Hubby bought a pound (1qt?) of blueberries so I made blueberry muffins. Used this recipe as reference — Famous Department Store Blueberry Muffins Recipe | King Arthur Baking - subbed part of butter with tigernut oil - used organic cane sugar and subbed portions with raw honey and “monk fruit in the raw” - subbed AP flour with whole white wheat, whole spelt, and cake flours - subbed milk with cashew/coconut + mango drinking drinking yogurt, rice milk, some vegan cream cheese - added glazed walnuts and dark chocolate chips - added nature’s path berry blast cheetah chomps cereal (because there ..read more

My recollection of early 'instant pots' - I.e. pressure cookers - involves hot jam all over the kitchen ceiling. The pressure relief must have got clogged and the safety valve blew out. My first memory of the pressure cooker I was about 5 years old my mother had a pressure cooker and was very careful with it, it scared her to use it. One day I was in the kitchen mom yelled something about the cooker being clogged she bend down to get me and the cooker exploded. The kitchen was suddenly so white with steam we could not see anything, can't see the windows or door or the floor. Mom got us out o ..read more

I haven't cooked much lately - been eating a lot of leftovers from the freezer, since I've been busy with the garden. Today was the first time I cooked anything for a while, and I had a pound of mushrooms I had to use soon, so I made some soup, since it's cool these days. I started with browning a minced onion in some EVOO, then add some minced garlic, rosemary, and thyme scented oregano, cooking a minute, then added some soaked, dried tomatoes (about 3/4 lb equivalent), puréed. I cooked that down, while preparing the mushrooms in the food processor, then put the chopped mushrooms, and a tsp o ..read more

It’s taken me a long time to gather and plant so that there are almost always flowers blooming to attract pollinators, beneficial insects, butterflies/moths, and hummingbirds. Many of these will later develop fruits and seeds that attract birds and other wildlife. * Don’t dismiss the weeds. Early bloomers support the earliest spring activities of honeybees, pollinators and beneficial insects. I haven’t listed everything blooming in my garden. Some are ornamentals like Bearded iris, there are some early spring blooming trees like Redbud/Cersis and apple trees that are still holding blossoms ..read more

Only ones I had were daffodils...and weeds. Statistics: Posted by pepperhead212 — Sun May 05, 2024 1:26 am ..read more

Strolling around the garden taking pictures … Statistics: Posted by applestar — Sat May 04, 2024 9:04 pm ..read more

Romaine lettuce & mix lettuce are starting to get bitter, is hot weather doing that? We have been having 83° to 89° weather. Now we have 7 days of rain in the forecast. Chicken sandwich with a whole Romaine lettuce plant was good for lunch. We have been watching a Robin family in the nest on our patio, today about 12 moon the 1st baby flew from the nest then about 1 pm the 2nd baby flew from the nest babies are 12 days old. Last summer Robin family had 3 eggs 3 times = 9 babies we have no clue if this is the same family. Babies can not fly yet it seems like a miracle if babies survive the ..read more

Looking great! Are you planning to make wine with the strawberries? Cordial? Last summer I was thinking about making strawberry wine but this year I'm not. My interest in wine comes and goes it gives me something to do in bad weather. Good wine needs to age 3 to 5 years I already have 36 gallons of wine waiting to be bottled and 200 empty bottles are taking up a lot of space and 200 bottles of wine will take up a lot of space also. We moved to a smaller house 10 years ago I don't have a good place to keep 200 bottles of wine. I need to start bottling wine to see how it tastes then many give ..read more

I had a critical government document to file/mail, due next Wed. OR ELSE. Not trusting timely delivery, even though it is intra state, I was on a self-imposed deadline to take to the post office by today. As it turned out, documentation was not the worst I was dreading, and I thought I had everything needed and filled out and signed yesterday morning. All I needed was to make a phone call for final verification and print out digital files, make 1 full set of copy for file purposes. As most folks that have been through this kind of deadline probably know, this is when the electronics gremlins ..read more

After a couple of scorcher days, we had a sudden downturn and it was about 43~44°F at lowest last night. I left the more acclimated tomato seedlings outside on the patio table with only a light floating cover, but took the less acclimated group as well as the peppers and eggplants back from the dappled shade on the picnic table to the Pario Hoophouse, where it only got down to upper 40’s (still on the too cold side for the eggies and peps, tomatillo may be affected too). But the bigger problem is the daily chance of rain forecast for the whole week, even if the temps will be moderate! I rea ..read more