Our weather has flipped from very hot to quite cool, dry to pouring rain for days. By today, I wasn’t sure what I would find as I finally wandered outside. Bert has already pumped the water twice from the rain barrels by the shop up to the larger one by the garden so we’re ready to water as needed.
Because of all the crazy weather, we found the strawberries were not doing well in the tower, so we had to take it apart to give the plants more light. A few plants didn’t make it, but others have already sent out runners, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Here is what they looked like two weeks ago:
Strawberries…two weeks ago!
By this week they had changed. The two pots on the left looked great!
I couldn’t get the other big pot photo to download here…it was just better than 2 weeks ago.
But the tower had to be taken apart:
All five layers looked like this one!
Continuing to the rest of the patio plants:
Spinach has popped!Lettuce and radishes look promising!I just couldn’t resist trying a few!Yummy!Painted Pony beans.
All the other beans look about the same as above…I can’t get the pictures to download! Grrr! Very frustrating!
Super Sauce tomatoes!Echinacea.
So much for trying to show you everything! These are the only pictures that will download today! Luckily, all the other sections have pretty small plants, so hopefully by the time there’s something to see, the pictures will download! Check back in a week or two!
Baking bread has always been my favorite activity when I want to do something that reminds me of my mother. I learned the “feel” of a well-kneaded loaf of bread when I was young and carried that skill over to my family when I became a mother. When sticky buns made an appearance in my mother’s kitchen, I was always glad I had hung around and could try the first batch.
Fifty years ago, we had few choices at the grocery store…white bread was everywhere. There was much in the news about how white flour had lost much of its nutrition by sifting out the wheat germ and bleaching it with chemicals. Of course, then we used wheat germ in cookies and added the bran back to our diets with bran cereal! When I cruise the bread aisle today, I’m always struck with how many choices I have of whole wheat and multi-grain artisan bread and buns. However, I still enjoy the process of making my own bread.
I’ve already shared my Oatmeal Bread recipe (https://marykisner.com/marys-oatmeal-bread/) but I’m still struggling to find a good whole wheat recipe that tastes good and isn’t as heavy as a brick. Last week, I did an internet search with “the best whole wheat bread recipe” to see what came up. Lo and behold, a recipe called, “The Very Best Whole Wheat Bread Recipe” was at the top of the list! The recipe was from https://www.fivehearthome.com/. It looked pretty simple so I thought I’d give it a try.
The day before I was going to bake, I went to the health food store and picked up about 10 lbs. of white whole wheat berries and a small bag of Vital Wheat Gluten. This powder will add more wheat gluten so the loaf sticks together better.
White whole wheat berries.
I set up my wheat grinder and got it running. Within an hour or so I had about 10 lbs. of beautiful flour ready to go.
I’ve had a grinder from this company since the early 1970’s. This is their new version and will even grind quinoa into flour! www.organicsbylee.comNow I’m ready to bake! I did notice the grocery store carries King Arthur brand of “White Whole Wheat flour” now, so I shouldn’t have to grind my own if I don’t want to.
Here is the recipe:
Here are the rest of the ingredients:
Directions:
Step 1: Measure out the flour, vital wheat gluten and yeast into the mixer bowl.
Steps 2-3: Add 2 1/2 cups of very warm water. Mix up for 1 minute (I did this by hand) and let rest for 10 minutes.
In 10 minutes, the yeast is going to town.
Step 4: Add salt, oil, vinegar and honey. Mix for 1 minute.
Step 5: Add and mix in 2 1/2 to 4 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time.
Step 6: Knead in the mixer until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and feels smooth rather than sticky (5-15 minutes). Turn the dough out on to a floured surface. Form into a smooth ball.
Steps 7-8: Grease 2-3 bread pans. Divide dough into three oblong loaves and put them in the pans. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. for one minute and then turn off the oven. Place the pans in the warm oven and allow them to rise for 20-40 minutes, until the dough is nicely domed above the tops of the pans.
Step 9: Without removing the pans from the oven, turn on the oven again to 350 degrees F. and set the timer for 30 minutes. The oven will go through the whole preheat cycle now, which sets the crust.
Step 10: The bread is done when the tops are golden brown and the internal temperature reaches 190-200 degrees F.
Step 11: Once the loaves are baked, immediately remove the hot bread from the pans to cool on a rack.
Delicious
I think this recipe will be my go-to recipe for whole wheat bread. I was so happy with it that I ordered a 25 lb. sack of white whole wheat berries from Amazon! Beats trying to bag it up myself at the health food store!
