonderful flavors of peaches, tomatoes, fresh corn, feta cheese, cilantro and a honey vinaigrette. Just perfect for the summer months.

Today, I hope to make tomato sauce and pico de Gallo. I can now see why farmers need to rest over the winter.

If you are visiting from the Charming Homes & Gardens link party, welcome! There are so many talented people sharing their lovely homes, gardens and inspirational ideas. I am so happy to be a part of it!

I hope you have a day filled with hope and promise! Just a reminder, if you are not following me on Instagram, please check me out @lifeatbellaterra. I am finally learning how to do Instagram Stories! Wonders never cease!

This post shared with Pretty Things and Thursday Favorite Things

The garden is literally bursting at the seams. With the heat, the ripening has exponentially increased. But it’s a good thing, as being in the garden is calming for me, especially in today’s chaotic world. To see my post on Gardening 101, please click here.

It is that time of year again when the fig tree is producing fruit. The fig tree is part of the mulberry family (I had no idea). They are low in calories and have no fat. A large fig has approximately 47 calories making it a great healthy snack. Our fig tree produces twice a year, but this latest crop is producing figs on steroids. The fruit is HUGE and fleshy and sweet.

I have many books on making preserves, jams and jellies to reference.

But the easiest recipe and one I had not tried before, is from the Williams Sonoma, The Art of Preserving book.

Really, this recipe is so easy. First trim the figs.

Since I am using a combination of our gargantuan figs and a few smaller ones from my friend and neighbor, Anne, I cut the figs to more or less the the same size.

The figs will cook in a combination of orange and lemon juice. We still have some remaining oranges on one of our trees but you can also use store-bought fresh juice.

Add sugar to the orange/lemon juice combo. Bring to a boil and stir to dissolve the sugar.

Add the figs, reduce the heat to medium, cook and stir gently for 5 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon, remove the figs to a bowl. Add orange zest to the syrup and cook, uncovered until reduced by one-third, 2-3 minutes. I inadvertently added the zest when I added the sugar, but I don’t think it affected the taste of the syrup.

Return the figs to the pan and cook for one minute to heat through.

The oven is my choice for sterilizing the jars and lids. After washing them in hot soapy water, I put the jars in the oven on a cookie sheet for at least 30 minutes at 250 degrees. I then fill them with the hot figs, leaving 1/4″ at the top. Any sticky syrup on the rim is wiped away before I add the lid.

After being severely burned using the hot-bath canning method, I now do all my fruit processing in the oven. (Note: please research this if you are canning meats or other foods that require different sterilization). After the jars are filled and the lid snugly secured, I replace the jars in the oven for 15 minutes or so to ensure that are completely sterilized.

I let the jars cool overnight to set. They will seal as they cool.

Once the jar is opened and the seal is broken, the figs will last for 30 days in the refrigerator. The fig preserves can be used on chicken or pork. Or spread on warm bread or toast. Or just eaten with a spoon!

One of my favorite uses is a crostini appetizer with goat cheese and figs.

The syrup on this recipe isn’t as thick as a jam or preserve, but is very flavorful. All in all, a quick and easy recipe to make. And a way to enjoy figs until the next production cycle!

On a separate note, I know these are troubling times. I want my blog to be a place where you are welcomed, perhaps learn something along the way, and to celebrate the simple beauty in everyday life. Nearly a year and a half ago, I wrote a post on Kindness. It was difficult to share some personal moments with you, but the message remains the same. Kindness is free and the rewards are tremendous. And it is something we all can practice. If you would like to read this post again, click here. More than ever, we need each other.

Sending all my loving energy your way.

I am always curious as to why there are times in life where “things” happen in multiples. And not good things. Well, I seem to be in one of those downpours lately. As I mentioned in Saturday’s blog post, the 75 gallon water tank in the basement split and flooded two rooms. A plumber, two helpers and $1200 later, the problem is fixed. But my nice, neat organized basement spaces are in a state of disarray as everything needs to be put back in its place.

Yesterday, I stepped into another flood of water coming from our dishwasher. Yep! All over the hardwood floor in the kitchen. This appliance didn’t drain and I removed a few gallons of standing water with a turkey baster. Sigh.

Last night, my daughter came home from a week at our mountain cabin and let us know the clothes dryer stopped working. The burnt rubber smell part of the story is concerning. Sigh again.

For me, I guess I am a believer of things happening in threes. So hopefully this will be the end of all things breaking down for awhile. But this is the nature of owning an old home, or living in a home for a long time. My guess is that our dishwasher finally needs replacing as does the belt to the clothes dryer at the cabin. Just wish it all didn’t happen at the same time. Cha-ching.

