Veggie Scrapsicle

We closed off our composter (the blue plastic barrel) to new veggie scraps so that the contents will have a chance to break down and be ready to work into the garden in a month or so.  In the interim, I've been putting all of the banana peels, egg shells, grapefruit halves, and everything else into a 5 gallon bucket. (A bucket with a lid that also happens to have a small hole in the top.) I thought I was being smart, setting the bucket under the roof of the garage. Let me tell you, after a weekend of rain, I realized it was not such a smart idea. 

This is what happens in what is supposed to be spring in Wisconsin.

The weather is rumored to be warming up this weekend.  We may even see 70 by Sunday with a major threat of storms.  Yippee!

Wardrobe Wednesday

Like in many homes with school aged children, mornings here can get a little crazy.  Between breakfast and packing lunches and making sure everything they need for the school day is in fact in their backpacks and not stuffed between the couch cushions, time slips away in a hurry. Before we know it, the bus is pulling up. 

Oh, and I forgot to mention the constant fooling around and procrastination.  Not so much Mae, as she actually woke up extra early today, took a shower, picked out all of her own clothes, made her own cold lunch and brushed her teeth without too much prompting.  Binny, on the other hand would rather goof around and doesn't really give a rip what she wears as long as it's not the red outfit, ANYTHING BUT THE RED OUTFIT.

Hello Cuties!

The pansies I've been waiting weeks for, finally popped up out of the soil!

Monday Garden Club

Monday again. Time for an update from the basement.  

Flowers

Last week I replanted seeds of everything that hadn't come up, including the pansies but as of yet, still no pansies.  Everything else is filling in nice and I transplanted quite a few seedlings to even out the trays and fill in the bare spots. 

Tomatoes and peppers

Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, a few more peppers and cauliflower



Our basement is a bit cool so the plants prefer to be in something. This little greenhouse is actually a plastic container that originally came into our house with 2 heads of lettuce (from Costco) in it.  As it sat empty on the counter waiting to be taken out to the trash, I realized it would make a great home for a few extra tomatoes I thinned out and some herbs too. 



This is actually the top of the container but I use it upside down after I discovered how stuck-on the sticker was.

Anybody else gardening this week? If so, grab the Monday Garden Club button on my sidebar, paste it to your blog entry and link up below by clicking on the Mr. Linky button directly below this post.

Best Buddies

Dutch Baby

Last week while I was enjoying some quiet TV time while the girls were sleeping in during their Spring Break, I saw this recipe on PBS's Cook's Country and I knew I would be making it for breakfast after the cooks on the show compared it to a popover no less than 6 times in the 5 minute segment.  Popovers are always a huge hit in this house and now this Dutch Baby is too.

Dutch Baby Recipe
Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Rub vegetable oil (butter will burn) on the bottom and sides of a 12" oven safe skillet and heat in the hot oven while mixing up the batter, about 10 minutes.  The pan needs to be piping hot when you pour in the batter.

Beat together 4-5 eggs (depending on the size of your eggs), then mix in 1 cup of milk and 1 T melted butter.  To the egg mixture add 1 cup of flour and 1 T corn starch (for the crispy edges) and whisk until smooth.  That's it!  Pour the batter into the hot pan and bake in the oven (make sure you have plenty of room above the pan for expansion) for 20 minutes or until it is puffy and golden brown.

Once you remove it from the oven you can dust it with powdered sugar or any other toppings you wish and cut into large triangles.

*The first time I made this, I added 1 tsp vanilla and a few grates of nutmeg to the batter and the second time I made it plain.  Both were delicious!

**I swear no actual Dutch babies were harmed in this making of this breakfast.

NaBloPoMo and Egg Dyeing

Call me crazy, but I think I'm going to try NaBloPoMo again.  NaBloPoMo stands for National Blog Posting Month in which participants post to their blogs every day of the month.  I tried this back in November and
didn't make it the whole month, but this time (this time!) I'm a little more hopeful since April's theme is sprout.

From NaBloPoMo's email to me:

April's theme for daily blogging: SPROUT. There's always the concrete route -- Brussels sprouts, bean sprouts, and alfalfa sprouts can make their way into cooking posts. But then there are the off-shoots: kids sprouting up and how that makes you feel; flowers sprouting in gardens and what you're noticing on your daily walks; ideas sprouting in your mind. Beyond that, the word "sprout" has ties to the words strew, scatter, and spread -- so what new ideas are you going plant this month? What images will sprout forth from your blog?

I think I can actually do this, from all of the seedlings sitting under the lights in our basement to the Hostas and tulips peeking out of the ground outside.  Anything Spring really. Piece of cake, right?

Last week's Spring Break here was a real stinker with all of the snow and freezing temperatures, so we were stuck indoors most of the time.  One morning after breakfast, Mae started digging around in the craft closet and pulled out the egg dye (leftover from last year) while I boiled up a dozen eggs.

Of course, I took pictures.