Welcome!

The Leap Floral blog is the beginning stage of what I hope to be my exciting, fun, and beautiful future. I hope you enjoy my musings on gardening, flowers, recipes and other stuff. The inspiration for the name of my future shop comes from my Aunt Nancy, her favorite saying is "leap and the net will appear." When I was surprised by a forced career change, I was freaked out, but she (and the rest of my wonderful family) explained that now was the best time to make my dream of being the owner of a great little shop come true. So, I took the leap and here it begins...




Saturday, November 20, 2010

Leaf me be!


I came back from a short vacation and it seems that every tree in the neighborhood put their leaves in my back yard. From patio edge to garden edge, as far as the eye can see, leaves.

Do I rake and bag?
Do I mow it into mulch?
Do I leave it for the spring?

It's like a choose your own adventure book.
I think I'll go with adventure three.

Friday, November 5, 2010

I like food. A lot.


Fall is amazing. Though I fear I'll become a bit repetitive, I can't help but continue to comment on the beautiful fall we've had here in the midwest. Up until a week ago, we were 68degrees and sunny every single day. Now we're a bit cooler (read: cold) but it's still sunny and lovely. While I have a TON of yardwork to do, I instead lean towards sitting on the patio, drinking a lovely glass of red wine and thinking about food.

Which brings me to my current state of mind: hungry. I think I might be part bear. I'd love to get my self all cozy and fat, sleep for a couple of months, and wake up in the spring. Instead, I've decided to start cooking more regularly.

Tonight, I made baked beets, baked chicken and sweet potatoes. I threw it all in a pyrex pan and shook some olive oil, kosher salt, rosemary and black pepper over it, covered it with foil and stuck it in the oven at 375 for an hour. I then removed the foil, put the oven up to 425 and cooked it for an additional 15 minutes. Finally, I popped the broiler on for 5-10 minutes and got the skin all crispy on the chicken and the potatoes, took it out, and holy cow. Delicious. Seriously. The best part is that it'll be better tomorrow.

Well, if it makes it that long. Grrrr.