Starting Summer

The weather is heating up and keeping the kitchen cool is getting harder to do. It is becoming increasingly needful to bake early mornings or late evenings.

I've made a variety of dishes and planned to share each one but they are scattered and scribbled all over the place! Some were my own recipes, others were from allrecipes.com and still more were cut or torn from printed sources.

Off the top of my head, I can share with you that we've had a recipe I've shared many times in the past. It is Chocolate Peanut Butter Whacky Cake or something like that. I didn't print the whole title this time but that is close, if not it.
The first time I made it in awhile was when our grown kids came for a meal and shared fellowship. We also had it today!

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Whacky Cake

INGREDIENTS:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
powder
2 cups white sugar
10 tablespoons butter, melted 2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar
2 cups warm water
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened

DIRECTIONS:
1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa, and white sugar.
2. To the sifted ingredients, add the 10 tablespoons butter or margarine, vinegar, and warm water. Mix thoroughly, but do not beat. Pour batter into ungreased 9 x 13 inch pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)for 30 to 35 minutes. Remove cake from oven, but keep it in the pan.
4. Cream together peanut butter, brown sugar, milk, and 1/4 cup butter or margarine. Spread icing onto cake. Place under broiler until brown and bubbly.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2010 Allrecipes.com Printed from Allrecipes.com 6/8/2010

The dinner I mentioned above with our oldest son, his wife and our three oldest grandbabies along with our next to oldest son, his wife and our youngest grandbaby turned out very well. We had:

Poppyseed Chicken

Mashed Potatoes with gravy

Fried potato peels (our second to oldest son shared this idea and it was such a hit that the platter didn't make it all the way around to everyone!)

Big tossed salad

The cake I just shared a recipe for

Sweet, iced tea
Water
Hot coffee with the cake

For the Poppyseed Chicken, I just mixed a large can of cream of chicken soup with a medium tub of sour cream and added a few tablespoons of poppy seeds and some shredded chicken. This was poured in a baking dish and then crushed Ritz crackers were spread to cover and melted butter was drizzled over the crackers. It was baked until bubbly.
It is just a quick and bigger version of almost every Poppyseed chicken recipe you'll find!

We've also had Jim Dandy grits with cheddar cheese, butter, or sauteed Vidalia onions. Once night, we had grits and little mounds of shredded cheddar, diced green chilis and sour cream adorned the top. Very tasty!

I'll write more when I can keep my eyes open --- either early, early in the morning after my Bible reading or late, late at night when everyone finally settles down!

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread

Five Minutes a Day for Fresh-Baked Bread

Me and bread . . .

Scattered Garden Notes

May 6th, 2010
Yesterday, I looked out my window and the heirloom roses we’ve had for all these years (brought by Grandpa from their tree and propagated here) were covered in black dots and green inchworms. The leaves had almost all been completely eaten and the completely healthy, flourishing rose from the DAY before was half way gone. Today? It is almost entirely gone. Hundreds and hundreds of these inchworms are on the underside of almost every leaf.
I am creating a shelf for nothing but my gardening books, pamphlets, journals and more so I can grab things as I need them. I got a growing favorite (The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Insect and Disease Control edited by: Barbara W. Ellis and Fern Marshall Bradley) and found the problem after an unsuccessful internet search.

