Tight-Arse Tuesdays: How to Make Honeycomb!

I got this idea from this really awesome Australian blog, $120 Food Challenge where the woman who owns the blog is finding out how to feed her Australian family off $60 a week (quite a challenge in this country!). In it, she made honeycomb, which I have also made to chop into a homemade ice cream - if I can pry my fiance from the sugary mass in time. I have included a picture-by-picture demonstration on how to make it myself:

This is the time mise-en-place is incredibly important; have everything prepared and set aside in advance!!! You'll want: 1 tsp of bicarb, sifted twice, a prepared pan with wax paper that you've put a little extra grease on, some water, a pastry brush and a baking mitt.

In my pan I have put 250g of sugar and 250mL of water. I have placed it on a medium heat. Do not stir at this point. Wait until it starts to boil a little. If any sugar crystals form, dip the pastry brush in your water and stick it in the pot where the crystals have formed. I didn't end up with any so I skipped this step.

Once it has started boiling, whisk as much as possible. You want to incorporate as many bubbles as possible to make a nice holey honeycomb.



When it has reached this colour IMMEDIATELY take it off the fire with your oven mitt and keep whisking for a few seconds. Add the bicarb and whisk once more. The mixture will start to boil over the top (quickly!) so be prepared to suddenly dump all the honeycomb into the pan. It was so quick I didn't have time to take a photo with a prepared camera!
Wait 15 minutes. Don't touch it in this time. I did and mine flattened a little. Break up with a knife. ENJOY!

How To Kill Ants

I'd like to apologize for the little break that Lizzie and I have taken lately! Life's been kicking us both around, but we've both been cooking and homemaking like little hummingbirds, so we're back to share it with you again.

I wanted to come back with a recipe, and there are many in the offing, but today I wanted to share a quick tip with you.

Our house is apparently built on top of Ant Manhattan. Every summer, we have to be very careful about keeping everything edible in tightly-sealed jars, because the first time you leave anything out, suddenly there's an ant superhighway leading across the house to it. They're just tiny black ants, not offensive in small numbers, but when they come in droves to gather cat food, it gets a bit gross.

The thing is that we didn't want to put out poisons because of the risk to our cats; we didn't want sprays or ugly traps around, so we needed a natural, nontoxic way to get rid of the ants. Acting on a tip from an acquaintance, I bought a box of Cream of Wheat.

Yep, I said Cream of Wheat! The same tasty porridge you loved as a little kid. Ants love it too. They love it so much that only one day after I put down 1/4 cup of it in a pile, the pile is almost gone. They take it back to the colony and share it around with all their friends and family. And then it puffs up inside them and kills them.

It won't hurt your pets (unless you have a free-range ant farm), it won't hurt you, it doesn't stink... it has no nasty side effects whatsoever. But whenever I've sprinkled it in an area where ants congregate, the ants have disappeared overnight.

So if summer has brought in an invasion of the only nonhuman creature known to engage in agriculture and organized warfare, fight back with the product of our own agriculture. Cream of Wheat, man. It'll do the trick!

Tight-Arse Tuesdays: U-Pick

I'm heading out in a little while today to pick strawberries with a friend, and I thought - what better frugal tip for a Tight-Arse Tuesday?

'Tis the season for U-Picks, and you'll find them within 30 minutes of your location, I can almost guarantee it. If you've never done it before, it's a great way to get out in the sunshine, and teach your kids (if you have them) about nature and food. Sometimes you bring your own container, sometimes they have containers for you; once you get to the farm, just start picking until you've got more fresh-picked fruit than you know what to do with.

Strawberries are common at U-Picks, as are blueberries, tree fruits, and sometimes grapes. I've occasionally seen vegetable U-Picks but it seems to be mainly a fruit thing. Start looking for a U-Pick farm near you at PickYourOwn.org.

Of course you'll want to enjoy a lot of your fruit in its freshness, but make sure you pick extra for preserving. Homemade jams and jellies are SUPER easy, and freezing is even easier! Wouldn't it be great to toss some of your frozen strawberries into a smoothie or some fruit bread later this winter, and have the flavor transport you back to that beautiful day in June when you laughed in the sun as you picked them?

Tight-Arse Tuesdays: Ribs!

Maybe I'm just Southern, but I love ribs. I don't do pig, but beef ribs and buffalo ribs feature in our house on a regular basis, and why not? They're flavorful, easy to cook, extremely filling, and very cheap - usually the cheapest meat on the animal!

They have a reputation for being hard to make, which is completely undeserved. They're time-intensive, sure, but almost all of that time is passive time. In my opinion, the best way to cook ribs is by braising them. Since they're such a fatty cut, all they need is some liquid and time to really bring out all that nice beefy flavor and soften them up a bit. And that takes next to nothing out of you! You get to serve up a delicious old-fashioned dinner that looks like you spent all evening on it, but really you were soaking in a bubble bath while time did the work. Ssh. I won't tell.

Here's a one-dish meal recipe that is super, super flexible. Add a salad if you want (I did). I didn't measure most of this so I'm not putting measurements here - just try a little bit of this and that. Feel free to substitute other root vegetables, or add some sturdy greens like kale or collards when you add the other veg.

THE EASIEST BEEFY RIB DINNER

Beef Ribs (about ¾ lb per person; the bone weighs it down)
1 Tbsp olive oil
Handful of mushrooms (dried is fine)
Spoonful of tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, halved
Chili powder (chipotle if you have it)
Cumin
Fresh rosemary
Salt & pepper
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Onion, chopped
Potatoes, diced
Carrots, sliced thick
1 Tbsp corn starch, potato starch, or arrowroot powder

Heat some water to boiling.

Heat the olive oil in a sturdy pot with a lid (use your cast-iron Dutch oven here if you have one). Brown the ribs, then pour in enough boiling water to mostly cover them. It's okay if the tips curve out of the water. And be careful doing this, since it's going to send up a huge steam cloud.

Throw in the mushrooms, and everything else but the veggies and starch/arrowroot. Give it a quick stir, then cover the pot and turn the heat to medium-low. Let it simmer for an hour if you've only got a couple of ribs in there, or 90 minutes if you have several. Meanwhile, pour a glass of wine and retire to a bubble bath.

