White to Green

March. The Herald of Spring, the End of Winter. At least that's what the month means to me. Don't get me wrong...I love snow. I love driving by pristine stands of trees adorned with their mantels of white and their jewels of ice. I love the look of an unblemished field of snow. I love seeing the tiny shape of a crystalline flake, drifting onto my coat sleeve, or gleaming amongst the brightness of a snowbank.
But by February, I miss the grass and the buds, the butterflies and the birds. And I miss my gardens.
I have two; a flower garden in the front, and a vegetable/ fruit garden in the back. At the end of the growing season, I start collecting my seeds for the following year. By the beginning of March, I am ready. Out come the mini greenhouses. Wonderful things, they move about on wheels and have their own plastic zip-up covers.
Out come the styrofoam cups (why spend oodles of money on pots?)Out comes the fertilizer and the bags of dirt. And, of course, out come the seeds.
I start with the flowers. Vegetables grow more quickly, in my experience, and so I leave those until April.
This year's flower line-up includes the following: dianthus, cosmos, sweet pea (2 kinds), morning glory (four kinds), bachelor button, marigold, cascade petunia, wave petunia, delphinium, white alyssum, lavatera, phlox, bee balm, snapdragon and aster.
I am staggering my plantings this year. The first wave was started on March 1st. Amazingly, by the 3rd, some of the cosmos were already starting to poke their heads out of the soil.

Giant Chocolate Chunk Cookies

My husband is a self-proclaimed "Cookie Monster." Very rarely are we tempted to buy a pack from the store, though. Like everything else, I prefer to make them from scratch; that way I know exactly what's going into them. And I can add a little something extra if I wish: ground flax or whole wheat, for example.

This last weekend I made two batches of chocolate chunk cookies - the large, five-inch kind. Shape them into tubes, wrap them in plastic wrap and stuff them into the freezer in freezer bags, and you can have warm, chocolate-gooey cookies in 18 minutes whenever you want them.

Giant Chocolate Chunk (or chip) Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup melted shortening (or margarine or unsalted butter)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups coarsely chopped dark chocolate bar (or semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
Grease cookie sheets (or use non-stick pans)
In a large bowl, cream together melted shortening, brown sugar and white sugar until very well blended. Add the vanilla, egg and egg yolk, and beat until creamy.
Combine flour, baking soda and salt. Mix dry ingredients into the batter until blended.
Add chocolate chunks. Stir.
Drop cookie dough onto the sheets (each ball should be approx. ¼ of a cup). Place the balls about 3 ½ ” apart.
Bake for approximately 15 minutes in the preheated oven. Edges should be golden.
Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring.

Hello

What to write, and what not to write...something I've struggled with for a while before deciding to create this blog. So I figure, why not start with the basics.

My name is Monica C. Webster. I am an author and illustrator. I am also a cook, baker, gardener, seamstress, music teacher and choir director.

In addition to the above, I love to read, go camping, take nature walks, watch movies (only on weekends, though!) and sing. We are also learning how to ballroom dance.

We are grateful to share our home with two wonderful canine boys: our Hungarian Kuvasz 'Icewind Silver Dream,' and Tibetan Spaniel 'Keani Evening Song.'

And so this is what this blog is for: a compilation of all of the above.