After a long, busy day, this simple split pea soup is my go-to recipe for getting a healthy dinner on the table fast. The soup takes under an hour to make, with only about 15 minutes of hands on work, which gives you plenty of time to relax for a few minutes while your dinner bubbles away on the stove.

Even though I eat pretty much anything, I cook almost exclusively vegetarian, because my husband Jon does not eat meat or fish. Adding smoked Spanish paprika to this soup give it a smoky, savory flavor without the addition of ham. It tastes delicious when made with vegetable broth (or even just water if you are in a pinch), but chicken broth makes a fine substitution, too. Serve the soup with a simple side salad dressed with a lemon vinaigrette, and you’ve got yourself a light tasty supper that will keep your belly warm, something that is especially nice at this time of year.

Split Pea Soup with Smoked Paprika

Serves 4

You can find both dulce and picante Spanish paprika in the spice aisle of most super markets. The most common brand is El Rey de la Vera and it is sold in cute little red tins. I use both of these spices quite bit in soups and as a garnish.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for drizzling

1/2 cup finely chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1/3 cup finely chopped carrot (about 2 large carrots)

1 teaspoon hot (picante) smoked Spanish paprika

1/2 teaspoon sweet (dulce) smoked Spanish paprika

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup dry split green peas

4 cups vegetable broth

2 cups water

1/2 to 1 cups hot water (optional)

Pea shoots (optional garnish)

Instructions:

Heat the olive oil in a heavy bottomed pot over medium high heat. When it shimmers, add in the onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent (about 2 minutes). Add the carrot and cook until the onion begins to brown (about 2 more minutes). Stir in the hot and sweet paprika and salt, then add the split peas, broth and water. Bring to a boil and then turn the heat down to low. Partially cover the pot and simmer until the peas are very soft and begin to break apart, 30 to 40 minutes. Puree the soup in batches in a blender or with an immersion blender. If necessary, whisk in hot water to thin the soup to your preferred consistency. Divide the soup between bowls, drizzle with olive oil and garnish with a pea shoot, if using.

Outside of Boring, Oregon, on a rural road that winds past tree farms and fence-lined pastures, sits a rustic wooden barn that houses Red Pig Tools, makers of beautiful, classic garden tools. All of the tools in the Red Pig line are made on the property by blacksmith Bob Denman, who is dedicated to crafting smart, handsome, heirloom quality tools.

In my own garden I only regularly use five tools: a garden fork, spade, 3-tine cultivator, trowel, and bow rake (as well as an old steak knife for harvesting). Though I recently added a Red Pig Hand Plow to the mix, because when I picked it up, it felt weighty in my hand, like it was ready to go to work. The plough comes in both right- and left-handed versions, and Bob designed the sharp curved blade for making furrows, digging small seedling holes, tamping soil and uprooting weeds.

Bob and his wife, Rita, are clearly gardeners because all their tools feature smart design details that only someone who uses them regularly would think to make. For instance, the heads of the hoes are sharp on all three sides, which makes it easy to corner around plants. The tools are also very sturdy because Bob hand-forges the blade and shank of each tool out of steel and then rivets them to the hardwood handles.

The Red Pig Tools retail shop is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00 to 6:00 and the tools are also available through the shop’s website. You’ll find pretty much every kind of tool you’ll need!

Succulent Ornament (Set of 3), $55 from Flora Grubb. Three small succulent cuttings come tucked in a box and ready to hang on the tree, or where you would like. The cuttings are live and the box includes instructions on how to plant up the succulents in a container after the holidays!

Gnome Cookie Jar, $52 from Seltzer Studios. I’m pretty sure everyone needs a gnome with a gilded hat. This little guy is made of white porcelain and a whole lot of cute.

Loll Swing, $143.65 from Loll Design. A swing is pretty much the definition of fun. This modern swing from Loll Design is just 100% recycled plastic and can be hung from a tree, porch or swing set.  Perfect for the kids big and small!

Fungus-Among-Us Tea Towel, $28 from makelike. For the forager in your life. This tea towel from the Portland-based design studio makelike is screen printed by hand onto a lovely European linen tea towel. It is really almost too pretty to sully in the kitchen. I think I might hang it up as art instead.

2012 Block Print Wall Calendar, $15 from Rigel Stuhmiller. The artist Rigel Stuhmiller creates beautiful hand carved linoleum block prints of vegetables, fruit and chickens. Her rustic prints are so beautiful and true and the 2012 calendar features 27 of them. At the end of the year you could extend the life of the calendar by framing your favorite prints.