When the timer goes off, have your husband, older child, or the next-door neighbor add the veggies to the pot and put the cover back on. They can add some more water if there's not enough to almost cover the veggies and meat. Sip your wine, finish your bath, and go slip into something comfy.

20 minutes after the veggies were added, remove them with a slotted spoon, along with the meat. Discard the mushrooms if they were dried (they will be tough, but they'll have flavored the broth nicely). Turn the heat all the way up on the liquid left in the pot, and dissolve the starch or arrowroot in a little bit of water. Stir that into the remaining liquid; let it boil for a minute until it thickens slightly. Spoon this sauce over the ribs and veggies. Serve immediately.

And don't forget to save the rib bones for later! They add excellent flavor to soups, stews, and beans. Unless you have a dog, of course, in which case rib night is fun for the whole family.

Make-Your-Own Monday: Freezer Pot Pie (but cuter!)

I made these the other day and had some requests for the recipe, so I'm sharing it here. I really seem to have a pie fetish going on these days; it seems like all I'm posting about lately is pie! Rest assured we do eat other foods in this house. But I love savory pies for a lot of reasons, and small individual-size pies are perfect for a quick portable meal. I used to buy them at the store many years ago, but quit buying them because they were loaded with sodium and trans fats and G-d knows what else... good thing we can make them ourselves!

I got this idea the other day when I felt like baking at a friend's house, and my friend didn't have a pie plate but she did have a muffin tin. Pot pies are awesome, but how much cooler would it be to have muffin-sized pot pies? It took a bit more time to roll out each crust individually, line the muffin tins, and assemble each small pie individually... but the little pies, once cooled, went to the freezer beautifully and held up great in the microwave. I zapped a frozen one for about 4 minutes to see how it would do, and the crust was still nice and flaky. So these are cute little quickie meals later - I also thought these would be good for kids' lunchboxes as well as take-to-work lunches for adults.

Use a storebought pie crust if you want, or use this one (with a tablespoon of cider vinegar added in), or try my gluten-free perfect pie crust. And the filling can be whatever you want - my chicken pot pie filling (over at my other blog) is always good. For my project the other day, I adapted the chicken recipe to use veggies and tofu instead since my friend is a pesco-vegetarian; I also made the tuna pot pies in the picture above, and I'll give you that recipe now. (I adapted it from this one.)

TUNA MUFFIN PIES

Crust for TWO double-crust pies
4 Tbsp butter
1 small onion, diced
6 Tbsp flour (any flour, wheat or gluten-free is fine)
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp garlic powder *
1 tsp paprika *
1/4 tsp chili powder *
Sprig fresh thyme, leaves only (optional)
2 cups milk
2 cans sustainable, water-packed tuna, drained and flaked
2 heaping cups fresh or frozen veggies (I used corn, peas, and a carrot)
1/2 cup cheddar cheese (optional, I left it out but will include it next time)

Beaten egg for brushing on crust (optional)

Preheat oven to 425 F.

Melt the butter in a big saucepan and saute the onion over medium-low until it softens up. Sprinkle in the flour, a tablespoon at a time, blending it in with a fork after each addition. Cook another minute until you have a paste, adding in your salt and pepper and other seasonings. (*I did not measure my seasonings, so this really just means season to taste with whatever herbs and spices you have handy.)

Stirring with your fork, slowly pour the milk in, whisking it up to blend it with the flour. Make sure you get the lumps out so it's nice and smooth. Keep stirring it for a few more minutes until it simmers and thickens up like white gravy. At that point, stir in everything else except, duh, the pie crust. Shut off the heat and let the filling sit aside while you roll out the crust.

Take about a fourth of the crust and roll it out thin. Using a bowl as a cutter or a guide, cut circles out of the crust and line the muffin tin, making sure that the crust sits against the bottom and walls of each cup. Leave a bit hanging over the edges of each cup, trim up the rest, and keep rolling up your trimmings with additional dough until you've got the tin lined up.

Now gently spoon the filling into the muffin cups. You should have just enough filling for a dozen muffin pies - go ahead and pile them up, it's okay if the filling mounds up a little higher than the muffin cup. That's what the top crust is for. Once the pies are all filled, roll out the rest of the crust and use a glass or another smaller guide to cut circles for the top crust. Lay each circle on top of each pie, pinch around the edges to seal, and trim off the excess. Brush with a little beaten egg if you want a golden crust, then use the tip of a sharp knife to poke a few holes in the top. Bake for 30 minutes.

When the muffin pies are done, carefully run a butter knife around the outside edges if you need to loosen them up, and gently move them to a plate. You can also hold a large plate upside-down over the pan and carefully flip the pan over so the muffins slide out upside-down. Let them cool a bit, eat one right away, and let the rest come to room temperature before you wrap them up individually and pop 'em in the freezer or fridge.

This will make you 12 regular-sized muffins or 6 of those big ones.

Farm Fresh Friday: Fajita Salad

What's better for Farm-Fresh Friday than a salad? Homegrown salad greens are thriving this time of year, and some of you are finally getting tomatoes and other tasty garden treats. This is why summers are meant for salads.

Y'all know I love salad, and this is an old standby. (Apologies for no picture, because this really is gorgeous - I'm just traveling and hence a bit photographically impaired.) Like all salads, this one is super-flexible, and it makes a really great dinner in the summer. Sit outside and have it with a nice cold beverage!

FAIJTA SALAD

1/4 cup olive oil, plus some for cooking
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1 lime
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 lb. steak, chicken, and/or portobello mushrooms
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup corn kernels (canned, frozen, or fresh)
Tortilla chips (I recommend blue corn)
Freshly-grated cheese (cheddar and/or Monterey Jack)

You'll also need a big bowl of salad greens and all your favorite toppings: sliced carrots, chopped tomato, cucumber, green onions, raw turnips, avocado, whatever you're into. The more, the merrier!

Whisk up the 1/4 c olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lime juice, cumin, garlic, and salt. Set aside.

Slice the meat and/or mushrooms into strips, fajita style. Pour a little oil into your skillet and fire it up! Saute the meat/mushrooms with the onion until it's all cooked up. Alternatively, you can leave the meat/'shrooms whole and slice the onion in half, grill them, and then slice them afterward. Either way, you'll wind up with cooked fajita strips and onions...

