Bagels and Beans

We've been the adventurous cooking types lately. The first experiment was trying to find new ways to use beans and rice for delicious nutritious lunches. (Nobody can actually have a bean, rice and cheese burrito every day and not get a little bored.) Q wanted to try something Cajun. I was skeptical. As usual, he was right in the end. It turned out really good. We used this recipe but left out all of the meat and the pickled onions.
I didn't want to make up a batch of the "Creole seasoning blend" until I found out if we liked the recipe so I just got out all the spices and used 1/2t for every T mentioned in the original recipe. Quite the way to make me feel like a real cook, madly tossing bits of this and that and more and more into the pan.

The final product was super good. This is coming from someone who doesn't really like green peppers either. It wasn't even too hot. I can see why it's a staple. It's really good and the simple ingredients make it dirt cheap.


Bagels were the other experiment. As my first batch, I'm posting them because they're so pathetically unattractive that I'll get to gloat to myself over future improvements. They can't look worse. They were really good though. They ended up a bit dense but that may have had to do with funny dough handling. Time constraints ended up having the dough made on Friday night and then formed, boiled and baked on Saturday morning. Boiling dough products also takes a bit of getting used to so I'm hoping I can learn from my experiences.

They were pretty great that day for lunch with homemade pesto and yo-cheese and some deli turkey. If I can get the hang of it bagels might make rather frequent appearances around here.

This week we're in the middle of the chicken challenge posed here and I'm looking forward to posting our results. Unfortunately, I've now forgotten to take pictures for all three nights, so it won't be a very visually interesting post!

Tomorrow's Friday (yay!) and then on Saturday we're taking this class through OSU Extension. It should be a lot of fun. I've never been interested in things that were "trendy" before. It's kind of fun to easily be able to find seminars and classes in things that interest you.

Spring's Progress

I've been too busy lately and have been terrible about keeping up with posting. So here's the garden update and I'll do the cooking update next.

There are about four asparagus crowns that have started putting up baby shoots. No harvesting this year but knowing I didn't kill them...priceless. ;)


The first true leaves on the babies in the second flat. The Oregon Cherry tomato gets this honor.


The second flat. The tags are hard to read so, starting from the back left:
Nova (Roma tomato variety), OR Cherry and Siletz tomatoes (1 cell each) and cabbage across the rest of the back. Front row starting left: peppers, eggplants, basil, broccoli and cauliflower.


The first flat. Onions are starting to look meatier and the celery is looking leafy. I'm worried that the babies seem a bit leggy - but maybe it's just a phase? The celery has enough true leaves that I'm going to transplant to larger pots this weekend to give it some actual soil so it can get some nutrients.

Second Flat Planted

Where did the weekend go? Oh well, yogurt, granola, bread, rice, and beans got made for the upcoming week's breakfast's and lunches. Kitchen is not even a disaster area. Laundry is done. First new cloche is up (I'm hoping to warm the soil a little faster so it will be more conducive to the plants when I set them out). We bought 100 edging stones for retaining the bed where the grapes are going to go so it doesn't ooze onto the neighbor's driveway...

I'm starting to see where the weekend went...

Most exciting - the basil, tomatoes, eggplants, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage have been planted in an indoor seed flat. I was hoping to direct sow the snow peas, shelling peas, radishes, beets and carrots this weekend but it looks like they'll have to wait.

Spring Projects and Flowers

The weather here has been amazing for the last couple of weeks. On a sunny weekend two weeks ago Q put in a new set of bricks to delineate the driveway. The primary purpose was to create the new asparagus bed at the front of the yard.

The west side - now I won't have to constantly try to keep the "driveway weeds" from encroaching on the beds.

The east side - including the new asparagus bed. I hope they come up soon so I know my planting was a success. I put 14 up here and 6 more up by the house to see if they could do okay in shadier conditions. Hopefully, two years of waiting and we'll have asparagus.

Q's birthday cake - special request of yellow cake with chocolate frosting. He's a man of simple wants. The only stimulation was that I didn't substitute any ingredients - including using plain old white wheat flour.

A sixth rhubarb baby has just barely burst forth. We've been having 60 degree days and 28 degree mornings. I hope the light frosts aren't hurting the early leaves.

Blueberry leaves about to burst open

The neighbor's forsythia

Hyacinth

Quince from beside the cherry tree

The celery seedlings recently got their first true leaves

The first flat of seedings - onions and celery

Here's the full seedling growing set-up. The light is on a timer to be on 6a - 6p each day. I've unplugged the heat mat for the time being since they've gotten bigger now. They seem to be liking the set-up so far.

Chalkboard Drawings for January and February

New Owl Color Scheme

I like the addition of the stars and moons on this one. The lighter blue and darker owl colors really allow the owls to pop more. The original is here.

"Squirrels are Nature's Party Animals"

The title is a quote from Quentin when I expressed that somehow squirrels seemed fitting for Valentine cookies. He said that squirrels fitted with every holiday.

Cookies are going school tomorrow for the last day before Valentine's Day. (Thursday and Friday are Parent Teacher Conferences.) Q's work will just have to get them early because they're fresh.

I love these cookies. New cookie cutters that we picked up at Ikea just after Christmas - yay hedgehogs! I also got to use my very favorite sugar cookie glaze recipe! The recipe for cookies at the link is really good too but tonight I tried the one from America's Test Kitchen.

I made the rainbow snails. Q made the blue Sonic hedgehog, the "turkey vulture", and the psychedelic moose. We managed to get the elusive purple frosting this time too for the bear cubs.
Scary demonic red-eyed squirrels are not getting taken to school but the regular pink ones are cute.
I'm really happy with the Valentine sprinkle mix!