There’s nothing like an arugula and tomato salad that was grown in your backyard - our plot in my case. The nutty arugula flavor combines sublimely with the acidity of the tomato. No comparison with store bought produce. The porcini risotto was my first try to stick with the original recipe. But for some reason I had to go 8 minutes over the religious 14 minutes of cooking the risotto after the first stock scoop. Nevertheless it turned out wicked!

Check this out. My wife, who’s doing the gardening in our household, found three Morel mushrooms in our back yard! What’s going on? Are we sitting on a gold mine and not know it?

Don’t be discouraged that you only have two maple trees in your yard! You can extract enough sap from them to brew a nice jar of maple syrup that’s more delicious than any other store bought versions!