...which you should toss with the dressing mix you just made. Stir in the beans and corn (gently, so as not to smoosh the beans) and stick it all in the fridge to chill for awhile. I like to do all this after lunch or in the morning so it's nice and chilled for dinner.

When you're ready to eat, assemble your salad. Big bowl of greens, all the toppings scattered around, and then the chilled fajita mixture, drizzling the dressing over the rest of the salad. Toss it up a little, and then top it with the grated cheese and a couple handfuls of tortilla chips crushed in your hand.

If you have any leftovers, they're great the next day wrapped in a tortilla for lunch, or spooned over a baked potato, or served atop some quinoa.

Happy summer!

Tight-Arse Tuesday: Golden Rosemary and Sea Salt Sweet Potato Chips

Why should you be making your own potato chips when a bag only costs about two bucks? I know, it seems very 'un tight-arse' to you right? Well.

1. This giant pile of potato chips cost me about a 60 cents in potatos. Only 3 potatos were harmed in this photo.
2. Health - what I'm saving you may only be $1.40 per bag, but your body will thank you!
3. Less fat than normal chips! I normally only eat the "three ingredient" chips anyway so I'll go as far to say as it even has less carbohydrates than normal chips.
4. Using sweet potatos instead of normal potatos changes the GI to be *GASP* LOWGI POTATO CHIPS!
5. $1.40 is $1.40! If you eat a packet a day, I have saved you over $600! See, this is a savings.
6. Psst. It's also raw. Damn crunchy granola hippie freaks.


You can flavour your chips with anything you want. Simply slice about 4 potatos (I ate one while it was drying, don't judge me!) on the mandolin or, if your food processor has a slicer attachment, use that. Pour about a tablespoon of oil into the bottom of a bowl and your seasonings (I used fresh rosemary and blitzed it until it was dust) - use slightly more than you think you'll need if you want that real 'chippy' flavour.

Toss. Arrange onto racks. I find if you just haphazardly chuck them onto the racks instead of laying them out separate, you can just toss them around every few hours when you peek (and you will) on them and they'll dry evenly.

Dehydrate on high for about 6-8 hours.

Keep on hand as a great healthy alternative to your normal snacking!

Knishes Are Knice!

I’m writing this from the comfort of an Amtrak lounge car, riding the Coast Starlight from Portland to Los Angeles. It’s about a thirty-hour trip, and if you’ve ever ridden Amtrak, then you know the pleasures are many but do not include the food. I like to eat one meal in the lounge car just for the experience, but it’s too expensive to do that for every meal and I prefer some healthier snacks anyway.

So I packed a few tangerines, a bag of freshly-picked raw snap peas, some garlic cheese curds, and organic, naturally-sweetened raspberry lemonade. For something more substantial, I broke out an old recipe and made knishes.

In talking about it, I realized that not a lot of people outside of New York are familiar with knishes. I don’t know how my Southern ass found out about them – being Jewish was probably a factor – but I’m so glad I did. They’re delicious, portable, and oh-so-cheap! The recipe makes a ton of knishes, which is great because they freeze beautifully and go right from the freezer to the oven, toaster oven, or microwave. They’re also delicious at room temperature, making them ideal to take to work for lunches or to bring on long train trips.

I’m giving the recipe here for the knishes I made last night; you, however, are not married to this filling. Plain mashed potato filling is good, or you can add cheese, chicken, or any veggies. I’ve even offended the culinary sensibilities of three continents by making a sort of knish-bao hybrid, filling my knishes with teriyaki stir-fry. Knishes are a great way to use up leftovers.

Speaking of bao, I also like to prepare my knishes with that technique. Traditionally you roll up knish filling in the bread dough like a jellyroll, then cut it with the side of your hand and pinch it shut. For silly reasons, I like mine bao-style, like round stuffed buns, instead. So I’m giving you those instructions here.

And when you look and the recipe and think it’s too much oil and flour to be nutritious – remember, this makes A LOT. How many depends on the size of your knishes but I got almost three dozen out of this recipe. So don’t worry, you’re not eating it all at once!

THE FANTASTICALLY PORTABLE FREEZABLE KNISH!

Dough:
2 cups unbleached white flour
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup barley flour *
1/2 Tbsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1 Tbsp garlic powder (optional)
2 eggs
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup veg or canola oil
1 1/4 cup water

Filling:
3 lbs potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 lb ground organic beef, chicken, or turkey
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 small turnip, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 cup spinach, finely chopped
2 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chipotle powder (optional)

Egg Wash:
1 egg + 1 Tbsp water, beaten together

* If you can’t find barley flour, just use 3 cups whole wheat and 2 cups white. But barley flour gives a very nice flavor if you can find it.

Preheat the oven to 375 F (200 C), and lightly oil a baking sheet.

For the filling, throw the potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Salt it if you’re in a hurry, and bring it to a good boil. Simmer the potatoes 10-20 minutes, until cooked.

Meanwhile, in a skillet, cook the ground meat and onion together. You don’t need to add oil; the meat will sweat its own fat out. When the meat and onion are cooked, drain in a strainer to get the excess grease out, then set aside.

The potatoes should still be cooking, so start on the dough. Mix the dry ingredients together in one bowl, and beat the wet ingredients in another bowl. Pour the wet into the dry and stir to combine until it’s all mixed in. Knead the dough until it’s even and moist but not sticky – add a little more flour if it stays sticky, or a little more water if it’s crumbly. (This is easier than it sounds, trust me.) You should be able to roll it into a ball and your finger should leave a lasting impression in the ball when you poke it, without dough sticking to your finger.

By now your potatoes should be about done. Drain them and return them to the pot with the heat off. Mash the potatoes well, then stir in the other ingredients until evenly blended.

Tearing off fist-sized chunks of dough, roll each chunk out one at a time until it’s about ¼-inch thick. Cut circles out with a cereal bowl or something similar. Hold a circle in your hand with the palm flat, and scoop a tablespoon or two of filling into the center. Gather the edges up carefully and give a little twist – it doesn’t have to be a perfect seal at the top, but you don’t want filling leaking out the sides. A bit peeking through at the top is just fine.

