My Love Bugs

Charlotte has been taking swim lessons for a month now. She's doing so well. She's gone from a "strangle hold" on the teachers neck to jumping in by herself with only a float belt. It's going to make this summer so much more fun with her being comfortable in the water.
I found this bathing suit at a consignment sale for $2!! She was so excited because she had requested a bathing suit with a skirt so she could "look like a princess" when she swims.

Bathing suits are also great fashion statements while pulling your brother around in a tiny wagon made for blocks.

I taught Charlotte how to make necklaces from flowers. I was amazed at how fast she caught on.

Don't you love her PJ's that are 3 sizes too big? A very generous friend gave us 2 big boxes of hand-me-downs and Charlotte loved these so much that she couldn't wait until they were big enough to fit her. She wore them all day on Sunday.

Evan is loving saying "I'm a BIG boy... I'm a REAL big boy!" And he also loves helping me. He put away all the silverware from the dishwasher the other day.

He also wanted to spread his own butter on his bread. It started off pretty well.....

"Ummm.... Evan, I think you have enough now..."

"Whoa! Okay, buddy, that's good." (I quickly took most of that off when he wasn't looking... don't tell him)

Black Locust Trees

We have 3 black locust trees behind our back fence. They're all within 10 feet of each other in a triangle so it really looks like one big mass of black locust. We have a bench right under the branches and I sat on the bench the other afternoon and enjoyed the sweet smell of the flowers.

The bees have been loving the flowers too.

The flowers remind me of snapdragons.

I think that bench is calling me again.

Wordless Wednesday-Spring Cleaning

My cleaning supplies

Garden Update- One week Later

I went seedling hunting this morning and I was so excited with how my "babies" were growing. I thought I'd share their progress with you. When we were preparing the beds last week, I found this strawberry plant in one of the beds. I didn't plant it and I'm not sure where it came from. I haven't had a strawberry plant in the garden for 2 years. I protected it and now it has a home in the middle of my pea patch. I'm excited to see how it does.

Here are some of the peas. They're growing well.

Broccoli (I would also take pictures of the kohlrabi, cabbage and cauliflower but all of the seedlings look the same)

Swiss Chard

Romaine lettuce with red onion slips in the background.

Brussels Sprouts! Yay! Thanks to my sister for sharing her seeds with me.

Broccoli Raab. (Thanks again, Katie)

Beets

Spinach

And Carrots! Already! I'm so excited to have carrot seedlings starting to come up after only a week. I've worked really hard this time to make sure to keep the beds moist. It's been so dry that some days I had to water the beds twice a day to keep them from drying out. It paid off though :)

Watching seedlings sprout never gets old.

The Food Highlights from Last Week

I haven't been posting as much about food lately since I've been making a lot of the same foods that I've already blogged about. Here are a few new recipes I tried this past week or so...

Charlotte's preschool had a consignment sale and a bake sale so I volunteered to bring cookies. I started with this recipe and tweaked it a bit.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 cup sugar
2 tsp. molasses
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vinegar
1 tsp. baking soda
1 large egg
2 cups flour (I used All Purpose but if I were making them for us,I'd use mostly Whole Wheat Pastry flour)
2 cups chocolate chips (all I had were mini chips)

Preheat oven to 375*. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or lightly grease them.

In a large bowl, combine the sugar molasses, butter, salt, extracts, vinegar, and baking soda, beating until smooth and creamy.

Beat in the egg. Mix in the flour, then the chips.

Use a spoon and scoop Tablespoon sized balls of dough onto the cookie sheet.

Bake for about 11 minutes or until they're nicely golden brown.





Homemade Tortillas using lard...

These were not a great success because they ended up being really dry. I think I tried to add too much white whole wheat flour... or I used too much flour to roll them out. I'll try them again another day and hopefully I'll have a recipe that works out better for me.

.

.

.

Lasagna with Homemade Noodles

This was so easy! I've made homemade pasta once before but I've never made lasagna with homemade noodles. I found it easier then trying to boil and separate the store bought kind. I used this recipe but I made it in the food processor and used half white whole wheat flour and half semolina flour. The dough came together really easily. After it rested for a bit on the counter, I rolled it out with the pasta maker and put the sheets straight into the lasagna.

The noodles cooked perfectly with everything else. It was a big hit!

Becky's Favorite Rolls (aka: King Arthur Flour "Chain Restaurant Rolls")

I didn't make them into the log shape that they recommended so this recipe made 12 smaller rolls. They taste very similar to Outback Steakhouse's rolls (except I didn't use the caramel coloring that gives their rolls their dark color). These are fantastic! I cut back the honey to 1/3 cup and use mostly White Whole Wheat flour and only a cup of All Purpose flour. They're slightly sweet, soft, and filling. I think I need to make another batch this week.

I forgot to take a few pictures of some other successes this week. These peanut butter cookies are amazing. Too good really... I couldn't stop eating them.

I've also made bread using this great basic recipe this week.

I'll be sure to keep the camera close by this week.

