Last Night's Fireworks Show

Yeppers Peppers

 

I am growing a small garden this year in the raised beds beside my house. This is the first real garden I have put in since moving to the area over ten years ago. It is mostly herbs, with several varieties of tomato, eggplant, squash and strawberries.

I bought a few tiny pepper starts a couple weeks ago. They came from a vendor at the farmers market who sells over ninety varieties. I never knew there were so many! It was a tough decision, but I brought home three Anchos (for making chile rellenos), one decorative Bolivian Rainbow and one Black Hungarian (just to see what it tastes like).

The pepper plants have been nurtured ever so carefully indoors, according to the instructions that came with them. Now that it is in the 60's at night, it is finally time to bring the peppers outside. The weather just hasn't been cooperating this year. It has been rainy, cloudy and unseasonably cool all spring. These peppers need some warm soil and hot weather so they will produce fruit that will ripen by the end of the growing season. Now that summer is here and it is getting a bit warmer, I am hopeful for a bountiful harvest.

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Back At It

It is sometimes difficult to come up with the self-discipline it takes to do things on a regular basis. Here is another try at putting it in writing.

Cookies For Roxana

Here is the recipe for Oatcakes, from the Home Baking cookbook by Alford and Duguid.

2 cups rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 sticks butter (cold, cut into medium-sized pieces)
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup hot water

Mix this up in a food processor in this order:
Put oats in processor and chop about 30 sec for regular rolled oats, 20 sec for instant. Add flours, sugar and salt and pulse a couple times to mix. Add butter and run processor until mixture has the consistency of fine meal. Stir baking soda into hot water. Add water to flour mixture, processing as you pour. Stop processing when dough comes together.

Put dough into a bowl, cover and refrigerate for at least an hour. It can be refrigerated up to 4 hours.

Preheat oven to 325 deg. Divide dough in 4 pieces. Roll each on a lightly floured surface to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Flip and dust with flour as needed to keep it from sticking.

Cut with a cookie cutter or a glass to make rounds or cut with a knife to make squares or triangles. Bake for 10-15 minutes on buttered baking sheets. You can put these on two racks positioned both above and below the center of the oven.

Leave cookies out overnight to crisp before storing in airtight container or cookie jar.

Help Yourself to Some Cookies Too, Dear

I broke down and made hot dogs for lunch yesterday. As you may already know, this is pretty unusual for me since I don't believe that hot dogs are actually food.

The kids thought it was cool.

They come in a package of eight. Ravenous Boy had two, Microtween had one, the big Little had two, the little Little had one, and I had one (but don't tell anyone or I'll blame it on the cats). That's seven, so there was one left over.

I told the little Little he could have it if he was still hungry after he ate his first one.

After we finished I forgot what I'd already said and asked if anyone wanted the leftover dog. Three voices answered at the same time -- Ravenous Boy and both of The Littles.

Here's how it went down:

"Never mind. They can have it," said Ravenous Boy.

"I want it!" cried the little Little.

"But I told you your hair looks beautiful," asserted the big Little, referring to a compliment he had given me as I was drying my hair earlier in the morning.

I made The Littles split the last hot dog.

Snow Daze

So the powers that be have canceled school now for three days in a row. Just before winter break, too. And with the new snow expected today that means the kids will be home for THREE WEEKS STRAIGHT. Oh, what to do...

A Perfect Loaf of Banana Bread

It was too cold to go out yesterday and I had a couple ugly bananas in the fruit bowl so I got out my favorite banana bread recipe -- the special one with nutmeg and rum. It has a wonderful sparkling sugar crust on top that makes it the best banana bread ever.

The recipe calls for a little dried coconut instead of nuts, but I forgot. However, the bread is still good without it and the kids will eat more of it without either of those things in it. My neighbor puts chocolate chips in hers and it's wonderful that way, too.

I always burn the banana bread. I even tried baking with the oven turned down 25 degrees, but it still got a bit dark on top and around the edges. If it was done on the inside, it was black somewhere on the outside. But, wow! Take a look at this beautiful loaf!

Thanks to Dad's instructions and the oven thermometer he bought me, I set the thermostat on the oven and baked (for the first time) a perfect loaf of banana bread. It turns out that the oven was more than 50 degrees hotter than it was supposed to be.

Now that it is fixed, I can't wait to see how cookies turn out! I'm ready to go on a holiday baking binge and this is just the start. I have in mind to make some Rolo Cookies, Snickerdoodles and Pfefferneusse. And definitely more banana bread!