Pardon the Garden

Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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Mid-May Photo Dump

May 13, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

I have a folder full of photos I’ve taken over the last few weeks but it has taken me impossible amounts of energy to get around to editing and posting them. I’ve been going to my chiropractor twice a week for the last 5 weeks attempting to regain some sort of normalcy in my life as far as my pain level goes, and today I feel like I finally had a bit of a breakthrough when I was informed that I can step my appointments down to once a week.

chocolate-berry-bake

Chocolate berry bake thing. I just kind of winged it, mixing milk and egg and flour and sugar and cocoa powder and whatnot and baking until it wasn’t runny anymore. Next time I bake it I want to play with the recipe a bit more and see if I can improve upon it.
vintage-bunny-wip

Baby knitting for a coworker. I refuse to knit sweaters and other wearables until I know the gender, so for now I’ve been knitting this sweet vintage bunny as a gift. I have it mostly sewn up at this point, but I’m undecided on whether to put a plain fabric in the ears or if I want to pick out some pretty quilting cotton fabric for them.

tomatoes

My veggies should be outside, but we had to bring them in thanks to a few frost warnings the last few days. The weather is supposed to warm up tomorrow and stay there, so I’ll probably plant them in the evening after work.

IMG_6783 newdishes

Saturday I scored a fantastic deal on new dishes. I’ve been wanting new ones for a while now – I think a lot of the experience of cooking and eating dinner at home can be improved simply by having nice dishes and silverware that you love (and I no longer love the set my grandmother found at a garage sale for me), but dishes are always so expensive. I found, by sheer luck, a display of these gorgeous plates and bowls and a few additional pieces (such as the larger serving/salad bowl and such) on clearance for 80% off the full price. I couldn’t believe it! As soon as I came home I made up a batch of brownies to bake while I took the stickers off and washed them, and then promptly enjoyed a straight-from-the-oven-and-still-gooey brownie on my brand new dishes (I also may have just wanted an excuse to eat a brownie… Mother’s Day is pretty torturous and emotional around here so eating my feelings was definitely the theme for the weekend.)mp_fluxx

Has anyone ever played Fluxx? I’ve been desperately trying to find games the Mr and I can play with just the two of us – most games I’ve found say 3+ players – and last weekend while out for a “date day” we stopped by a game store at the mall and I found a display of several versions of Fluxx. Of course I had to grab the Monty Python version. We haven’t yet taken the time to sit down and figure it out and play it, but we will soon. toe-up truelovesocks

I cast on for another pair of socks. True Love this time, which is a pattern I picked up back in February when the designer was giving it away as a freebie for Valentine’s Day. This is only my 2nd pair of toe-up socks, and it took me 3 tries to get the cast-on right. Things have gone smoothly since then, and I’ve noticed that my intuitiveness with cables is much improved. It still takes me a bit to accustom myself to each individual pattern’s marking/style, but I’ve started to be able to just look at the pattern and know which cable and which direction I’m going rather than having to constantly refer to the pattern notes.boc_done boc_done2

My Burst of Colors shawl, a little rumpled from leaving it on the spare bedroom desk after blocking. Excellent for some mindless knitting, and it’s made in the yarn I picked up in Michigan on our anniversary trip. I LOVE this yarn. It’s so soft, and the colors are gorgeous. And, even though I intentionally purchased it for a Color Affection, I have to say that I’m happy I chose to knit this instead.sleeve

I had quite a bit leftover, so I made myself a little coffee cup sleeve for my Starbucks days for knitting. It’s a bit tight, and the X pattern in the middle got a little lost, but it serves its purpose and I’ll probably use it more than I’ll wear my shawl!

geek-girl-mitts2

 

And my geek girl mitts, finished and blocked and ready to be shipped out for my yarn swap at the end of this month. The yarn was a little too thin and more like lace weight than a fingering weight. But they still turned out nicely and the stitch definition is quite nice on those cables. (On a totally unrelated note, the fabric behind the mitts? It’s the seat of an old chair I picked up at the Goodwill a while back. I thought I’d recover it with something that matched the room better but the current one has grown on me in the only way an old, beat up chair can.)