Better Late Then Never, Right?

This past weekend, I finally got my spring veggie garden planted. I should have gotten it done a few weeks ago but to tell you the truth, I just didn't feel like it yet. I really just felt like sitting inside and knitting while watching a good movie.

Luckily this past weekend, I was excited to get the garden planted.
Oscar was no help. He's not much of a nature loving dog so I was surprised to find him laying in the grass soaking up the sun.

While I finished pulling weeds from the beds, Jon shoveled compost onto the beds and mixed it in by turning the beds under a bit. It wasn't an easy job but I sure appreciate when he helps me in the garden.

Once I got the beds smoothed and weed-free, I started planting seeds. I don't start any seeds indoors.

The kids helped me plant some pea seeds since they're nice and big. I planted the rest. I tried soaking the pea seeds for a few hours before planting to hopefully give them a head start with germination.

Here is the main garden fully seeded. I planted a few new things and I planted some seeds that I had leftover from last year.

See the stripes down the rows? I am trying a trick I learned from The Victory Garden vegetable video (circa mid '80's). They suggested that with many seeds, you cover them with potting soil instead of garden soil so that the seedlings have an easier time pushing through the dirt. My clay soil tends to form a crust on the top so I'm hoping the soft potting soil helps insure better germination.

The next day, Evan and I went to the feed & seed and picked up some onion sets and slips. I bought way too many.

I planted the sets between my broccoli seeds and planted some slips between some lettuce seeds. I made another row just for onions but I still have over half of the slips left.

I also bought 3 different types of seed potatoes at the store that are waiting to be planted. I'm working on getting the back garden ready to go so the potatoes can be in the ground by this weekend. I'm so glad to be happy with my hands in the dirt again. It took me longer to want to garden this year but I'm glad I haven't lost the garden love.

Check out Lori's awesome garden sign in this post. What a perfect garden sign!

The Promise of Rain

This was our sky this afternoon. The weather has been beautiful lately.... warm and sunny... but no rain. The soil in the garden is dusty. We really need rain.

I was so excited to see these clouds and to hope that they'd bring rain.

Even though we live in a neighborhood, I feel very lucky that this is the view from our back patio. (click on the pic to enlarge it) Our weather fronts usually come from the west and I love watching them roll in from our backyard.

And finally a picture of the finished digging area.

As I'm uploading these pictures it's starting to rain! Yay!

Byler's - Stocking The Pantry

While we were visiting my sister last month, we took a 30 minute trip to Byler's in Delaware. Byler's is a store that carries everything from wood stoves to bulk flour. The kitchen department is so much fun to look through. I found a great rolling pin without handles for only $4.95. My mom and Charlotte had a good time looking at the candy molds. They had every shape imaginable!

This is how Katie feels about Byler's. I think I had the same big grin on my face the whole time going from one thing to the next. If only my budget were a little bigger....

Nice bonnet, Katie.

I told you they had everything at Byler's.

Here was my shopping cart when we were ready to check out. I bought a 50 lb. bag of Whole Wheat Pastry flour for only $14.99!!!

I bought spelt flour, unrefined sugar, barley flour, millet, unsweetened flaked coconut, sea salt, alphabet noodles, semolina, rolled wheat and barley.... the list was a mile long. Oh, and Charlotte picked out some flower shaped sprinkles. I love how I can find so many great things at Byler's that I can't find anywhere locally without paying an arm and a leg. They have great bulk prices. I just wish they had a Byler's in NC!

It makes cooking from scratch so nice when I have my pantry fully stocked. I'm hoping this lasts me until I go back to visit Katie in August. I'm going to have to start leaving a lot of extra room in the van to tote home all the great pantry staples!

Compost, Free For The Taking!

We're lucky that our county has a composting program. They pick up leaves and grass clippings and compost it in huge heaps until it turns into a wonderful compost. Each spring and fall they give it away to anyone with a truck or trailer.
We have neither so we borrowed a truck from some friends. Here are some of the piles that are still composting. You can't tell from this angle but the piles are a lot taller then the trucks driving behind them.

The huge piles of finished compost were steaming in the cold morning air.

After waiting in line for about an hour, I was almost to the front of the line where one of two front end loaders would dump a load of compost into the back of the truck. It's a bumpy, loud experience that the kids thought was pretty cool.

Charlotte helped us unload the truck onto a tarp that Jon and I dragged to the back garden.

It was no easy task.

Evan helped too.

We got 2 truck loads of compost. We got enough to cover both gardens in about 2 inches of compost.....

and enough to make a digging pit for the kids. They had been using our back garden for digging but when I plant that, they'll lose their spot. Jon used some edging that my dad brought for me to edge the digging area.

Their digging spot is right next to our back garden.

Jon did a great job digging out the turf so the edging could sit down into the ground a bit.

Oops. Seems I have forgotten to take a picture of the digging pit after it was done. I'll be sure to post those soon. The kids have been digging in it every day. We're all going to have dirty fingernails from now on.