Victory Garden Postcard, $1.75 from the Dead Feminists. This tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, who planted a victory garden on the lawn of the White House, would make such a nice stocking stuffer. First printed in 2008, the card encouraged First Lady Michelle Obama to follow Mrs. Roosevelt’s lead. I love the graphics and the message.

 Poppy and Butterfly Cloche, $36 from Terrain. I have a small but growing collection of glass cloches that I use indoors as decoration and in the garden during spring as a season extension tool. They add just a touch of elegance to my otherwise very utilitarian vegetable garden. This particular cloche features a pretty painted illustration of flowers and butterflies.

Recycled Glass Bubble Wall Terrariums, $55 from Sprout Home. Terrariums make such a great gift because you can enjoy them long after the holidays are gone. This terrarium sits flush up against a wall and looks particularly cool when filled with moss and air plants.

Subscription to Wilder Quarterly, 59.99 from Wilder Quarterly. The tagline for this brand new quarterly magazine is “a publication for people enthralled with the natural world.” The pages are filled with gorgeous photography and articles that span from recipes to vegetable gardening to travel and design.  It is smart. It is beautiful. And it is definitely a read cover-to-cover-in-one-sitting kind of magazine.

In my wanderings through the internet I come across quite a few fun ideas for gardeners. So I have gathered all my favorite products together and divvied them up in to three holiday gift guides: practical gifts, fun gifts, and books. I thought I’d start off with the list of practical gifts because it is always fun to receive something that you can put to use in the garden!

1. Urbio Vertical Garden, $20 to $200 from Urbio. The designers of these awesome magnetic wall containers raised the seed money for their project on the crowd sourced funding site, Kickstarter. The hip white eco-plastic containers each contain a super-strong magnet that can be placed on any ferrous metallic surface or to special metal back plates that attach to a regular wall. These are so super cool! You can use them to plant succulents, herbs, individual lettuces and create your own custom living wall. Unfortunately they aren’t quite ready to ship for the holidays, but you can pre-order the Urbio planters and they will arrive in your mailbox in early 2012.

2. Moleskin Recipe Journal, $19.95 from Moleskin: I adore my recipe journal, because it gives me one place to record all the recipes that I make up on the fly. The journal has a thick black cover with a cute embossed design. Inside there are tabs for appetizers, first course, main dishes, side dishes and desserts. Each page has plenty of room to jot down ingredients, instructions, and notes for when you make the recipe again.

3. Kamik Jennifer Rainboots, $65 from Zappos: I’ve had a pair of Kamik wellies for several years and they are the best! So comfortable, easy to hose off and completely waterproof.  My pair lives by the back door and I wear them almost every single day to feed the chickens, walk the dog, and garden. I particularly love this new Hunter-like style. So cute!

4. 5” Stirrup Hoe with a Replaceable Blade, $47 from Johnny’s Select Seeds: If I could only have one tool, I would choose a stirrup hoe because it makes weeding so fast and easy. The oscillating, stirrup-shaped blade cuts right under the soil, slicing off the roots of weeds. This particular hoe is the best because it has a blade that you can replace when it gets dull.

5. Botanical Series Write and Erase Plant Tags, $17 from Sprout Home. Ever forget to label the plants in your garden and end up wondering what exactly you grew at the end of the season? Me too. Which is why I love these plant tags! They are super sturdy and you can rub the label off at the end of the season and use them again the following year.

6. JR, Richard, and Ralph Birdhouses, $195 from Modern Birdhouses. A birdhouse always makes a fine gift, especially in winter. These simple birdhouses are made of sustainably harvested teak and were designed to entice cavity-dwelling birds like chickadees, bluebirds, and wrens. They have a removable floor, which makes it easy to keep the houses clean.

7. Bamboo Gloves, $24 from Ethel gloves. I don’t really like to wear gloves when I’m gardening  unless I am hauling rocks or cutting brambles. But when I do need to wear gloves, I reach for my pair of Ethel gloves, because they protect my hands without getting in the way. These gloves are made from a bamboo material that is thin, but durable, has just the right amount of stretch and is anti-microbial. And the suede like material provides plenty of grip, but is completely vegan-friendly.

8. Colorful Tubtrug, $16.95 from Gardener’s Supply Company. Tubtrugs are so versatile! You can use them to haul soil, compost, and yard debris, and as a storage container. I have a bright yellow one and would be happy to have trug in every color!