Keep rolling out the scraps with more dough and making more knishes until you’ve used all the dough. If you have a little filling left over, just eat it for a snack or give it to the chickens. Once all the knishes are ready, arranged nicely on the baking sheet (or sheets; you might need two), and brush them with that egg wash.

Stick the knishes in the oven and bake them for 30 minutes. Careful when they come out – the middle is REALLY hot; I burnt my lip on a fresh knish last night because they smelled so good I couldn’t wait. Let them cool for awhile and then bag ‘em up for the fridge or eat them right away.

If you plan to freeze the knishes, only bake them for 20 minutes and then give them another 20 minutes in the oven from the freezer.

Make sure you bring a couple extra if you take them to work; everyone wants one. I like to make a game out of it and say they can only have one if they correctly pronounce the word “knish.”

Tight-Arse Tuesdays - Tuesday Date Night

In an attempt to save money, my partner and I have been trying to cut back on our date night spending. Not our date nights, just the spending we'd do during said nights. We still want to spend time together, like any couple, but find it difficult with our weekly $50 budget each we've imposed on ourselves. So here's a few creative ones we came up with in times of desperation:


1. The best part of picnics is you can justify the spending as 'food money' instead of 'spending money', thus the price of the date is merely your DVD rentals or drive to the country. The rest of the food can be stored and made into lunches for the next few days and thus isn't really a date expense. I believe me, you should too. Roast chicken, cheesy garlic mashed potatoes and some cobb bread with a beetroot dip, the entire meal cost me about twenty dollars, which was then used for about four more meals. This is Australian, so this is cheap. This was our 'home picnic' date night, where we decided to stay home and have a picnic in bed, as opposed to going for a drive to the country, which we also do.

2. You'd be surprised these days how fun it actually is to read together. I'm not talking sitting next to each other under a shared blanket reading (although that's nice too, it leaves no room for conversation). I'm talking about buying a book or loaning one from the library and literally sitting down and taking turns reading it to each other. The tackier the better. I'm talking Goosebumps books and trashy romance novels. Why? Because you have FUN. Because watching the look on your partner's face as they try to describe Sanchez's rippling loins is hysterical. For the Goosebumps books, throw on some cheesy Halloween music and use a flashlight on your face. Guaranteed to make you laugh.

3. Not one to forget the obvious, check your local paper. You don't even need to have your local paper, what with the internet (which I'm assuming you have if this is not being fed directly into your brain) or simply the local coffee shop, which also makes for a great date-morning. A cup of coffee together, read the paper and find what's going on. Many many times I've spotted a tiny ad for a free movie premier at the local arthouse theatre. Only once has this venture disappointed us and even then, we got to laugh about it together. Combined with a mini-on-the-go-picnic (what I call lunchbags), I've just given you an entire DAY of dating here for the price of two coffees and leftovers.

4. Yardsaling is a fun date. Especially since women and men both like to think they're better than the other at picking up a bargain. Usually my husband will find some sort of expensive fishing rod for only ten dollars and I'll laugh at him because, look, I got a whole bag of seeds for a dollar! I can feed the family for months off that! What can your fishing rod do? Oh yeah... feed the family for months. Curses.

5. Speaking of the above - fishing. If you actually enjoy spending time with your partner where all you can do is watch the water and talk, this is wonderful. Usually you can find a friend who will lend you a cheap boat (or a friend who knows where a good creek is) and licences are yearly and twelve bucks, so you can get many dates out of this. If you're any decent at actually catching the fish (I'm not), you'll also get a whole heap of free food. Bring a small picnic (I'm really pushing that today) and sit by the water with your lover, feeding each other, baiting hooks (wash your hands between the two, my suggestion) and comparing who caught the biggest fish that day. Then go home, scale and steam yourself what might be a few night's dinner. If you've had a particularly good day, you can sell some of the fish off to people on the harbour quite easily. Nothing like a whole day date you MAKE money off of, eh?


6. Farmer's Markets are surprisingly fun and cheap morning dates. Sampling the ripest tomatoes and talking about farm life with the locals can make for a fun addition to your already boring grocery shopping. Why hang around in dully lit overpriced markets when you can turn Sunday into a fun date morning and incorporate your love-life into your love of food life? Don't bring a picnic here, you might find the baker has a whole loaf of organic grain bread for a dollar and you might want to split that with some fresh butter, another dollar. The best part is, all of this is just grocery shopping on the cheap! But together you can discuss what is best for that glorious bag of heirloom tomatoes you grabbed for two bucks.. salad or grilled? With the money leftover, you can buy some old woman's fresh flowers to adorn your table and then cook up an amazing roast lunch to have at home. I look forward every week to my Farmer's Market date. I really love smelling the fresh picked green onions.

7. Do I really need to say museums and galleries? I think that one is an obvious one, but I put it here anyway. Usually free entry, liven up your knowledge of the arts a bit... makes a good fun little time out. Check your paper for fun ones at the same time as the free premiers and you'll be good to go.

8. Challenge yourself. I know it's hard to come up with a cheap way of showing your partner you love them - but if you make it into a personal challenge, it's much more fun. In the beginning my partner and I liked to see who could spend more money on the other (I won, I should mention) and finally we decided... who can spend the LEAST money on each other, but still be creative? This is where gifts like an altoids can miniature toolbox came in. Or my current favourite, making sexy scratch off lotto tickets that say things like "You win a free day of cuddles!" or "You win a picnic" (again?) or "You win a story told to you by flashlight.".... make it fun.. make it creative! Just because it's cheap doesn't mean it's.. well..cheap. So challenge yourself. See what you can come up with. I bet it's fun!

Meatless Monday: Eggy Barley Bread

We had a beautiful sunny weekend, but today looks like a chilly rainy day again, so lunch is vegetable barley soup and fresh-baked eggy barley bread. You don't get much more warm and cozy than that!

I'm a big fan of barley, which for some reason does not get the attention today that it did in the previous century. As a whole grain, it's got a chewy, hearty texture and wholesome flavor that is the perfect accompaniment to soup; you can also make risotto with it instead of rice. As a flour, it brings a lovely rich warm flavor and a creamy softness to breads.

