If Recipes Came with Warnings...

I got a magazine in the mail the other day. I don't often have much time for reading them, so was feeling a little guilty about that, and started to page through this one while waiting to have my blood drawn the other day.  A couple recipes caught my eye, including this one.

The recipe itself looked really cute, chocolate mouse in ice cream cones, dipped in chocolate and topped with almonds. But the recipe had a lot of crazy stuff in it, so I thought I could get by with a few substitutions. I figured I could buy some cute little ice cream cones, fill them with french silk made with simple pure ingredients, then dip in chocolate and top with almonds. Sounds simple enough, right?

I took time for extra refrigeration of the cones with the french silk before I dipped them in chocolate, as french silk can be quite touchy that way.  Wyatt was finishing some math, and getting pretty excited for dessert.  So I melted the chocolate and got going on dipping, which was a little too mess, and therefore I resorted to painting the chocolate on with a spatula and sprinkling the almonds on top.

I thought things would be fine, when I tried to return them to the fridge to harden more.

There was a crash, several fell out of the tray into the fridge, a few crashed on the floor.

Wyatt jumped up to stop Shadow from heading toward chocolate and helped me clean up the mess, securing the remaining for dessert.  

The ones I grabbed on the way down, came out rather lopsided.

Wyatt looked at me trying to decide what to do and said,

"It's a good thing recipes don't come with warnings, or people would never try them."

We both got a pretty good giggle. For someone who dislikes writing so, he has some pretty good one-liners! Had I known the outcome, I still would have played with this fun little recipe.  But there have been a few experimental recipes that might not have happened over the years.

So if you had realized things wouldn't turn out like the photo, is there anything you would not have tried? 

The new, "Experimental" Planter

This is my new "experimental" planter. It is experimental because it is a different method of container gardening.  It is different because, as you see, it is lined with black plastic.

Some folks are using this technique to hold the water in better. This might go really well, or I might choose never to do it again! Some demonstration gardens North of here are having good lick with it, so I thought I would give it a try for this new one.

The photo below is of a large planter where we are presently growing cucumbers. If you look closely, you will see adorable little baby cukes! This planter is closed, so I have to be pretty careful in balancing the water.

This one is similar, but not nearly as deep. This makes it work for only some of the plants, and we are trying pumpkins and melons in there right now. We will see how it goes with them. What I learn may not be all that accurate, since grounds squirrels and other annoying little critters ate the first two rounds that had started beautifully form seed here!

That brings us back to the little planter from today. It is just a wooden box up on blocks, so the experiment is a good choice for this one because it should help prolong the life of the planter.  If you happened to notice the planter boxes and materials in the top left of the photo, they are from the old greenhouse that used to stand there. The kids and I hope to rebuild a new one there, with any luck before it gets cold.

Some of the new seedlings in the new planter box. Broccoli...

Swiss Chard...

There is spinach, too, but it is in worse shape, the little birds were munching on it where they were in starter containers on the back porch!

Well, I sure hope things go well with the new planter, but at the very least I will learn about this new version with the black plastic lining! Have you ever tried it? Do you prefer in ground gardens, raised beds, or containers?

Amranth

This is Amranth. Also known as Amranthus Palmeiri, or Carelessweed, it is an edible weed that volunteers its way into my gardens and planter boxes.

When grown in soils with lots of nitrogen, as is found with compost from some livestock, even when they are raised on organic feed, you should cook it more like spinach. When it is really hot out, it wilts really fast during harvesting, so you should have a pan of cold water ready of you are wanting it fresh.

See all those seeds up top? They catch wind VERY quickly and become very prolific! Which also means you should be careful when harvesting or removing it id you don't want it around.  My daughter and I are SO allergic to it that we cannot harvest it, the boys have to, so we haven't done much with it. 

What edible weeds have you tried?

Fun Classes in School Here at Home

I keep telling Wyatt Clay that home school can be fun, but he has to get the tough stuff done, too.   Lots of math these days. Strangely, I was pretty spot on with what I thought he couldn't line up in public school math, but was surprised by stuff he found easy, and especially by what he didn't know. After all of the years of driving on the rest of the world's schedule, having no time for being here at the house with the animals, and almost living in the car, we are enjoying our time here together and setting our priorities that aren't centered around standardized testing or what not.

One of the things that drives me nuts about public school is the lack of physical activity. I hadn't really thought I would push it much during football season, but when a child grows in the spurts that Wyatt does, coordination and fluidity of movement really suffer.  So he wanted extra training in the morning. I had already been building an obstacle course, this just pushed me along, and we will keep adding elements.

The tire is five feet across.  He thought it looked so easy when he helped me roll it from where it used to be a sandbox. Then he tried to flip it.  He quickly admitted that it is bigger than the ones he is used to at football, and we worked on how to work up. For now, he is flipping it up and push-rolling it down the field, then pushing a wheeled cart back with his hands flat, eventually with weight on it.

Shadow Paws rolled in the mud at the turnaround after Wyatt turned on a hose for her.  She is very happy to follow him and race him on sprints, and chase lizards when she has time.

Thursday, she was trying to help me decide whether I could work on painting the farm stand sign, or whether we thought weather would come in.

In the end, we decided the weather was far enough away to do one coat, then decide later if we could add more. Turned out to be a good choice. I used up a can of paint and knew what to buy on the way home from work Friday.

We are still getting into the swing of things, but the kids are trying new recipes regularly. With Bailey away, I found a neat recipe that involved red pepper gazpacho and pepperoni cheese toasts.  Of course, he was more interested in the pepperoni cheese toasts.  Essentially, it is a grilled cheese with pepperoni.  Wyatt did a great job learning to make them. Now if he threw as much energy into his writing assignments!

He even toasted extra pepperoni for garnish and a nice presentation!

And when his Dad got home from work, he made another one. He seems pretty proud of his accomplishments!  And he was fueled up and ready for football practice!

Just another day around here, right? 

Fun Crazy Food!

I am a firm believer in trying new things.  I also think that if we go a little crazy here and there, and try some funky fruits and veggies with the kids, that they will be more open to more fruits and veggies.

Apparently called a Kiwano melon, these are eaten by sucking the fruit through your teeth to separate the seeds.  I couldn't get the hang of that, but Wyatt accomplished it easily and wanted to save seeds to grow.  It was mildly sweet, without much of a distinct flavor.  Okay, it is really still in the fridge, so I will likely finish it tomorrow afternoon, and save the seeds to dry and let Wyatt decide on whether we try to grow them.

But I did see another fruit that we hadn't tried before, so I may be stopping back there after work this week!

What wild fruits and veggies have you tried or grown?