Caterpillars. Who would have thought tiny caterpillars could cause such extensive damage in a matter of HOURS.
We have the choice of treating this by manually destroying their nests or egg cases (haven’t inspected it closely enough to find these though!) OR spraying the leaves with BTK at the first sign of damage (too late?) OR as a last resort, applying pyrethrin spray.
Challenges:
1. I doubt as bad as the damage is on this plant and another just like it on the other side of the yard that removing the nests or egg cases is feasible. I haven’t seen either of these so maybe it would be easier if I knew what they looked like.
2. I had never even heard of BTK so I checked the book’s index and found out it is bacillus thuringiensis --- some sort of bacterial pest control and the first of it’s kind on the market. It sounds terrible because it produces crystal toxins that poison, paralyze, and kill various caterpillars. After further research online… it is supposed to be all natural and safe. It also said to use at first sign of damage but in two days time --- the damage was the entire plant!
3. I am concerned with how dangerous pyrethrin spray is and one of the rose bushes is on the corner of my organic herb garden. That would definitely change the organic part of things.
We’ll figure out something (hopefully) today!
We now have planted and growing well so far:
• Beets (well, these aren’t growing well yet --- the heavy rains washed them somewhere and only one survived and now I can’t find it.) Maybe they will show up somewhere.
• Radishes: Only a few seeds got planted and they too were washed away but I have more to plant. So these should have been in a different category but they are listed to help me keep myself on track with what we do have.
• Yellow squash: A few seeds were planted (all we had left from last year) and they are pushing their way to being seedlings. They are about 1 or 2 inches so far!
• Green bush beans. Doing excellent! They are several inches tall already!
• Cucumbers --- heading straight up! Each of the two areas they are planted in is doing very well.
• Morning glories are growing more by the day! They are each a few inches long.
• Watermelons are wild and wonderful. They are growing so well!
• Broccoli is planted but not sprouting yet.
• Zinnias have survived the kittens and being on the porch so far so I need to plant them today.
Coming to the garden as soon as we can get them planted:
• Radishes.
• Yellow squash.
• Onions.
• Zucchini.
• Tomatoes (cherry for snacks and salads, one for sandwiches, and another for dehydrating).
• Tomatoes (cherry for snacks and salads, one for sandwiches, and
• another for dehydrating).
• . Seeds to make a Sisters Garden like the Indians used to. I wanted
• to plant these last year but didn't have the right supplies but thanks to Kristen, I have instructions for one this year.
• . Radishes.
• . Cabbage.
• . Carrots.
• . Lettuce.
• . Onions.
• . Bell peppers.
• . Kids seed kits for the five little plots for our little ones. These
• kits are just gathered extras from Bountiful Gardens and don't contain any medicinal herbs or poisonous plants. How cute is that? There is now a tiny plot for Braxton (our 7 year old) and our grandlittles each have one: Emily (4), Caden (2), Hailey (9 months) and Elijah (almost 3 months). Needless to say, some of those will require a teeny bit of help from others!

Garden Update

Roses that come back year after year. One small plant was given to us by my sister and they have grown very big. We just cut them back as needed.



The camera isn't showing the detail of the soil or the defined rows because the Christmas Eve kittens are now amazing trapeze artists. They knocked our camera from a high shelf on the China Hutch to the floor and it isn't working well anymore:(
Anyway, these rows are the parsley (two kinds) and two basils.



Confederate rose plants shooting back up. Above those is our cilantro row and to the left are the wildflower seeds.



My husband creating BEAUTIFUL soil that cannot be seen. In the picture, it just looks like mud! This is our vegetable garden and is in the front of the house while the herb garden is to the side... kind of. Two hard to explain for now!



Our summer baby! This thing works even our toughest land into soft soil!

Our ragged little yard and garden are coming along!
We need to keep working and not give up.

The tiller was in the shop and we got it back today. SO NICE to have neatly plowed and tilled rows to plant in.

My husband separated what once was my herb garden (freestyle --- I just added herb plants as I got them) into neat sections for our seeds. I am so excited!

On the side closest to the porch, I planted a neat row of heavenly blue morning glories (as I wrote of recently --- and went all the way around the little porch) and there was a rectangle spot of soil with a wood beam on the outside as a border.
It has more shade than sun and I found a pack of lovely wild flower seeds I purchased last year to cover it with. They tolerate over watering if they must and this area is the most moist of the whole "plot".

In two, full sun rows, I planted one row of two different parsleys and a row of regular basil and a half row of cinnamon basil.

My confederate rose got cut all the way down (it becomes a MOUNTAIN each summer) has a whole new circle of little babies!

Next to that is a small patch of dill and the row above that is all of cilantro.

Much to do but we are on the way!

Juicer Talk

Have wanted one of these for years and they STILL have great reviews!

I want green smoothies! Ha, Ha.

With all the gardening we are doing and the harvest we pray to bring in this summer --- we could afford to make a smoothie with fruits and vegetables every day.

The other juicer I have had on my wish list for years is the Green Star (I think that is the name --- will look it up when I have more time on here) and it is a hundred dollars more.

I haven't decided fully on juicing yet because I read that along with concentrated amounts of fruits and veggies (very good) ... you get concentrated sugars and pesticides unless you use all organic produce. Not in the income right now but maybe when we have some of our own!

Post It Note of Today... Now yesterday

Very quick post:

Today, it rained. Glorious rain! Not enough to flood us or wash away our newly planted seeds but enough to water them. Smiles!

We stood on the porch and talked over ideas, hopes, plans and prayers for this place. What a mighty God we serve. With Him is our hope!

Lovely Blog

Look at the lovely blog, Leslie Anne has made!