This is a good recipe for the bread machine, if you have one. If you don't, you should get one! I don't often bake my breads in the machine, but I do when I'm busy and it still churns out hot, delicious, crusty fresh-baked bread with only five minutes of effort from me. It's cheaper than storebought bread, as well as fresher and more delicious. So get you a bread machine post haste, and then make...

EGGY BARLEY BREAD

1 cup water
1 egg
1 1/4 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup barley flour
1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp yeast

Get the water in your measuring cup and then crack the egg in. Beat the egg and water together slightly, then pour into the bread machine. Sprinkle the flours over so that they float on top of the water. Cut up the butter into chunks and drop it into two corners of the machine, then add the sugar to another corner and the salt to another. Make a little well in the middle with your finger and pour the yeast into it. Switch the machine onto its basic setting and let 'er rip.

Come back when it's done, and transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool. Make sure you cut a big slice for yourself (and anyone you like) and butter it while it's still hot. Have that slice with vegetable soup. Watch the rain fall as you eat and think about how much you love life.

It Works!!

I just have to give a big endorsement of Lizzie's recipe for baking soda shampoo. Sure, it's cheap and it's all-natural, but why not just use regular shampoo?

Aside from avoiding phthalates, it turns out there's an even better reason. This stuff cures dandruff better than any expensive high-tech dandruff shampoo on the market!

For some reason, most of the guys I know suffer from dandruff issues, and my husband's were getting bad. Head & Shoulders didn't fix it, and he only got moderate results from a very pricey bottle of KMS. He had to use the dandruff shampoo every single day to avoid that festive Christmas-flocking effect.

Then a few days ago, he ran out of shampoo and didn't have time to go out to buy more, so he whipped up some of the baking soda shampoo and vinegar conditioner from Lizzie's blog post. (See, men can read and enjoy our blog too!) Lo and behold, his hair is glossier, silkier, less oily, and there is not one hint of dandruff. We haven't seen any in days!

So, I'm a convert, and I hope y'all don't mind the double post. I just had to share these awesome results and encourage the world to give this a try. Don't you just love it when the best solution also turns out to be the cheapest one?

Tight-Arse Tuesday: Mashup!

Everybody likes mashed potatoes. They go beautifully with everything, especially meats, and when done right they have a nice creamy comfort-food quality. Don't let anyone tell you that potatoes are bad for you, either; they're rich in lots of vital nutrients! Plus, as we all know, they're cheaper than the dirt they grow in. (Literally.)

Still, 'taties are not known for huge flavor, so we tend to load them up with butter, gravy, and other flavorings. That's one way to do it, and I certainly won't turn down buttered mashed potatoes, but I much prefer to boost their nutritional content along with their flavor and use them as a base for more veggies.

There in the picture you can see a mashup (hey, it works for music!) of potatoes, turnips, and sunchokes. I made it vegan because we don't mix dairy and meat, and honestly I did not miss the butter. Neither did my husband, and he's a butter guy (like there's any other kind).

Take this recipe, and feel free to tweak it - you can add carrots, rutabaga, sweet potatoes, whatever you like. Just don't forget the turnips! Even if your mash is only turnips and potatoes, you will tell a huge difference because the turnips bring a sweetness that goes so nicely with the potatoes' creamy texture.

POTATO MASHUP
(serves 3-4)

2 medium potatoes
2 medium turnips
1 lb. sunchokes (aka Jerusalem artichokes)
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 Tbsp garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Wash the veg and cut them into chunks, all about the same size, chucking them into a big pot as you go. DO NOT peel them! Most of the vitamins are in the peel and anyway the peels are good to eat. They make mashed potatoes interesting, give them texture. So just give them a good scrub and chop 'em up.

Cover with water and bring to a boil. Salt them if you want to. Simmer over medium heat for 15 minutes or until the veggies are fork-tender. Drain, and return to the pot.

Mash those veg up until you don't see the cut edges anymore. It's okay if they're still chunky! You don't want a smooth puree. When they're all mashed up, add the remaining ingredients, mixing after each addition. Serve immediately.

How To Get Dressed In Seconds

One of my favorite things about spring is the return of Salad Season!

During the summer, I pretty much live on salad. It's good for breakfast, it's good for lunch, it's good for dinner, and it's good for just a random snack. If you grow your own salad greens and veggies, it's even better, but you don't have to. Just make sure you're going to a farmers' market or a good produce stand for the good stuff; plastic-wrapped iceberg lettuce really has no place on anyone's table.

Salads don't have to include lettuce at all, of course. It's great if they do, but you can be creative. In the summer, I make salads out of nothing but tomatoes piled high, sometimes sprinkled with crumbled cheese, and of course tossed with dressing. Tonight I'm making a sunchoke salad (think potato salad with more flavor), and last summer I made a fabulous salad out of grilled vegetables (which included eggplant, potatoes, onions, and turnips, if I remember right).

The real secrets to a good salad are the dressing - we'll get to that in a minute - and, most importantly, variety. Salads are satisfying when they combine lots of different flavors and textures into one huge sensory experience. The one in the picture, which was our lunch the other day, was made of a mix of young spring greens topped with sliced artichoke hearts, diced avocado, carrot shreds, raw kohlrabi, leftover BBQ chicken, and sunflower seeds. Think about all the nutrition in such a meal! So many vitamins, good fats, proteins, and everything else the body needs. It kept us full for hours, much longer than you'd think "just a salad" would.

But now for the dressing, which is crucial. Most of the time when you go to a restaurant, they'll serve you a perfectly healthy salad and then drown it in a dressing which is actually worse for you than anything else you could order. For example, here's how a salad at Wendy's weighs in:

1/2 Pound Double Cheeseburger - 750 calories, 42 g fat, 1520 mg sodium
Chicken BLT Salad - 790 calories, 53 grams fat, 1670 mg sodium

That's right, almost all the day's fat intake and most of your calories (and way more sodium than you need) in a damn SALAD! Some of that is in the processed chicken they use, but almost all of it is in the dressing, and bottled dressing from the grocery store is not much better. So make your own. (It's a lot cheaper that way too!)

