Dinner

Thought I would share part of my daily life. Here you'll see the six small loaves of yummy Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. This rockin' dough consistently gives fabulous results. My plan is to use the grill for baking tonight. I'm finding that I absolutely have to buy flour in 25 lb. bags to supply us with two or three nights of fresh bread, otherwise, I'm at the grocer's every day. And I really don't want to spend time in the store every day. I want to be with my kids outside, at home, in a park, or someplace nicer than a store.

I also spent a few minutes outside picking strawberries. You can only get the very dark ones if you want the true strawberry flavor. Resisting the urge to go nuts and take every red-tinted berry can be hard early in the season, but is a must. Unless you like tart and sour berries. It is very clear that we need to lift and move the berries this year. We cannot easily harvest the majority of the fruit. Finding a safe, protected place is the challenge. I think I have a spot, but there is also the issue of having the bed look nice with other plantings since it is in the front yard.

I hulled and cut some berries for a Rhubarb-Strawberry Crisp. My grandparents graciously supplied the rhubarb last month. Cooking Light supplied the recipe.

After I inquired a couple years ago, my grandpa got permission for the two of us to divide rhubarb from an empty lot near his place. His plants thrive in their morning light each day. Mine poke along in the shady area near my fence.

Here is this last weekend's treat, cupcakes decorated for Pentecost. The strawberry is supposed to look like a tongue of fire because I couldn't get the icing to stand up like flames. Lemonade, not lemons, my darling, lemonade.

Overall, my garden is doing well this week. We had rain for two days. My rain barrels are filled to the brim. The peas showed flowers this week and grew about a foot along the netting. Ella's squash has all come up. Her tomatoes and cukes have not. Half of my squash came up. The six tomato plants from my homeschool friend look great now that they're in the ground. Since my bush beans never had a chance against the slugs, I planted new beans among the lettuces. We'll see what happens.

One of my smaller purple coneflower plants and Ella's (my) miniature rose buds were eaten to the ground last night, but the hellebores from another homeschool friend look solid in their new pots. I am scheduled to get white swan coneflowers and white false indigo through my centraliowaplantbarter next week. I'm trying to get a few strawberry runners to take root in pots. Having small things to monitor in the yard each day has been a pleasure for me.