The finished sun room!!

It is more or less finished now.  From the awful paneled walls, nasty carpeting, and acoustical tiles...we had it gutted to the studs, and redone in a much more pleasing way.

A previous post with pics of its transformation.

And today:

Buttermilk Oatmeal Pancakes

I made these the other weekend for the 3 of us, and they were so delicious, and disappeared quickly. And they are a great way to get something as healthy as oatmeal into your diet. I think I will do these again this weekend.



2 C oatmeal
2 1/2 C buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 stick of butter
1/2 C flour (I used 1/2 wheat, 1/2 white)
2 T sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda

Soak the oats and buttermilk from an hour to overnight. I did it for an hour, and they still came out delicious.

Add eggs and butter and stir well.

Add flour, baking powder and baking soda. Stir until blended, let sit for 10 minutes to set.

Make!

Seeds at 2 weeks

My seeds at 2 weeks:


The small tray on top is my 5 different types of tomatoes in peat pots.

The tray on the left if full of more toms, pepper and herbs.

The middle tray has lots of flowers (nasturtium, calendula, marigold, sunflower, and more...), more herbs (dill, thyme, rosemary, cilantro, and more..) and lavender.

The tray on the right is full of bush beans, zucchini, cucumber, flue fescue, bunny tail, poppies, arugula, shasta daisy and cosmos.

My super fast growing beans.


I realize my grow op is not ideal...but having 2 very curious cats in the house and an even more curious 3-year old, it is best I could do. I need to do lots of transferring this weekend.

Some of them are pretty long and leggy, like the tomatoes, but I am going to transfer them to 4"pot and cover their stems to try and fix that. The zucchini, cucumber and beans are coming in strong!!

The nasturtiums and calendula are doing really well too. The calendula seeds are actually ones I collected from our flowers last year...I think I have over 1000 seeds. If anyone wants any...now I know they grow.

I was surprised how fast they grew. Interesting to see what comes in fast, and what is slower. The peppers were the last to come up. The cucumbers, zucchini, beans, blue fescue came up really fast.

Seeds, seeds, seeds!

I am probably about 2 weeks late, but I did it. I started my seeds indoors. I am so excited. I just want to stare at them and wait for them to grow.

This is what I have so far:
(yes, I am probably a little ambitious for my first year starting seeds indoors..but what the h*ll)

Tomatoes
yellow pear (heirloom)
red cherry (heirloom)
brandywine (heirloom)
celebrity
super sweet 100

Veggies
arugula
zucchini
green peppers
colored peppers
cauliflower
sugar pumpkins (heirloom)
bush beans
cucumber
beet
sugar snap peas
corn
radish

Herbs
rosemary
lavender
dill
thyme
basil
spearmint
cilantro
chamomile

Flowers
canna (these are not from seed..i have 24 rhizomes for them to plant whenever it gets warm-love these!!)
sunflower
shasta daisy
poppies
nasturtium
cosmos
zinnia
marigold
calendula
coneflower (one of my favorites)
black-eyed susans

Grasses
bunny tails
blue fescue

Phew! Hopefully when I add all of this to what I did last year, I will have a lush backyard and full edible garden too. It is all an experiment, and I am sure some won't make it, but if they do I will have loads to share.

Our front yard was already landscaped when we moved in, so it is the backyard I have been working on. Last fall we had huge areas cut out and tons of shrubs and trees put in, and just this last week, we finally filled those areas with mulch. We spent 2 days, getting a massive truckload of mulch from the driveway to the backyard with a wheel barrel and a pitchfork. I don't want to have to shovel mulch for a long time!!

And I know it sounds bad, but we had out apple tree cut down. An apple tree sounds idyllic in theory, but unless you are prepared to spray it with pesticides and keep up with picking over a hundred of apples on a daily basis...it brings mice and a fruit fly extravaganza to the yard and the house (no mice in the house so far...knock on wood...but they were in the garage). But in place of my act of green-icide...I planted 40 bushes, shrubs and perennials last fall during our landscaping mission. I hope this makes up for it somewhat.

I am so ready for spring!!

Buttermilk cranberry scones

I look for recipes everywhere...you never know where you might find something yummy..or the base for something yummy, and then add your own touches to it.

As I was siting in the walk-in clinic a few weeks ago, while I was suffering from the plague, oops flu, going around, I was flipping through Good Housekeeping, and came across this recipe, called a 'celeb dish', and entitled "Courtney Cox's Currant Scones". It sounded yum, so I thought I would give it a go. I didn't have currents on me, so I replaced it with dried cranberries, which I always seem to have.