Salad dressing, contrary to popular opinion, is super-easy to make yourself. All you need to remember is two parts oil to one part acid (which can be vinegar or acidic fruit juice). Play with different oils and different vinegars, and add whatever spices you like (paprika and cumin are delicious with balsamic and olive oil, for example). Here's my most common, foolproof standby dressing - it goes really well on just about everything, from green salad in the spring to tomato salad in the summer to hot potato salad in the fall and winter.

10-SECOND LEMON-DIJON VINAIGRETTE

1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp rice vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
2 Tbsp lemon juice (see note!)
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste
Few drops of hot sauce, optional

Note: If you made the Preserved Meyer Lemons I posted about two weeks ago, use the juice from that and don't add any more salt to the dressing. You can even chop up one of the lemon wedges very fine and stir that in for extra zing!

Add all the ingredients together right there in the measuring cup and whisk them together with a fork for ten seconds. Pour into a pretty little serving container if you want, and serve. If you're keeping this on hand to use a little at a time, just store it in a jar and shake it up before using, or give it another whisk with the fork.

Easy-peasy!

Tips For Lips

I have never been a particularly fashionable woman. In high school, I was the one in Daria glasses and camoflauge pants, who the popular girls sniggered at because I never wore anything that was currently in style. I do not read fashion magazines, and I cannot stand shopping malls. So don't look at me to tell you what's fashionable or stylish.

I will, however, tell you what never goes out of style, and red lipstick is at the top of that list.

Magazines tell us that red lips come and go, occasionally displaced by "nude" or pink. But they're wrong. Red lips are ALWAYS in, and no one will agree with me more emphatically than your average male. Every woman can wear red lips - if you think you can't, you just haven't found the right shade yet - and they make all the difference between "cute" and "goddess."

We all giggle at period films from the 70's and 80's because of the goofy makeup and hair. But when was the last time you heard anyone snicker at Rita Hayworth?

Here are my Ten Tips For Lips, if you aren't accustomed to rocking the vintage glam...

1. Choose a red shade that goes with your skin tone and hair. This makes all the difference between Marilyn Monroe and Ronald McDonald. Dab the sample on your wrist and see how it looks with your skin tone - typically, yellow-based skin tones (which most people have) go well with brown- or orange-based reds, and pinker skin tones go with a blue-based red. Ask the nice ladies at the makeup counter to help you find a red for you. They might even throw in a free makeover.

2. Different reds suit different occasions. A "true" or neutral red is good for daytime, while a deeper "fire engine" red makes for a sexy evening look.

3. Don't overwhelm your face with too much makeup. Red lipstick stands on its own! All you need on your eyes is a little eyeliner and mascara. If you're getting extra dolled-up, go with neutral brown tones on your eyes and a slim black eyeliner on the upper lid only. This is a very classic 1940's look that, again, suits just about everyone.

4. As with a house, a solid foundation is crucial. You don't want your red lips to play up red tones in your skin. Start with a good clear foundation, apply concealer where necessary, and then powder on top of that. This gives you the nice even-complexion look which makes the right canvas for bold lips.

5. If you have a problem with your lipstick bleeding or feathering into the little lines around your lips, apply foundation to your bare lips and then line with a good pencil before you apply your lipstick. It helps to hold your lipstick in place.

6. Try not to line with red liner - very few people can pull this off. I make my lips look a bit more full by lining with white liner in the upper "dip" part, then using a deep pink liner just outside the center of my lower lip. (I don't fill in my lips with liner as I cannot seem to do this evenly, but feel free to try it if you want to.) Then, after my lipstick, I apply a dab of clear or purple-pink gloss to the center of my lower lip and give a smack. This creates a full, wet, very appealing mouth.

7. To keep from getting lipstick all over your teeth: After you've applied your lipstick and gloss, stick your finger in your mouth with your lips on it, as though you'd dipped your finger in cake batter for a taste. Slide your finger out and it'll grab the excess lipstick off your inner lips so that it won't decorate your pretty white teeth.

8. Straws are your friend! Don't drink anything without a straw or you will WRECK your lipstick. A straw makes it much easier to keep that foxy look in place.

9. If you find your lipstick fading out in the center and collecting at the edges, do it in layers. Put on your lipstick, blot it off with toilet paper, then apply it again. The first application will leave a stain and also absorb excess moisture so the second application won't slide.

10. Speaking of moisture... I'm a big advocate of moisturizers and your lips are no exception! Drink plenty of water throughout the day, apply lip balm whenever you don't have lipstick on, and never lick your lips. Find a good lip balm and apply it first thing in the morning, giving it a few minutes to soak in before you put your lipstick on. Cracked and peeling lips never look good, no matter the color! So keep 'em soft!

I personally believe that every woman can be beautiful if she looks like she cares enough to be. This is how the legendary screen stars - some of whom, if you can envision them without makeup, were not actually that exceptional - became the goddesses we know today. So if you find yourself keeping up with modern fashions and still not feeling like a starlet, just remember that modern fashion is mostly designed by men who like boys and get in touch with a more classic womanly look. It might not be trendy, but it's timeless.

And by the way, that's me of the Daria glasses and camos in the pic.

The Spa In Your Kitchen

So your skin is blotchy, dry in patches and oily in others, looks ten years older than you are, and is just generally in need of restoration. You can go pay half a paycheck for a salon facial, or you can whip up this mask in the comfort of your own home, without even getting out of your pajamas.

Even though I'm good about moisturizing every day and taking care of my skin, I'm 30 years old and getting to the point where my face needs a boost every so often. Besides, I like to take a Beauty Day for myself every once in awhile. Sunday was one of those for me, and so I threw together a face mask...

1 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp organic yogurt
1 egg white

That is it, ladies, no mas, finite. Whisk it up in a bowl with a fork until it's all evenly blended and that's your fancy-ass spa facial. Try to use raw honey and a free-range, organically grown egg. Save the yolk - you'll use it momentarily!

Hold a hot damp towel over your face to steam it for a minute, then dry it with a fresh towel and use your fingers to apply the face mask as thickly as you can, covering your face and under your chin. If you have a little more than you need, apply it to your neck and decolletage. Let it stay there for 20-30 minutes, or until it feels very dry and tight all over.

Meanwhile if you want to treat your hair too, take that egg yolk and whisk it with a tablespoon or two of coconut oil or olive oil. Apply that to the ends of your dry hair (ends only! no roots!) and comb through your ends with your fingers so that it gets evenly distributed. Let that sit for a bit as your face does - I like to spend this time soaking in a bubble bath with a good book.