Featured, Posts baking, food, garden, gifts, knitting, spring

Still edible.

March 16, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

 

 

bread5bread1 bread2 bread3

Last night I started a loaf of bread. I gave this recipe a try after Alicia posted it. I’ve gotten away from eating a lot of breads (the homemade variety being the exception) but haven’t made homemade bread in a while so I thought I’d give this a shot instead of my regular recipe. I was feeling adventurous, I suppose.

I’m impatient, and I’m the first person to admit it. Mixing this up and then having to wait all night long for it to rise, and then taking even more time to let it rise again before you can bake it might as well have been torture. Still, before I knew it I was readying the oven and popping the dough in my dutch oven and baking away. The house filled with that delicious warm scent of fresh bread. My anticipation and excitement grew with each passing minute. And, finally, the bread was done. Beautiful, glorious, golden brown bread. Bread with a hard, crispy crust and a soft, chewy, tender crumb.

And then I tried to remove the loaf from the pan. It wouldn’t budge. There I am, standing at the stove, trying to remove a stuck loaf of bread from a 475 degree cast iron pot without burning myself. It took both the husband and I to get it out – he held the pan, and I prodded and pulled and pushed the edges with a wooden spoon until it finally came out, leaving a mess behind in the pot. I’m not sure what went wrong. Obviously the bottom baked too long, so that’s a timing issue. I’m pretty positive it would have been stuck regardless of that, however. I’ve suspected for a while now that my oven is ‘off’ – the temperature never seems to stay even or even correct, and things tend to get over-baked pretty quickly. So perhaps it’s the oven.

Oh well. It’s still edible, and still looks gorgeous if you ignore that it’s missing the entire bottom crust. I’ll just consider this to be a part of the learning process.

Featured, Posts baking, food

More Cakery

February 9, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

IMG_6064 IMG_6066 IMG_6089 IMG_6096 IMG_6100 IMG_6120

I hope everyone who was hit with that nasty snowstorm is safe and warm! I know I’ve seen a few friends online without power and several feet of snow drifts to dig themselves out of.

It’s another cake day. I’m trying to work out a recipe for the perfect amount of batter for my 4″ pans. So far I’m ending up with far too much batter. Oh well. The niece and nephew will eat it up all the same tonight when they stay the night tonight.

Posts baking, food, winter

With Cupcakes.

February 6, 2013 Marie Leave a Comment

IMG_5956 IMG_5968 IMG_5982 IMG_5985 IMG_5990 IMG_6003 IMG_6017 IMG_6032

 

It seems I’m suffering from a bit of cabin fever lately. Those strawberries, though out of season, were on sale 3 pounds for $5, and it seemed like a perfect remedy for the winter blues. Dried strawberries are so good. I always wondered how anyone ever decided “strawberry” scented things actually smelled like strawberries, because they always smelled fake to me. Until I dried some strawberries and the whole downstairs smelled like fake strawberries. I have a quart canning jar full of them, now, and like to eat them plain.

Also, cupcakes. Two, to be exact. A while back I stumbled across this recipe for two cupcakes, and I finally gave it a shot. Since, as you might know, I’m not big on cake that lingers. That recipe? A+++++++ WOULD MAKE AGAIN. Except for the icing. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good icing. But it’s a little darker than what I wanted so next time I’ll figure out some other icing. But the cake? It was moist and delicious and easy peasy and, in case you missed it, it makes only two cupcakes. In one bowl. So you can easily whip them up and throw them in the oven while you’re making dinner and have dessert afterward.

I want to experiment with the recipe a bit and see how it bakes up in my little 4″ pans. I might have to double it, but I’m picturing a single layer 4″ chocolate cake to share with the husband for Valentine’s day instead of two cupcakes.

Featured, Posts baking, food, preserving, winter

DPP #10: Gingerbread Snowflakes

December 10, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Posts baking, december photo project, food, holidays, winter

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