"garden" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week.

Memo to the First Lady: That's the nicest-looking gardening outfit we've ever seen! Take this quiz and find out how well you know what the Obamas are planting this year.

A pretty dang delicious-looking milk chocolate and peanut butter cookie recipe.

Edamame in linguine? They make it look tasty over at YumSugar.

A writer is entranced by the simple charms of homemade tortillas. Have you tried it? Take their poll.

McDonald's joins the upscale burger trend with one-third pound Angus patties, coming this August.

It's still not Spring here in Philadelphia. In fact, it's currently about 50 and rainy, but I've been pretending that Spring is here by planning my imaginary herb garden. Yes, my herb garden is sadly imaginary since I'm moving this year, but as a result, it's actually much greener, fragrant and exciting than any live herb garden I've ever grown for real (my thumb is not the greenest one out there). I mean, I love rosemary and mint as much as the next person, but I'm ready for a little more excitement! Here's what I'm thinking:

Chocolate Mint - I tasted this for the first time recently at a Farmer's Market, and it was delicious. The chocolate taste is slight, but definitely there, and I'll definitely be using it for imaginary iced tea, or even in cupcakes and baked goods.

Lemon Thyme - How easy it will be to make a roast chicken or even lemon-thyme frosting with these two ingredients already combined into one! Just kidding -- you apparently can't really count on it for a full lemon flavor, but it still works great for roasting anything, and for great fish and meat dishes as well.

Cuban Basil - The belle of my garden. After seeing/smelling how delightful these leaves are, I couldn't resist buying some for my mom for mother's day. Not so much into it? Check out this long list of interesting basil varieties here.

Lavender - Maybe this would be in my grandmother's garden too, but I just love the scent so much that it's going in my imaginary one as well.

Looking for more exciting herbs like juniper or fenugreek? Check out this list and these hints and tips. And if anyone has suggestions for additions to my imaginary garden, please share! It's imaginary, so no there are no limits!

I love the idea of a pizza farm! It's a farm divided into pie slices with each slice featuring a different pizza topping. Sections could include tomatoes, onions, peppers, broccoli, or even pigs (for bacon). There are several pizza farms in the US that have become popular as tourist attractions and for school field trips. Visit Suite 101 for a list of these farms.

What I love even more than the idea of a large scale pizza farm is the idea of a small scale pizza garden. Why do our home gardens always have straight edges? Is it harder to make circles? I'm sure mine would end up looking like a pizza cloud, but I could live with that.

Having a pizza garden would be a great way to give kids a taste of gardening. Let me know if you try it!

I think it's pretty safe to say that we wouldn't have this big crafts/home & garden/cooking industry that we have if it wasn't for Martha Stewart. Sure, there were people doing it before her, but not in such a big way. Her 1982 bestseller Entertaining really paved the way for everything we have today.

Stewart is going to be celebrating those 25 years on her show tomorrow. Besides giving her audience a first edition of the book, she's also going to talk with Alan Mirken, the former Clarkson/Potter president who discovered Stewart) and other execs and employees Stewart has worked with over the years.

In other Martha news, PBS will launch a new show titled Everyday Baking, a spinoff of the Everyday Food show, which is based on the magazine of the same name.

If you're not in sunny southern California, you might not even be able to get a trowel through the top two inches of ground in your yard these days, but that shouldn't stop you from planning now if you want to have red ripe tomatoes and fragrant herbs in your garden come Spring.

According to finance blog Get Rich Slowly, February is the perfect time to start planning your vegetable garden. Their post, Plan Today for Summer Success, has some great, basic information about how to plan, including such probing questions as "Do you actually like to eat vegetables?" and tips on how to make best use of the space you have. Since it's the last day of the month today, you still have time!

[via: LifeHacker]