When that face mask gets so tight you can't stand it anymore, now's when you wash it off very gently with warm clean water. Use an exfoliating scrub too, if you like. Shave, if you do, and massage your whole body neck to toes with coconut oil or olive oil to keep it soft and supple. Now wash and condition your hair as usual, but before you get out of the shower, dilute a little white vinegar with an equal amount of warm water. Pour that over your head for a rinse that will leave your hair super-shiny - don't worry, it won't make you smell like vinegar, I promise!

Now step out of the tub, apply your favorite facial moisturizer, and fix yourself up. Relax and enjoy feeling extra pretty!

St. Patrick's Day: Potatoes!

Sure, we're doing corned beef in Guinness today just like everyone else (and a Guinness cake for dessert!), but let's take a moment to honor the Irish for their humblest contribution to world cuisine: the delicious potato. For some reason, Americans have recently decided that potatoes are bad for you. What a bag of hooey! Potatoes are among the most nutrient-dense foods out there, loaded with fiber to lower your cholesterol and keep you feeling full, rich in potassium, iron, copper, and heart-healthy vitamins.

In my opinion, the most healthful and delicious way to prepare potatoes is by roasting, especially if you roast them along with other root vegetables and tubers. We often have a side dish made with roasted potatoes, sunchokes, turnips, kohlrabi, carrots, celeriac, or any combination of the above. If you're ever confronted with an unfamiliar root veggie or tuber, throw it in with some diced potatoes and roast it up. And, for reasons I will explain in a minute, make double the amount that you need.

Here's our dinner from Sunday night: Steak filets cooked in a Jameson whiskey sauce with mushrooms, chard salad on the side, and there at the back is our roasted potatoes and sunchokes. The basic recipe for the roast veg follows.

ROASTED TUBERS

You can use all potatoes for this, or make it more interesting by subbing in any combination of the roots and tubers I mentioned above. (Yes, I know kohlrabi is neither root nor tuber, but honestly I don't know what category it goes in, and from a culinary standpoint I treat it just like a turnip whenever I use it raw or cooked.) I especially recommend sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes; if you use them, remember DO NOT peel them. Ever. The skins are tasty and all the nutrients are directly under the skins, so just scrub them thoroughly with a brush and leave those skins on!

5 cups diced tubers and roots
1/2 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 sprigs fresh minced rosemary, or 1 Tbsp dried
1/2 Tbsp paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 F (225 C). Chop up your veg and spread them out in a casserole dish. Whisk together the remaining ingredients and pour it all over the veggies, then use your hands to toss it all together so it's evenly distributed. Slide that dish in the oven and roast for half an hour; stir it all up, then roast for another half hour until those veggies are nicely browned and cooked through.

"Oh, but Kimberly," you say, "That's way more than the two or three of us will eat in one meal."

That's right. You made extra roasted potatoes so you can use them again! Now you can put together a quicker meal with roasted-potato deliciousness and you won't have to wait an hour while they cook. They're very good tossed into soup (lentil soup is our go-to quickie dinner around here), or you can even toss them with a little pesto sauce and have them with fish, which cooks up in under ten minutes.

Or, you can make a nice frittata in the morning.



Do not underestimate potato frittata. It's so versatile - you can add sausage or bacon to it if you're so inclined, or whatever veggies you have on hand. The eggs give you a big protein wallop to start the day, and the potatoes will keep you feeling full well into lunch time. When I make frittata, I usually have it for breakfast and again for lunch, as it tastes absolutely delicious cold or at room temperature and goes so nicely with salad. This is a great one to take to work with you.

VEGGIE FRITTATA

1 Tbsp butter or olive oil
1 leek, sliced -OR- 1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves minced garlic
2 cups leftover roasted potatoes (and other tubers if applicable)
1 carrot, grated
1/2 cup baby spinach
6 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup grated cheese (optional)

Preheat the oven to 450 F (225 C).

In a heavy, oven-safe skillet, melt the butter or olive oil over medium-high heat. Throw in the onion or leek, saute until it softens, then add in the garlic and potatoes. Continue sauteeing until the garlic starts to turn golden, stir in the grated carrots, and keep going until they soften up a bit.

While the veggies are cooking, crack all the eggs into a bowl. Add the milk, paprika, oregano, salt, and pepper; beat it with a whisk or fork until it's an even mixture. Set aside and stir the cooking veggies. When the carrots are soft, stir in the spinach and cook another minute or two until the spinach wilts, and then spread everything out evenly in the skillet. Pour in the egg mixture and tilt the skillet around to make sure the egg is evenly distributed. If you're using cheese, sprinkle that on top.

Stick the skillet into the oven and bake it for about 10-15 minutes, or until the eggs have set and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Slice into pie wedges and serve.

Happy St. Pat's, don't drink TOO much beer, and make sure you wear a little green today!

Flowers!

I thought I'd take the opportunity to celebrate spring (in my hemisphere, anyway) with a plug for one of life's little treasures. It's amazing how something so small and basic as a flower bouquet can dress up a room, a meal, a life.

Take the above pic. That's a quick breakfast I threw together the other day, just scrambled eggs and apple slices with cheddar-garlic drop biscuits. And it was so lovely there on my table by the window, with the newspaper and some delicious coffee, nibbling with my husband across the table, and a big bouquet of spring daffodils to bring the spring inside.

I feel happy when I have flowers on the table, and they elevate any meal into a dining experience, which is not only pleasurable but crucial for health. When we mindfully dine, rather than feed, we savor our food more, we chew it more thoroughly, and we eat less of it. Eating becomes an act of nourishment rather than stuffing. (For more on this subject, I recommend the excellent book French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano.) And when you're not eating, it's a great mood boost to have flowers around; I know I get a lift when I come home from a hard day at work and those bright sunny daffodils are beaming at me!

Besides, flowers don't have to be expensive, though they certainly can be. I picked up the daffodil bouquet above for $1.29 at Trader Joe's, but in the summer I typically have marigolds or roses from my yard in a small juice glass on the table. You don't need a fancy vase or a professional arrangement. Just cut some pretty flowers from wherever you find them (oh yes, I've pulled over for a wildflower before!) and stick them in water. Cut them at an angle so they take up more water and last longer, and for an even longer lifespan, drop a penny into the water too.

