A New Dish for Our Dinner

   I thought I would try a new recipe for our  main meal today.

    A couple of weeks ago I bought a seafood box from Good Ranchers. We do not eat much beef anymore-I never did-so I chose the seafood box. I didn't care for the cod-but then I found out after I did not cook it properly, and these are very thin filets of cod which I was not familiar with They sell only products from the USA nothing at all added to the beef, chicken, seafood-all USA caught or raised.

 . So today I wanted to try their shrimp. These were really nice, a good size and totally cleaned, I got 4 one pound bags of the shrimp in my box.

   I looked online and found this recipe  I used all olive oil and not any butter, and instead of soy sauce which has lots of wheat in it, I use  organic coconut aminos-that tastes like soy sauce and also without all that high salt content that soy sauce has.

  When  I got into making the recipe-Wow a lot of honey in this recipe, but in the end it turned out delicious  (One of these days I need to sit down with my camera and read the instructions-as I usually have a light issue indoors)

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 I had some nice large fresh mushrooms so I added those in too. Larry really liked this dish. Next time I will use a milder honey-the one I had open was a darker more flavorful honey-but it turned out well. My sauce did not thicken up as much as it should-but it worked out good over the jasmine  rice.

  We got a lot of rain again last night and early this morning-more to come in this week. 

Happy new week

Lilacs in Bloom

    The first Spring here at the lake I was so excited to discover lilac bushes on our property. There are several and two different varieties  - one blooms earlier than the other one. Lilacs do spread as well and have a lovely fragrance. I have always loved them.

 Here is an older photo of one of the bushes. This one is to the far right of our property close to our neighbor Joe

    We were pretty warm today but lots of rain coming in again-tonight and tomorrow. I did manage to get a lot of grass cut over the weekend. I have cut this section three times already. I need to get to the other side now once the rain stops. Some areas are super tall

  Happy new week!

Happy Earth Day

 

Making Watercolor Paints from Nature

   I wanted to share an artist I have been following for awhile on her You Tube Channel. I discovered her after we moved to the lake house.  I  may have shared her but don't remember if I did or not. I know there are artists that I follow so wanted to share.

  The artist is Joanne Green

Here is her new book coming out in June

Here is her You Tube channel-she makes it all look so fun and not  too difficult either-just several steps in the process.

Here s one of her videos using calendula flowers 

    I really enjoy watching and learning from her videos  It is a bit of a process but I am anxious to make some watercolor paints this summer.   

   I did a lot of natural dyeing in the past along with eco printing on cloth and papers-so much fun for me. This looks also fun to do.

Update: woke up way too early so browsing on Instagram--here this artist makes sidewalk chalk from her dried watercolor pigments and crushed dyed Easter egg shells   here

Dandelions

   I love seeing the dandelions in the spring-bright yellows popping up in the grass.

This year I have more than last year, thinking it is because I have been picking them and making a healing oil with them the last few years.'

I dried one batch already and just picked another small batch. I am not picking all of them, just those in groups and  just picking a few and move on. I saw a very large bumble bee in one group.

There is a photo of the oil I made last year here in that post.

My go to site for making things with herbs etc is Jan the Nerdy Farm Wife  Here is her post with several recipes to make with dandelions-most very simple. She includes a salve, oil, lotion, soap bars, and more. Here is a link to lots of ideas on Pinterest using dandelions

   In the past - like 30 years ago or more Larry and I went through a phase of making our own wines. The dandelion wine was always good.

I found a poem by Walt Whitman    

The First Dandelion

Simple and fresh and fair from winter's close emerging,
As if no artifice of fashion, business, politics, had ever been,
Forth from its sunny nook of shelter'd grass—innocent, golden, calm
as the dawn,
The spring's first dandelion shows its trustful face.

Passover and Holy Weekend

 

Good Morning

   Just popping in say Hello and Good Morning

(photo found online)

Alternative Laundry Supplies & Redbuds & Frozen Kefir

     Today although pretty cool we have bright full sunshine and so far no wind. Last night the winds were really strong again with at freezing night temperatures.

   The redbuds are still pretty here too even after all the crazy weather. I just took these photos now, this pretty red bud tree sits behind my mailbox. The red roof is our garage

Below photo is me standing on top of our driveway looking at this pretty red bud in our neighbor's yard

Have any of you tried out the new laundry supplies available now-pods-sheets?  With my different allergies I have always needed to go with fragrance free on everything. I had been using the All fragrance free pods for awhile  now. At Sam's Club they were always a good buy opposed to the stores.

  The last couple of years though I have been trying out more earth friendly packaging  I bought when on sale Free the Ocean's laundry sheets. They do a good job but too expensive even on sale. 

  Over a year ago now I tried out Clean People pods for laundry. I love them and their packing is in cardboard little boxes. When they had a big sale last year I stocked up and they were less expensive than All pods were.  Clean People is based in Canada  some products like laundry pods made in America.  

    Instead of liquid bottles of non chlorine bleach-they offer a granular product that works really really well.