Does this happen to you, too? Do you believe in things happening in threes?

Onto Other Things

On a brighter note, as I am the eternal optimist, it is 62 degrees outside this morning! Whaaat?? A few days ago it was over 100 degrees, however, the forecast for the next few days is perfect Spring weather with highs in the 70s. Crystal clear blue skies, sunny and very cool evenings. Lovely.

We are supposed to head up to the mountains for Memorial Day but I almost don’t want to leave this gorgeous weather. Do you have plans for Memorial Day weekend? I’ve been so distracted with this pandemic it’s hard to believe it is the holiday weekend already.

Update on the Back Staircase Project

We are slowly removing the gross glue and old paint from the stairs. There are some disappointing surprises. One of the treads is broken and one of the risers has been poorly patched. A few setbacks but there are four more steps to uncover so who knows what we will find. Lately, nothing seems to be going as planned.

All Things Peaches

We are still picking peaches off the trees. The peach pie I made is truly one of the first ones that wasn’t swimming in juice with a soggy bottom crust. I blended two recipes~~the all butter crust is from Stella Parks New York Times Bestseller, Bravetart. The filling is from the Country Peach Pie recipe from the Food Network Kitchen. By far, one of the best peach pies yet!

Elisabeth is on a homemade ice cream kick. Last week it was fresh strawberry ice cream.

This week, fresh peach ice cream. With the leftover peach puree from the peach ice cream recipe (yes, we are getting fat over here!), we are enjoying peach margaritas!

Front Porch is Finished!

The new welcome mat from Wayfair arrived yesterday. The mat is 24″ x 36″, substantially larger than the previous one. It is non-slip, made from coconut fibers and is an elegant addition to the spruced up front entry. All for $43.99. This project is finally DONE.

Vegetable Consumption

We are eating so many good things from the garden. This is the first year I planted shishito peppers. Flash frying in hot olive oil, served with salt and a squeeze of lemon, these peppers are just delicious. If you haven’t had these peppers before, check to see if your grocery store carries them. I know Safeway does and this is a very quick, yummy appetizer. Occasionally you may get a hot one, but the all the ones from our garden have a mild flavor.

Artichokes are ready to harvest too. We typically par-boil them, cut them in half and basted them on the grill with olive oil and garlic. The Houston’s Restaurant recipe with remoulade sauce is a family favorite.

Hoping your Wednesday is filled with joy and beautiful weather! Pray that no more appliances break this week!

Peaches always ripen here the first few weeks in May. The original peach tree died a few years ago, but we quickly replanted another. This year the fruit is abundant and delicious even though the tree is rather small. Picking is a daily obligation as one day a peach is hard and the next day, I am fighting the birds for it.

We call these our “bend over and eat peaches”. They are so juicy and so sweet. Many a shirt has been ruined with peach juice. And these peaches have FUZZ! Why don’t store-bought peaches have fuzz?

We have two peach trees. Depending on the size of the crop, there are many peach recipes that are favorites at our home.

This year the first dessert we made is peach crisp. I use the recipe from one of my favorite cook books. If you are not familiar with Susan Branch, she is an author, watercolorist and designer. Though born in Southern California, she lives in an 1849 home in Martha’s Vineyard.

Her cookbooks are works of art with handwritten copy. One of my favorites is The Summer Cookbook. The peach crisp recipe is based on the Peach & Plum Crisp one in this book. You can tell I use this recipe a lot as the page is a bit dog-eared! I believe this book may be out of print, but Amazon has it here.

You can’t go wrong with anything crisp~~apple, peach, pear, and cherry. I use this recipe for all fruits because the “crisp” part is the perfect topping. I adjust the recipe by increasing the quantity of one fruit vs. two. Click here for the recipe.

What is interesting about picking fresh fruit, is that it doesn’t last very long. So I need to use the fruit within a few days. As a result, yesterday we made peach salsa.

I didn’t really follow a recipe this time. This batch is made with tomatoes (cherry ones from the garden), yellow and orange bell pepper (as I didn’t have any green or red), peaches, cilantro, red onion, jalapeño peppers, lime juice, and salt.

This salsa is perfect with chips, but also goes well with fish or chicken. If you would like to get the recipe from a previous post on Peach Salsa, click here. There are two other blog posts with peach recipes~~Tomato, Peach and Corn Salad (which is delicious!) and homemade Peach Pie.

We will be picking more peaches today and maybe peach ice cream this afternoon? At some point, my family will tell me they are “peached out”. That is my cue to preserve the rest of the harvest.

Have a peachy Tuesday!