Vanilla-Coffee Gelato: No Ice Cream Maker Necessary!

I put this together last year when I had a brunch at my apartment and we didn't finish the huge pot of coffee I brewed. I couldn't bring myself to pour all that fresh-ground deliciousness down the sink, and I didn't have any blueberry bushes to pour it on then (now I do!), so I fell back on my favorite coffee ice cream.

I don't have an ice cream maker yet, though I hope to get one this summer. I also wanted to keep things reasonably light - not too sugary, not too rich - so I tried a freezer gelato and it worked out beautifully!

If you don't have a vanilla bean, then just use a teaspoon of vanilla extract, but I highly recommend obtaining a vanilla bean for this if you can. It makes a world of difference in the flavor, and the little specky vanilla seeds give the gelato a lot of character.

VANILLA-COFFEE GELATO

3 egg yolks (save the whites and scramble them up for breakfast later)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup honey
1 cup milk
1 cup coffee (day-old and strong, if possible)
1/2 a vanilla bean

Bring a pot of water to a boil. In a non-plastic bowl that fits over the boiling water pot, combine egg yolks, brown sugar, and honey; beat well until bubbles form. Beat in the milk, then the coffee, until it's all well-combined. Split the half vanilla bean open lengthwise, then carefully scrape out the seeds into the mixture and drop the bean in too. Give it a good stir.

Set the bowl over the boiling water and cook, stirring often, until it thickens into a custard. Make sure you scrape the bottom as you stir! You don't want to cook the custard to the bowl. Once you've got your thick custard, remove the vanilla bean and pour the custard into a freezer-safe container and stick it in the freezer.

About every half hour or so, stir it up with a fork. It will take a few hours to freeze but you only need to stir it for a minute to break up the ice forming. When it's frozen, check to see if it's icy; if it is, break it up into chunks and dump them into the blender for a quick whirl. The blender will break up the ice and you can re-freeze it all you want after that without needing to blend it again. It'll stay nice and gelato-ey in the freezer now - if, of course, you don't gobble it up right away.

Which you will.

Farm-Fresh Friday: Tuna Casserole

This photo is not my tuna casserole. This photo is an attempt at a different casserole in an attempt to be be different that I was then told was not as good as my tuna casserole.

To be honest, my tuna casserole recipe is embarassing. I don't want to post it. It's what I ate as a bachelorette from all the cans of crap in my cupboard when I was hungry and lazy. I remember my mother making this regularly and I remember loving it as a child. I've tried making it with fresh ingredients but for some reason (and I'm guessing that reason is salt) it doesn't taste as good. But it's easy. And it's quick. And it's delicious. Oh, and it's cheap.

2 cups pasta, tubular or spiral (when ultra lazy and at the end of my packets, I'd mix them to use them up)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can peas, drained
1 can corn, drained
1 average can tuna, mercury free, because even as a bachelorette I was 'picky' (my excuse)
1 cup cheese
Salt/Pepper to taste (though I don't use salt - I feel the corn and cheese has enough)


Preheat oven to 180/360
Boil pasta and drain. Normally people say to mix all the ingredients in a bowl, but I never did. I always put them directly in the casserole dish and stirred it around with a butterknife (see.. this IS embarassing) until it was mixed. If the dish looked a little low and I had it on hand, I'd add some cream, but not often. It's perfect as is.

Bake for twenty minutes with lid on, ten minutes with lid off.

I wish I was joking when I say everyone loves this recipe. I didn't want to post it. I wanted to make some fancy fresh chicken casserole for this post and was immediately told it wasn't as good as my 'casserole from a can'. DAMN. Curses. Narf!

Spoon into bowls. Feeds four, but I could eat the thing by myself in front of the TV straight from the casserole dish.

Tight-Arse Tuesday: Sowing Your Seed

If you're in the northern hemisphere, the weather out there on this February morning is probably not anything that makes you want to get out into the garden. Get started now, though, and you can save a LOT of money by starting your own seeds.

By the time the weather's nice enough to start planting outside, you've already missed the buss on a lot of delicious, healthy spring vegetables, and you've cut your tomato season short. Or you'll have to pay several dollars for each little baby plant, when you could've started even more plants for less than the cost of one.

So first find yourself some containers. Those little flats that you buy veggie transplants in work fine, but you can also use tin cans, yogurt cups, paper coffee cups, etc. Just punch a couple little holes in the bottom for drainage and they're good to go! Fill each one about 3/4 of the way (at least a few inches deep) with seed starting mix - note that this is NOT potting soil. Potting soil is too heavy for seeds. But don't worry, seed starter is not expensive.

Once you've got them all ready, make a little hole in each one (a few holes in each if you have a larger container like a butter tub) with a pencil, about as deep as it says to plant on the seed packet. Drop a couple of seeds in each hole, using tweezers for tiny seeds, and gently brush the soil over them. Mist liberally with water from a clean spray bottle; don't pour water in or you'll disturb the soil and move the seeds around. Label each container with masking tape and a Sharpie so you remember what's planted in each one.

Now you have to keep them warm. If it's cold where you are, you can cover each container with plastic wrap to make it a mini-greenhouse, just keep an eye on things to make sure it's not getting too hot inside. (If it is, you can lift a corner of the plastic for ventilation.) Another thing you can do is put your little pots on a cookie sheet and set that on top of a heating pad. Don't get it so hot that it bakes your plants, but this is a great way to keep your little seeds all snug and cozy.

Mist them with water every few days, or if your containers are shallow, pour a little water into the cookie sheet and let them wick it up from underneath.

In a week or so, you'll have small green babies crowning through the soil. Make sure they're in a place where they can get plenty of sunlight, or point a flourescent light at them for most of the day. You can switch on the flourescent light when you get up in the morning and shut it off after dinner in the evenings.

Let them keep growing this way for a few weeks, until it warms up outside and there's no more danger of frost. At that point you'll already have all your pretty little veggie starts and you won't have to go pay a fortune for them at the garden center. And delicious, homegrown veggies will only be a few weeks away!