Here is the recipes with my changes:

3 C flour (I used 1/2 white, 1/2 whole wheat)
3 T sugar (I used raw sugar)
1 t baking soda
6 T cold butter, cut up
1/3 c dried cranberries
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 C, plus 1T buttermilk

1. Pre-heat oven to 425'

2. In a large bowl combine flour, sugar and baking soda. Add butter, blend until mixture resembles fine meal. Mix in egg and 3/4 cup buttermilk to form soft dough.

3. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface. Pat dough 3/4 inch thick. With a 2 1/2-inch round cookies cutter (I used a glass turned upside-down) cut as many rounds as possible, gathering scraps together to use up all the dough.

4. Place rounds on lightly greased cookies sheet. Brush the tops with remaining buttermilk. Bake scones about 18 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. Makes about 12 scones.

Serve plain, or with warm butter and jam.


I am about to make some, so we can have them for breakfast tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Where is spring?

It has been a while since my last post. After getting back from England in February, and me getting the flu, and then Zoë being the lucky one, and her birthday following, we have kept pretty busy.

Just last week when I thought I might be able to start doing some stuff in the garden...like getting the mulch delivered, and seeing what survived the winter....it snowed over a foot! So, now it may be a couple of more weeks. Though, I do think that this weekend, I am going to start some seeds indoors. I have been saving toilet paper/and paper towel rolls to use as little pots. I definitely want to start herbs soon, so that I will have a full, fresh supply through the summer. It will be a fun project for Zoë and I.

When I last posted about a couple of dishes I was going to make....fish pie and Cincinnati chili, I never had the chance because of our unexpected and sad trip back to England. Now that we are back in the swing of things, I will try and do that this next week.

One thing, I did manage to do before my lovely daughter turned 3 and my mom and sister came to town, was to paint our dining and living room. Now that I have done it, I can't believe I waited to long to do it. They are so much cozier now. My wonderful husband also surprised me with a new dining room table that I have been infatuated with for several months now. Our dining room is so much better, and I *heart* the table!!

Our dining room before:


After:


I love the Craftsman-style look of the table. I wish our entire house could be like that.

For the color, I began by thinking I would just use the red that was used under the chair-rail and that would be a cheap and easy solution. I have learned nothing is going to be "cheap & easy". Once I got that red on an entire wall, I decided it was too "bricky" and I definitely wasn't thrilled about it.. So we spent a week painting samples on the wall, and decided to go with Benjamin Moore, poppy, and I am in love with it!

The living room before:


After:


I kept the charcoal grey fireplace wall that I had painted when we moved in, but painted the rest of the room a slate grey. It kind of came out looking more blue than I imagined, but I really love it. No more beige!!! And it really makes the trim and crown molding stand out.

I think I am done painting for a while. I have now done almost every room of the house, and I don't want to smell paint fumes for a long time!

Vegetarian Irish Stew

I stole this recipe from the March 2008 issue of Vegetarian Times. I received the magazine in the mail today, opened it to this recipe, and had to make it. I changed a couple of things, and will post this recipe mostly as I made it.

It had such a great flavor, and I will definitely be making it again soon. Even Zoë gobbled hers up.

This recipe calls for seitan and tempeh, and while I like both of those items, we were snowed in and all I could get my hands on were what was available in our house, so I used tofu. When I make this again, I may omit the tofu/seitan/tempeh all together and use another vegetable like parsnips or sweet potatoes.

1 T olive oil
1/2 coarsely chopped onion
1 medium carrot, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (1/2 cup)
1 T flour
4 oz seitan, cut into 1-inch pieces (I actually used firm chopped tofu)
2 slices smoky tempeh bacon, cut into 1/2-inch peices (I omitted)
1 clove garlic
1 t fresh thyme, chopped
1 cup stout beer
1 14-oz. can od vegetable broth (I used a bouillon cube in 14-oz of hot water)
6 oz butternut squash, cut into 1/2-inch cubes (I used organic frozen)
1/2 cup frozen shelled edamame

1. Heat oil in saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and carrot, and cook 5 minutes. Stir in flour and cook 2 more minutes. Add seitan, tempeh bacon, garlic and thyme and cook another 2 minutes.

2. Pour in beer, and bring mixture to a boil. Cook 3 minutes, stirring and scraping any bits that may be stuck to bottom. Add vegetable broth and butternut squash, and bring to a simmer. Readuce heat to a meium-low and cook 20 minutes. Add edamame and cook 10 minutes more. (If using frozen squash, I would recommend cooking it 5 minutes and then adding the edamame for another 5 minutes).

I served this with homemade mashed potatoes cooked very indulgently with butter and cream, and a touch of nutmeg.

Yummy!

My next recipe to make from this issue is Jasmine risotto spring rolls with vanilla dipping sauce. And the sticky rice with mangos.