New member at the Dunlap ranch

Right now, I'm feeling the pain of new puppy ownership. I can feel it in my toes, the big one on the right foot, in particular. Our newest member of the Dunlap ranch, Scrappy (above), bit down on my toes while I was relaxing. I was barefoot.

It is a small price to pay for a big joy, though. We love to watch him play and yip and chew on his rope bone. He has really big paws, too. When he runs around the house on his short, stumpy legs, he looks like he's wearing boots or oversized shoes. He looks part Bassett hound, part labrador. Our two adult dogs are adjusting, but they aren't keen on the unbridled energy of the puppy. 

You could call him an owner surrender. We knew his owners didn't have time for him, so we offered to take him and they said yes.  The past week has been rough with our altered sleep schedules, but he seems to like our little home.

Oh my -- there's roast pork in the oven.

The smell of roast pork fills my house. Karen put the pork in the oven this morning, and it will take about six hours to cook. Tomorrow, she'll do the same thing again as she makes a second batch.

Lazy Sunday for the Dunlaps

Darren is a little under the weather today, so instead of going to the Knoxville Botanical Garden for Rhythm 'n' Blooms, we're camped out at the dining room table with our computers. I'm catching up on months of articles from my Google Reader and Darren is working on his web design class homework. 

I found a great video of J.J. Abrams discussing creativity and mystery in a TED talk. If you love his work or love to write, this is a great inspiration.

Spaghetti carbonara with leeks and bacon

Darren posted about our dinner last night. I adore Naples' spaghetti carbonara and I love making my own version at home with bits of chopped bacon and leeks. The recipe I use is from Cooking Light magazine's January 2008 issue. The recipe calls for pancetta but that can be difficult to find in grocery stores in our area. I use 3 pieces of bacon, chopped and cooked until it's cooked through but not crispy. I also use one whole egg, not just the egg white. This is an easy recipe to play around with and make your own. I am very generous with the black pepper for the sauce; I think it makes a big difference in the flavor. I also omit the parsley because there is plenty of flavor without it, and dealing with leeks is plenty of work for me!

Karen's crazy good carbonara

Karen's carbonara is the ultimate comfort food. She served up two heaping portions last night. We also bought some fresh bread from The Market in Maryville and toasted it. I'll see if I can get her to share her secret for this dish in the next post.

Met Maryville's Nathan Nicholson of UK band The Boxer Rebellion

UK band The Boxer Rebellion has a Maryville front man: Nathan Nicholson. Longtime friend and entertainment writer Steve Wildsmith introduced us last night before the group performed at the Square Room in the Rhythm n' Blooms festival in Knoxville. Nathan's a really nice guy and the band is great. The song "Evacuate" is one of my favorite's by The Boxer Rebellion. 

Enjoy the video or read Wildsmith's excellent feature about Nicholson.

Build your raised vegetable bed now

I highly recommend The Pioneer Woman guide for building raised vegetable beds. I built this one last year using the instructions on Ree Drummond's popular website. I followed Drummond's explanation better than the videos and web guides provided by some of the big box stores like Home Depot.

Next week, I plan to build two more of these raised beds. The one in the picture is 4 feet by 6 feet. I bought these materials for the first bed: 

• Four 10-feet long 2" x 6" boards
• One box of wood stakes, 2 feet long and about an inch wide.
• One box of wood screws, 2 inches long. 
• A lot of organic soil to fill the bed, about 5-6 bags. 

I've forgotten the cost. I built it on my birthday last year. I'll save the receipts from the next one and share them. The biggest advantage is that I didn't have to weed nearly as much with the raised bed, and it looks good.Try it. I think you'll like it.

Music for a dreary Wednesday morning

Here's the awesome Cajun band Feufollet playing Au Fond du Lac. I got turned on to them after the bandleader of the musicians playing Rendezvous des Cajuns at the Liberty Theatre in Euince, La., mentioned them. My favorite song of theirs is Chere Bebe Creole, but I couldn't find a video of it.

Spring training for 'maters

This week, these tomato plants call the back deck and dining room table home. Next week, they're moving up to the big league: one of the raised beds in the backyard. We have high hopes for these little guys. Mostly, I've been a cheerleader through their growth. Karen planted them in peat pots and nurtured them. I moved them from the indoors to the outdoors when the weather was good. We lost pea plants last week. Took them outside and they just collapsed.

Recipes from the weekend from Pioneer Woman and Bon Appetit

One way I make the work week easier is by cooking large meals on Saturday and Sunday. The leftovers, paired with a fresh vegetable, can stretch a few days. On Saturday, we stayed home and spent a lot of time in the yard. I made two recipes from the Pioneer Woman --- a slow-cooked brisket and green bean casserole made from fresh ingredients. I love fresh green beans, but I really dislike canned ones. Both are from her new cookbook The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food From My Frontier.

On Sunday, I made Bon Appetit's sour cream chicken enchiladas. I've been making this recipe for about 10 years. The first time I talked to my now-husband, it was to offer him enchiladas at an office potluck dinner. These days, I leave out the cream cheese, because it makes the enchiladas so rich and heavy. An important note for this recipe --- use a high-quality salsa that you love. I love tomatillo salsas; I use Frontera brand. In my opinion, Frontera salsas are the best. I drive to the Watkins Road Kroger from East Maryville because I know they carry Frontera. The E. Broadway at Lincoln Food City by our house carries San Marzano tomatoes and Cafe Bustelo coffee, but they don't have Frontera!

