Gardening

FYI pictures of the garden we're planting will follow soon, once we get some sprouting! Hopefully we'll get at least a couple good carrots and the boy can test out some radishes! We used milk crates and I sewed some liners made our of landscaping fabric, my first independent sewing project, only to be filled with dirt :p

Trying out a variety of methods, also using sprouting in paper towels for some Kentucky green beans and sunflowers. My mom suggested I used toilet paper rolls to start the seeds, I found a link with instructed here:Toilet paper garden.

Looking forward to seeing what will happen, one week until life appears!

100 foods to eat before you die

This facebook list has been passed around the foodie world I figured I should give it a try. 39 out of 100, not too bad, I didn't cross some of them off that I think I've had, because I couldn't remember, much too long ago.  Some of these I'm not quite sure where I would get them or what they are. Something to look forward to! If you're interested in calculating yourself feel free to check out the full post.

Update 7/22/2012- up to 45 now!

Update 5/23/2013- up to 48 now!

Posting some of my old drafts:

Attempted to make an angel cake, there are no pictures because it collapsed into a hot mess. Many months later I learned that my oven is a waste of space and doesn't actually have the right temperature, ever. However the lemon curd was such a hit so here's the recipe. I saved some tangerine juice from the fruits at my parent's house to make some curd in the future, or maybe even some grapefruit.

The Lemond curd recipe

Super Bowl savorings

Superbowl recap, we tried to cook wings for the first time, did a couple batches of fried wings and a couple in the oven, all delicious. For wing recipes check out http://pinterest.com/xquach/wings/
For the homemade ranch: http://smells-like-home.com/2011/01/ranch-dressing/
Buffalo, garlic Parmesan, and lemon pepper wings, with some homemade ranch

Pizza dough for the impatient...

I crave pizza, on a daily basis. Thin crust from the oven, a little charred from the pizza stone... Slices of mozzarella... pesto... deliciousness. Peter Reinhart's recipe is great, but it takes 2 days, as psychology has enlightened me, the effort (Time to wait, cleaning dishes) required is too much for me to handle, so instead of making myself wait, I just deprive myself. I couldn't take it anymore so I found a quick recipe.
Well we shall see, new recipe from here

• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
• 1/4 of apple cider vinegar
• About 4 cups of flower

Potato Leek au gratin ish

2 Leeks sliced thin

1 onion sliced thinly

2 Bay leaves

3 cloves of roasted garlic

Chicken Stock

Half and half

Butter

Oil

Salt

Pepper

Cook Leeks in oil and butter
Caramelized onions add roasted garlic
Add flour- make roux
Half and half and chicken stock, add water until consistency is right

Slice potatoes thin, see thru
Add sauce at bottom of corningware
Layer potatoes, parmesan, sauce, until full

Sprinkle bread crumbs on top of pan

Bake at 400F for 35-40 mins

Snowflakes

These are not edible and yes they are crochet projects, I figure since I'm taking a short bread break since it's almost Thanksgiving and I'm heading home that I could start posting other "creative" projects.

Made 3 snowflakes- they all have tiny mistakes, but I figured no 2 snowflakes are alike so it's ok!

Found the patterns for the first 3 here

Pattern 1- I added the corrections

Chain Loop Snowflake

Ch 8; join with sl st to form ring.

Rnd 1: Ch 1, sc in ring; (ch 12, sc in ring) 11 times; ch 5, yo hook 4 times, insert hook in first sc and draw lp through (yo and draw through 2 lps on hook) 5 times -- trtr made and 12 ch-12 lps counting trtr as lp.