Surprise! The whole garden is now planted! Just a week ago we were thinking we weren’t going to be able to do that for another week or two. We were still anticipating a few nights with below, or near freezing temperatures; and then the days of rain made it impossible to even get into the garden. So much difference a week can make! The long-range forecast does not show any below freezing temperatures, so we decided it was safe to plant the things Bert had started in the shop under grow lights.
In the last few days, Bert set up the rain barrels and I didn’t even know it! (See last year’s detailed post about how that is done (https://marykisner.com/setting-up-the-rain-barrels/). It finally stopped raining…and now it probably won’t rain for a week or two!
Yesterday, we got to work. A few things just needed to be moved outside to the patio, like the strawberries:
I put seeds in the raised planter for my lettuce and radishes two weeks ago and all the rain must have really helped get things started.
I bought 6 tiny Swiss Chard plants and a single Cherry Tomato plant at a local greenhouse tent set up near the mall to round out the patio plantings. It felt good to see something already growing, while we wait for seeds to sprout in other areas.
Swiss ChardCherry TomatoI did plant Spinach seeds here…but nothing interesting to look at yet!
The rest of the planters down near the patio are not quite as interesting, but hope springs eternal in May!
I planted a few seeds each of four different shell beans in one planter…just to see if they will work here. I’m sure I won’t get much, but I should learn something about what I’d like to grow next year.
Nothing to see yet!
The Cucumber plants (2 kinds) were small but healthy and the Delicata Squash looks very similar. They are in the second fenced beds so they will have wire to crawl up.
The upper garden looks pretty barren, but hopefully in a week or two we’ll see evidence of all the seeds we planted. I’ll try to document the growth in the same order each time so it makes sense as things grow.
Two rows of carrots and the lavender coming back from last year.Green and Yellow beansSuper Sauce TomatoesGarbanzo beans (not sure how they will do, but we’ll leave them in the garden until fall to dry).Echinacea, coming back from last year!
Now the challenge will be to keep up on watering. There is something about the anticipation of sprouting seeds that keeps us going this time of year! I am jealous of all you folks that live in places where you can garden all year. On the other hand, after a long cold winter spring anticipation feels pretty good too! Enjoy!
I love egg rolls! Since I was diagnosed with egg and dairy allergies several years ago, I have been very careful about eating anything that was mixture of ingredients. I have avoided casseroles of all kinds, especially if I didn’t make it myself…too often they have hidden eggs, cheese and other dairy products. Somehow, egg rolls fell into that “unknown mixture” label and I avoided them. I recently came across a recipe for egg rolls and discovered there were no eggs anywhere in the recipe! I went to the grocery store and read the ingredients on the wrappers…no eggs! To think I’ve avoided egg rolls all this time when I didn’t need to!
This picture shows egg rolls that had been deep fried. Look so good!
I also wondered why they were called egg rolls…when no eggs were involved! An early reference to egg rolls appeared in a 1917 Chinese recipe pamphlet published in the United States. The 1917 recipe described a meat and vegetable filling wrapped in an egg omelet, pan fried, and served in slices. (Wikipedia, Egg Rolls).
According to Wikipedia, while they are closely related to the spring rolls served in mainland China, the American egg roll was probably invented at a Chinese restaurant in New York City in the early 1930s. Originally, egg rolls included ingredients like bamboo shoots, roast pork, shrimp, scallions, water chestnuts, salt, MSG, sugar, palm oil and pepper. Notable, they did not include cabbage at the time, which is the main filling ingredient in modern egg rolls.
A 1979 article in The Washington Post speculated two possible theories for the word “egg” in the name: “1) that the Chinese word for ‘egg’ sounds very similar to the Chinese word for ‘spring’, and 2) that Chinese chefs in the South relied on using actual eggs when trying to make the thin noodle skin from flour and water.” (From Wikipedia, Egg Rolls).
The other issue I had with egg rolls was the necessity to deep fry them…sounded messy! But this recipe said I could use my air fryer or even bake them in the oven! That sounded possible!
The ingredients were pretty simple: egg roll wrappers, cooked chicken, cole slaw mix and salt. I added little minced onion just for flavor.
The ingredients shown with my first batch of egg rolls ready for the air fryer.
Preparing the stuffing
Step 1: In a large frying pan (or wok) saute the cole slaw with a little olive oil until wilted (I added the minced onion here).
Step 2: Add shredded chicken for a few minutes until all mixed. Season with salt and pepper to taste. I just added the can of chicken, broken up with a fork.
Making the egg rolls
Step 3: Add 2 tablespoons of slaw/chicken mixture to the middle of the egg roll wrapper. Fold up the sides one at a time and for the last fold add a little water so it sticks. Makes 11-12 egg rolls.
Sorry…out of focus!Ready for the Air Fryer!
Step 4: Fry your egg rolls until golden brown.