'Seed babies' graduate to garden

We planted the "seed babies" on Saturday. We put French filet green beans in the big plot, the one eating up most of the picture. We put about a half dozen golden zucchini plants in the raised bed garden in the back. That space might prove too small come June. Last summer, the zucchini sprawled out and produced like crazy. The Dunlap 2011 zucchini haul was bountiful. We had more than we could eat and, at times, couldn't even give our produce away.

The tomato plants go out in a week or two. They are still seed babies in training, about 3 inches tall. Right now, they sit in peat pots on the kitchen table, leaning toward the afternoon sun. We have two types: Brandywine and Hungarian Heart. I chose them from the seed catalog by description. It was a heady feeling. Who knew seed catalogs could be interesting.

In the very back of the photo there's a fourth plot, a new space, that's covered by cardboard and bricks. I broke that soil up about two weeks ago,  pulled out the clods of weeds and grass (weeds mostly) and covered it with a bag or two of compost before tossing down the cardboard. I don't have a tiller to do this stuff, so I use my trusty pick, shovel and hoe to prepare the garden space. It works well enough, though the soil is a bit rocky.

Aroma Cafe spreading the love (and pork)

Behold the beautiful small Cuban sandwich combo with red beans and rice from Aroma Cafe. This might be my favorite food for the past five months or so. You get all this and a drink for $9. It's the best Cuban sandwich I've ever had, served with a cup of au jus for dipping. There is some serious magic going on in that smooshed sandwich.

Aroma Cafe is at 2570 E. Broadway in Maryville and is worth the trip, Knoxvillians. The area around the cafe is a little funky, but don't let that deter you. Come down on a Saturday, hit the farmers' market (opens May 5), take a stroll on our greenbelt and have a Cuban sandwich for lunch. The cafe is opening a second location on 411 South near the intersection with William Blount Drive. Southland Books, another E. Broadway institution and a great place to while away some time, is opening its second location next door to the new Aroma Cafe site.

The Grub Scout loved it, too. As the review mentioned, Aroma sells out of popular items toward closing time, so you might not get what you hoped for, but all their food is great. 

We started going to Aroma Cafe after we came back from Key West, Fla., after a week of vacation in October 2011. We were hooked on cafe con leche from Key West's Five Brothers Grocery and wanted to find something like it at home. Speaking of Key West food, if you're ever there and want an awesome meal, go to El Siboney. It was the best meal of the trip, in my opinion, and we ate a lot of great food that week.

I often make cafe con leche --- basically espresso coffee with steamed milk and sugar --- at home now and I'll post those directions sometime this week.

Jammin' to Alabama Shakes

There is a lot of buzz about Alabama Shakes and they are worth the hype. They recently released "Boys and Girls" and Darren and I have been listening to it nonstop. It's going to be an essential part of our summer 2012 soundtrack.

Darren reporting in

This is my natural state of being: Man eating heartily. You should see this picture first.

We hope to do more of this type of eating later in the summer. Karen and I love to cook. I make pizza and omelets. She makes everything else. In particular, we love to find fresh stuff, either at the farmer's market or in our own garden, and make a meal with that.

This is a big weekend for us. It's time to plant. We held out at the advice of a fine East Tennessee gentleman. He told us not to put anything in the ground until after the tax deadline, April 15.

He was right. It got cold enough to frost this week. We'll put the first of the seedlings in the ground Saturday. And we'll keep you posted.

Welcome to Dunlap Ranch*

* Not really a ranch.

Hello out there! My name is Karen and I am a Louisiana native who has lived in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in East Tennessee for about 10 years. I love to cook and talk about food, and I want to share my passion with friends and family through this blog.

I started cooking for myself while I was in college and trying to lose weight. One of my best friends was raving about the Atkins diet (I know, I know, but it was circa 1999 and I was 21) and I wanted to try it for myself. Unfortunately, despite having many great cooks in my family, I hadn't learned much beyond scrambling eggs at home. I had recently quit a job at a gourmet shop where I had learned some basic skills. I picked up how to pan-sear a chicken breast and saute vegetables (which became the basis of my diet), but more importantly, I was exposed to foods I had never seen or tried before and started feeling more comfortable with the language of cooking.

As for the name of this blog, my husband, Darren, and I have joked about creating the "Dunlap Ranch" for a long time. A piece of property and some hard work, and we could live "off the grid" with a pack of hounds and a brood of kids, complete with a guesthouse for visiting in-laws and friends. For now, we stoke that dream with a 2-bedroom teensy rental in Mamawville with our two dogs, Lily and Mal, and a bit of a garden. So, for now, Dunlap Ranch is a bit of a misnomer, but it keeps the dream alive. :)

I aim to cover some broad topics with this blog including cooking, organization, gardening, books, music and travel --- a bit of all my favorite things.

The photo above was taken at Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tenn., in Oct. 2011. I'm wearing my beloved $10 Ann Taylor Loft aviators that are now bent out of shape beyond repair. That shirt is also a favorite --- Converse for Target --- and it has a huge hole in one elbow. These are the kinds of non sequiturs you can expect from this blog.