9. Seeds from Wild Garden Seeds. Seeds make great stocking stuffers and buying from Wild Garden gives you the opportunity to help sustain the Morton family, who have undertaken the hard and important work of developing new, regionally adapted, open pollinated vegetable varieties for organic gardeners and farmers. Some of my favorite varieties, including ‘Solar Flashback’ calendula (pictured above), ‘Rainbow Lacinato’ kale and ‘Purple Peacock’ broccoli were bred by Wild Garden and all of the seed they sell is certified organic and grown at the Gathering Together Farm in Southern Oregon.

10. Smith & Hawken Potting Bench, $799 from Target. Okay, so this is clearly a splurge, but it really is a lovely yet practical potting bench! It is made of FSC-certified, naturally rot resistant eucalyptus wood and is full of clever design details, like a lift-off work surface that has soil storage bins underneath. The racks above give you plenty of space to organize pens, plant tags, and fertilizers, and there is lots of space to store pots. Plus, you could use it as a outdoor buffet/barbecue work station in summer after all your pots are filled.

When I stepped outside this morning to feed the hens, I found my arugula and broccoli rabe edged with a fine layer of frost. Frozen droplets of dew twinkled like crystals on the Brussels sprouts and the rumpled leaves of the ‘Lacinato’ kale reminded me of an etching. The whole backyard looked sparkly and bright as the sun began to peek through the fog.

As much as I love tomatoes and basil, I get the most satisfaction harvesting food from my winter garden. Last night I was too tired to cook, so I took a frozen pizza crust out of the freezer, rubbed olive oil over it and sprinkled on slivers of garlic and mozzarella cheese. I slipped the pizza into the oven and popped outside to harvest some arugula. When the cheese began to bubble on the pizza, I opened the oven door and scattered three big handfuls of arugula over the top of the pizza. I pulled it from the oven a few minutes later and felt victorious that I’d managed to make my makeshift dinner slightly more healthy.

The peas I planted at the end of summer surprised me by beginning to flower. What a treat to find a sweet little pea blossom in the garden in December! I’ve been harvesting the pea shoots for salads and am curious to see if the peas will grow like gangbusters in spring or fizzle out.

My purple Brussels sprouts are my favorite plant in the winter garden, even though to date the sprouts are only about the size of a pencil eraser. The plants are so gorgeous and I am apparently not the only one who appreciates them, as I have caught the very chubby squirrel who lives in our tree taking a drink from the rainwater that collects at the base of the big leaves.

My ‘Purple Peacock’ broccoli is just starting to form a head at the center of the plants. Once I cut it out, loads of side shoots will begin to form up and down the main stem. I love this variety because it produces pretty purple broccoli and the kale like leaves are delicious.

I read in the New York Times that Bo Muller-Moore, a folk artist who designed a tee-shirt that reads “Eat More Kale”, received a cease and desist letter from Chick-Fil-A. I’ve always found Chick-Fil-A’s advertising campaign featuring cows holding up signs that say “Eat mor chickin” to be pretty funny, but I am appalled that the company is threatening to take legal action against Mr. Muller-Moore. I really don’t think that people would confuse the two campaigns and, frankly, people who want to wear an “Eat More Kale” t-shirt probably don’t frequent Chick-Fil-A. Plus, kale is so beautiful, so delicious, and so nutritious that it is just plain silly to try and put a stop to someone who advocates eating more of it. Boo on Chick-Fil-A, I say.

I know this looks a lot like a weed, but mache is really a delicious salad green that is extremely cold tolerant. A little frost and even snow does not get this dainty green down. My mache is a bit small yet for salads, but it will burst into growth in late winter when the days being to lengthen again. A prospect that I am looking forward to!

On this first day of December I am delighted to share the final desktop calendar of the year with you. For each month of this big, fun, busy year, Anne Bryant created an image that fit both the season and our calendar’s theme of urban homesteading. I am hard pressed to choose a favorite, but December’s calendar is surely one of the best. I love the teal color and the idea that decorating for the holidays does not necessarily mean making a trip to your nearest big box store. The garden is full of material that can be used to make your home festive at this time of year. Mossy twigs, colorful berries, pine cones, evergreen boughs, and even garden supplies like wooden crates, galvanized buckets, and burlap can all be pressed into holiday service. This past weekend I dressed up the unfortunate wrought iron railing that graces the stoop of our rental house with cedar garland and twinkly white lights. For a pop of color, I added in cheerful sprigs of orange berries from our nandina shrubs and shiny green holly leaves for texture. It makes me smile every time I walk up to the front door!

To put the December calendar on your computer’s desktop, all you need to do is choose the size that best fits your monitor and then click on the link below—the file will automatically download to your computer and then you can set it up as your background image.

1024 x 768

1600 x 1200

1920 x 1200