Air Fryer Instructions:
Lightly spray or brush the basket or tray with olive oil. Place egg rolls in the air fryer. Be sure they are not touching. Cook at 375 degrees for about 15 minutes, turning halfway.
Air Fryer at work!
Oven-Baked Instructions:
Lightly coat egg rolls with cooking spray and place, seam side down in a greased pan. Bake at 425 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown, turning halfway.
Store in an airtight container. Refrigerate for 3-4 days. Freeze for up to 2 months.
Reheat in 350 degree oven, 10 minutes if thawed; 18-20 minutes if frozen, turning halfway.
With our son visiting, these egg rolls did not last very long! Yummy!
Another idea:
One of the suggestions in this recipe was to try filling the wrapper with apple pie filling. That would be like a mountain pie cooked over a campfire! Sounds like a great dessert!
I can see lots of potential for stuffing! I’m sure I’ll get better at rolling the egg rolls up too! Give it a try! Enjoy!
Seems like it’s time to share our beginnings of this year’s garden. It is still too early to put plants in the ground because we could still have a frost over the next few weeks, but Spring is definitely making obvious inroads.
Our Redbud trees are beautiful and the grass is so green.
Redbud flowers are so stunning in the spring!
The hummingbird feeders are ready and the birds have found them. The geraniums are beautiful this year.
I planted lettuce and radish seeds in the raised planter on the patio.
The Super Sauce tomato plants have thrived under grow lights. Now a little sunshine and wind will toughen them up.
The strawberries are determined to get on with making berries, so off they go!
We’ve got to get the ones in the bucket into a different planter soon!
The cucumbers, Delicata squash and zinnias are still under the grow lights.
Up in the main garden the Lavender is showing signs of surviving the winter. I’m not sure what to trim away, so I guess I’ll just have to wait!
The Echinacea came back so that end of the garden should be pretty this year.
So that’s the tour of what’s happening right now. Soon it will be time to get the rain barrels set up, but we’ll wait another week or two. We set them up last year on April 27, 2021, so we must have been optimistic that the really cold nights were over. If you’d like to read about how we set them up, you can see it here: https://marykisner.com/setting-up-the-rain-barrels/.
Quinoa is a grain that has lots of potential, but personally, a pile of it on my plate doesn’t excite me. I have a powerful grain grinder that I can make it into flour, which expands ways I can use the grain. I also found a box of Quinoa Flakes that I thought could be used in my standard Oatmeal Bread recipe (see https://marykisner.com/marys-oatmeal-bread/).
The back of the box showed several ways the flakes could be used…as a hot cereal, in cookies and muffins.
Today was the day I needed to bake bread so I thought I’d try using it…mostly to see if it changed the flavor or texture of my favorite bread. I followed my standard recipe and added 1/2 cup of Quinoa flakes when I added the 1 1/2 cups of rolled oats. Here’s the difference in the size of the flakes:
Rolled oats on the left, quinoa flakes on the right.
I wasn’t sure if that little bit in four loaves of bread would even be noticeable but amazingly…it was!
The bread was very light and had a nice consistent texture. There was no noticeable difference in taste. It was a nice enhancement to my standard oatmeal bread and added a little more protein to the bread. I think I’ll make it part of my standard recipe!
I think I’ll try adding a tablespoon of the flakes to my morning bowl of oatmeal just to enhance the protein. Give it a try! Enjoy!
Shortly after my last post on Saturday, my computer shut down with a warning screen that I had some kind of virus. This is what the screen said:
After Bert’s experience last fall, I did NOT click on anything. I did NOT call any numbers. I basically forced the computer to shut down and walked away. Not too disruptive since it was Easter weekend and I was busy getting ready for my grandkids to visit on Sunday. Luckily, I could still easily check email and texts and a few news sites on my phone. Today, Bert took the whole computer to the Best Buy Geek Squad and of course, everything worked just fine! How embarrassing! They did see a few odd things so they will keep it until Thursday to check it for other viruses. Yea. So, I’m typing this on Bert’s computer. Just doesn’t feel the same!
Anyway, Easter with our daughter’s family was lovely. In the midst of all the frustrations with the computer, they brought me some tulips just ready to open! What a treat! I hope you all had a blessed Easter!
Looks like the tulips will be red!
This morning as Bert was headed out to Best Buy, we were surprised with snow! Winter is not going to go away without a last gasp or two! It is pretty, but we are definitely ready to be done with snow. I hope this all melts away quickly.
Snow on April 18, 2022
Hopefully by Friday I’ll have my computer up and running. If I do any exciting projects, I’ll share them then. Let’s go spring!