 I find the pods or sheets work equally well but I like the pods

Another photo from today  phlox and a few of my bottles with seeds

     I haven't found a ice cream I like---less sugar, less lactose, less fat so I decided to freeze up some peach kefir that I also added organic diced canned peaches to.  So easy turned out perfect. Next time I will add a bit of sweetener

Fish in the Mail

    Ha Ha  Well the little fish painting I fell in love with by Christine in Canada has arrived in my mailbox today.

   I enjoy her little mini paintings and I think this size is such a good idea. She has a site on Ebay so I check her paintings that are for sale once in awhile. Christine's fish painting is perfect for our mantle and lake house and I totally fell in love with this one too.

 When I was trying to paint a couple years ago,  I painted a little sailboat. I found these mini easels online for display.

   I miss painting sometimes, especially with the watercolors. I had gotten frustrated with it as I am not all that good with paints but watching friend Cathy learn I may get motivated to try again soon. My goal was to be able to paint one of our awesome sunrises here on the lake.

Click to enlarge photos for better viewing.

  I have all sorts of items on our mantel-homemade pottery pieces, wood burning, my collection of gnomes and a couple of vintage items

  We had rain all day today 'til just now-3 pm-more on the way for a few days.  I had put my bottle "greenhouses" back out yesterday afternoon so now they got a really good soaking. I just placed them down on the brick walkway next to the house so shouldn't get much more rain inside the bottles. Better for them to be outdoors. The ornamental grass I purchased was supposed to arrive today but looks like it is still in Kansas City

  Stay safe all of you in this storm's path moving towards the east-there will a lot of flooding with this one.

Happy First Day of April & Catch Up

   Wow the wind outdoors is total craziness. I was hoping to get back out and weed eat the grass along the lake front but too cold and very very strong winds out there. The sun is shining though-smiles.

  April Fool's day was my farmer Grandpa's birthday. So I have always thought of him on this day. I remember when I was in college I had written my parents a crazy letter and at the end I wrote April Fools-they were not happy haha. 

  There are some major storms going through the country again this week. Here in Missouri looks like floods will occur down by the rivers as we have 4-5 days of rain and storms. I am hoping you on the east coast will not see even more winter. I know my friend in Montana living on her homestead at the base of a mountain range is getting a rough winter with snow still coming down this year.

  I am mentally preparing myself for a very hot summer-which usually follows after a rough winter here in Missouri.

 I started hand stitching the second bag together today. I am doing it a bit different from the instructions that I followed for my first bag. That had left too much open after turned to stitch closed-including inserting the lining fabric. I just left the big curve open on top of bag this time.  Once this one is finished I will mail off the first bag to my slow mail friend in New York. I want to keep one finished bag for reference when I stitch up the next one.

  The photo to the lower right side shows a seam begun to get stitched.

 

 I have been planting a few more seeds in bottles this week. Chives, garlic chives, and from a very old seed stash poppies-which are tricky and what I think is nasturtiums  

  I found a cool site that you can identify seed pods, seeds and seedlings from here  I was surprised that the seeds in question-I forgot to mark a bunch of different seeds-seem to be nasturtiums but it makes sense to me as I used to plant these a lot-they are an edible flower too.

  With all this rain coming in I will probably bring my bottles indoors. The bee balm and snapdragons have popped up now I don't want them to get too water logged.

   I still have lavender seeds coming in the mail. I am not buying any plants at the nursery going forward. Two years ago I spent way too much money, especially on the nicer and larger petunias that I love for my big pots-but these don't do well during a very hot summer here in Missouri. I have never tried growing petunias from seed-any of you??

  After the cold period in the refrigerator I will have echinacea seeds to start and later the blue bells.

Before Larry's accident he mounded up some black dirt down by the lake front near our neighbor to the right. Once I get the weeds out of that I will plant some ornamental grass. Larry thought this might bring in some nesting ducks.

  I found plugs for this one on Ebay and they should arrive this week  I will plant these in a big pot for now when they come in this week This is variegated silver ornamental grass   I would like to put a bench down in this area. If I do the neighbors may use it-but that would be ok.

I haven't made an angel food cake in a very long time. I usually make two cakes-a wheat cake and a gluten free cake. Yesterday I was just up to making one cake so I baked up the gluten free cake-a little tricky with no gluten but it turned out really good. Served with fresh strawberries.

  I also made us a delicious beef soup yesterday. I don't go by a recipe I just (wing it) haha I start with a carton of no salt beef stock, and this time I added sliced thin leeks, potatoes, a dried veggie mix for soups. Then when those ingredients were cooked added a can of organic no salt three beans, fresh thin sliced cabbage, fresh mushrooms sliced-then at the end a can of usa  beef.

Today I am baking up cornbread to go with the left over soup. I have shared this recipe in the past-only uses corn meal no added white flour-sooo good. If you search there should be a link to the recipe here on my blog.

  Happy Fools Day and Happy April-Spring is nearing.