Wildflowers in the kitchen


When I heard the slightest whisper from spring the inspiration to play came on full force. The violets peeked their pretty little faces toward the sunshine and I gathered a cupful for kitchen experiments.

 
Violet petals in sugar with a hint of lemon zest made the prettiest lavender sugar!


Egg white wash over whole violets, sprinkled with sugar makes for candied violets. I'm dreaming of cupcakes fit for a fairy party!

 
And because  the violet sugar was so fun, I tried the same with dandelions. I don't know if the color will keep, but I'm already thinking of what other flowers I can try!
 
 

Kneading Novice


After reading a little too much about grocery store loaf bread, I decided 2015 is the year to tackle homemade sandwich bread making sans bread machine.


Buying organic bread would assure I'm not feeding the kids GMO or Round Up desiccated wheat with their sandwiches. As a one income household, buying organic bread every time would put a terrible dent in the budget.


Organic isn't the only issue; have you heard that flip flops and loaf bread have a common ingredient? Azodicarbonamide. Or you can look into bromated flour. Either way, the stuff is just plain weird, so I'm spending my days elbow deep in organic and unbromated flour slowly progressing in my bread making ability.


Are you a loaf bread wizard? Any tips or tricks for this kneading novice?

Organization, Baby Steps



Our kitchen cabinets are the original to the house, steel mid-Century GE space age things. We have a dream of having the painted at a car place, but not the funds, so they're rusty and imperfect and perfectly suited for the aesthetic of the rest of our home.


Anyway, a few days ago I was unloading the dishwasher for the bazillionth time (really probably the 3rd time that day...how?! why?!) and decided we needed a better system for the utensils.


As with 90% of the population I vowed not to be more frugal this year, so naturally Charlie needed to make a a custom sorter for the drawer, right? The old and icky contact paper needed to go, too, so I thought a nice piece of fabric doubled over would be a better alternative (after all, it could be washed when the time comes). I measured the drawer, marked the size on the fabric and quickly serged the edges together to make it into a large mat.


Not too shabby for a quick project that didn't cost an extra dime to make, huh?

Bough House


We've barely gotten into the spirit of things around here, any decorating was done at M's frequent and urgent request. As C and I talked about what our tree would be this year (the white fake tree is looking tired and jaundiced) we decided to top off a cypress in the backyard. The trees were planted when we thought a nice, dense barrier would be appropriate, but then decided they'd steal all the sunlight from the raised bed gardens.

So now we have a scraggily, funny, and altogether perfectly imperfect Christmas tree that may just get us the Griswold Family title we deserve.


As you deck your halls and ponder why anyone would want to cohabit with a bough of holly (ouch), check out my shop for some goodies that might perfectly suit the hard-to-shop-for geek/gardener/naturalist/mother-in-law in your life! Also, spend $50 or more and get free shipping with the code "freeshipping"!