Looking at our gardens yesterday morning, you might lose all hope that garden season is right around the corner! However, we still have below freezing nights and the ground is either still frozen or at least pretty COLD! Not quite time to put seeds in the ground!
All weeds in the raised garden beds have been removed. Bert will run the small rototiller in here before I plant.Bert will rototill this garden and then put the boards back down so we can walk between the rows.
Lavender and Echinacea
When you look really close, guess what! There are tiny sprouts of Lavender at the base of last year’s plants. There are new shoots of Echinacea coming up too!
LavenderEchinacea
So, at least outside, things are happening!
Tomato Plants
Bert started the tomato seeds in the shop under grow lights the last week of March, so now 3 weeks later, we have plants!
“Super Sauce” tomatoes
Strawberry Plants
I ordered strawberry plants from Burpee in January hoping they wouldn’t arrive until I could plant them. Of course, the arrive in late March all smooshed together in a plastic bag. A week later Bert opened the bag and discovered they were trying desperately to grow so we had to get them into pots. Luckily, I wasn’t sure where I would plant them so I had ordered these stacking pots. He got the plants into the soil and can now move the whole stack outside when the days are warmer and can move the tower back into the shop at night. We will put these pots on the patio and try to keep wandering bunnies and chipmunks from munching on them as they cruise by!
I had just one of these pots. It could be up on a small table or block on the patio.This many plants didn’t fit in the other pots, so I’ll have to transplant them when the weather warms up. I might move the whole bucket full into a large planter, or I may tuck the plants into our raised garden beds. We’ll see!
So even if the gardens look like they are still asleep, preparations are underway and Mother Nature is noticing the weather is warming! April is always filled with hope for a great garden season! Enjoy!
I’d love to hear about your garden plans! Please comment or email directly at marykisner@comcast.net.
I was not happy with the colors of clay I used and the shapes I experimented with in that previous post. So, I pulled out the Pearl clay I had and started over.
I decided to make rectangles that were 2″ x 3″. I did not have a cutter that size so I made a cardboard pattern from an old tablet back.
I rolled out a ball of clay and placed the pattern on it. Then I used a zig zag cutter and just cut around it, like this:
I made about 20 of these rectangular shapes. Some ended up closer to 1 1/2″ x 3″ and a few were round circles. They baked for 50 minutes at 265 degrees in my old toaster oven.
Next, I printed out pictures of the vegetables we are going to grow. Even though I know what the common vegetables look like, I wasn’t sure about the various beans we were going to try.
Then, I pulled out my various bottles of acrylic paint and brushes.
I started with two of the round circles to see if I could make a representative picture of a radish and a strawberry. Those two, plus the lettuce and spinach, will be in the planters on the patio so they didn’t need huge signs.
Luckily the paintings are pretty small, so they didn’t have to be perfect! I’ll glue the signs to the wide craft sticks and then spray them all with a polyurethane spray. Hopefully, that will help them weather the outside summer temperatures and moisture.
Before I invest in more polymer clay to make my garden signs, I thought I should figure out if it will even work. I collected up my pile of partially used bits of clay leftover from other projects and spent the day making some samples.
I haven’t worked with clay for many months but the clay seemed to survive just fine in plastic bags. My first goal was to see if one color worked better than others and how I should write on them. My second goal was to figure out what shape worked best and how to attach the stick that will go in the ground.
The first color I chose was a pale pink. I thought I could write on it with a black marker. I also didn’t need anything too large because five of the signs could be small…they will be in the smallest planters on the patio. These small signs would be for the Radishes, Lettuce, Spinach, Radicchio and Swiss Chard. I put a piece of clay on the back that would make a pocket to hold the stick.
Back of the small sign.I used the flat end of a marker to tap down the edge of the pocket…hoping it would stay put after baking. I left the stick in the pocket while it baked to keep the pocket from collapsing.
After baking in my toaster oven (275 degrees for 30 minutes), I wrote Radish on the sign with a permanent marker. The sign looked like this:
I added glue to the end of the stick and stuck it in the pocket to harden.
Just for fun, I chose a cookie cutter of a gingerbread man to make a larger sign. I added the pocket piece to the back and tapped the edge down.
After baking, I glued the stick into the pocket using fast-drying E6000 glue. These are the ones I made today:
When the signs were cool, I turned them over and wrote on the black ones with yellow paint. I may have to make the rest larger than the round one above…too much to write so they need to be bigger.
After writing all the words with yellow paint on black I think I like the light color clay with writing in black marker. It’s much easier, especially as the number of letters increase.
When they are all done, I’ll seal them with an acrylic spray to make them waterproof. I’m sure they could also be more decorative too! I’ll have to look up some ideas on Pinterest! Enjoy!
