This and That and a baby duck

I hope you all had a nice Memorial Day weekend.  We spent most of it in the garden and on the Harley.  We now have to do a repair on the tiller and the mower to resume work sadly.  

We have decided we will do our motorcycle rides before or after our meals at home.   No more eating out unless we can order ahead of time.  It is taking us 2-3 hours to get food inside restaurants and then good luck getting them to give you your bill timely.  It's not worth it to help a business, unless like I said, we can order ahead.  The wait time is awful.  One day we put over 300 miles on the bike.  I am now sun burned, but will be outside again today.

The plants are hardened and ready to plant though.  I just need my awesome husband to repair the tiller and get more tilled.

We are getting more asparagus from the garden. Yum.

The green beans, carrots and beets are coming up now.

Our daughter who works, was outside on her break and somehow a baby duck showed up.  It had no family anywhere, so she caught it, boxed it up and brought it home.  Thankfully, the animal sanctuary took the duck. 

Weed Growth ~ Pot planted vs. Ground Growing ~ Mullein and Burdock

Mullein planted in a pot last year and survived winter, but it's small.

Mullein that popped up in a bed close to the house, along with burdock.  Big difference in size.  I think this bed will be my weed bed now, aside from the mints.  I need a bed in the ground somewhere for those.

Burdock.  I never planted this in a pot, as it grows wild all over the place.

Spicy Apple Crunch Cake

Yesterday I shared a blast from the past recipe, from my Spanish class (High School Days).  Today, I am sharing another blast from the past recipe.  It's funny and somewhat frightening that I saved these recipes.  When I was hunting for the sopaipilla recipe, I ran across a binder full of recipes from my Home Ec. class in Junior High School.  It uses applesauce vs. apples.  It was a very moist coffee cake, and apparently the family loved it, as it went very fast after I baked it.

Spicy Apple Crunch Cake (adapted with organic ingredients)

2 Cups All purpose flour
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs, farm fresh
1 cup home canned applesauce
1/4 cup milk
1 cup walnuts, chopped

Topping:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup flour, all purpose
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
1 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350°F and grease only the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking pan.  

In large bowl mix all ingredients except the walnuts and  topping ingredients.  Blend on a low speed until ingredients are moistened.  Beat 3 minutes at medium speed.  Stir in walnuts.  Pour batter in prepared baking pan.

Mix all topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly on top.  Bake for 35-40 minutes.

Note:  For muffins, bake for 20-30 minutes (24 muffins)

Fair Food Craze ~ Homemade Sopaipillas

Apparently, in this pandemic time, people are going crazy over "fair food."  One restaurant started it.  They dedicated one night for serving a drive thru with just fair food.  I didn't go, but the entire town (Big City) went.  I heard there was a 3-4 hour wait in line.  

The next day, the town announced that fair food vendors will be set up this weekend at the fair grounds for selling food.  I am sure that will end up a crowd too.

I decided to do a fair food night at home.  I made homemade corn dogs with real beef dogs and homemade batter.

We also made hand cut fries to go with them, but that's not all.  I started us out with a batch of homemade sopaipillas, an old, old high school recipe from Spanish class.  We used to make them and sell them at lunch at school to raise money for our Spanish class.  They are like mini elephant ears you'd get at the fair.  Just for the update, all the fairs have canceled their fair this year.

Sopaipillas

2 cups all purpose flour

1 Tbsp Baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 Tbsp. shortening

2/3 cup lukewarm water

Fat for frying

Cinnamon and sugar to coat

Stir together, flour baking powder and salt.  Cut in the shortening until mixture resembles corn meal.  Gradually add the water stirring with a fork (dough will be crumbly).

Turn onto floured surface, knead into small ball.  Divide dough in half and let stand 10 minutes.  Roll each dough into a 12 ½ inch by 10 inch rectangle.  Cut into 2 ½ inch squares (do not re-roll the dough).  Fry a few at a time at 400°F in hot oil.  Drain on paper towel.  Roll in cinnamon and sugar.  Makes 40

Rose Bed Progress

We split hostas a while back and added them to the troublesome rose bed.  These are very large hostas and will crowd out the grass, but we have much more work to do on it.  Hopefully, I'll be back with a good update.

Yesterday I planted 23 sweet potato slips, but the rain returned and the garden is swamped.  I could only plant from the edge.  More rain fell last night and I am so sad that it may be another year of battling the rain.

We now realize how important a greenhouse is.  It may go to the top of the list if the rain continues.

On a good note, the plants have had 4 days of hardening, and we pray next weeks (predicted the entire week ahead) is wrong.

Everything but the "to-do" list

It was breakfast for dinner.

Biscuits were baked for sausage gravy, scrambled farm fresh eggs (thank you chickens), and fried potatoes.  I forgot to see if I had enough apples for fried apples though.

I also cut all the yellow netting up, and got them the strips rolled into balls for future dish scrubbies.  I have a few more colors to cut in strips, so I won't run out of things to do on rainy days (as well as deep clean totes in my closet, which I discovered high school stuff I can clean).  

I finally felt like crafting after I cleaned up some rooms around the house.  Got the last two of these painted with white paint.  More work needs done to finish them.

I think I did everything that was not on my to-do list this week, so I need to get back on track ha ha!

Frustrating Weather

The water receded this morning, but we had horrible winds, and our lamp post that was propped up in a tree was blown down again and looks broken this time.

The ground is saturated and I fear it'll be another year like last year.  Not sure, but the weekend is the only good weather time to till more and it all depends on if this ground dries up.

The library is open but curbside, and next week by appt.  Not sure I'll be going for a while.  I do miss it, but too many restrictions - no interloaning at all.  Our library is very small, and doesn't have many choices and can only loan out from their library to city patrons with their library card.

Next week's predictions of weather do not look good for us at all.  Thunderstorm after thunderstorm.  Not only is this a problem for putting in the rest of the garden and the condition of the garden for growing, but for hardening of my plants indoors.  They got two days outside, but the wind and colder weather today are not conducive.

On the upside, we have talked about how the last two years have made it very difficult, and the importance of a greenhouse now.  I could have them all hardened by now (plants) and made it quicker to plant.  Time is the issue.  When your husband works full time, it's hard to have the energy to work at night after a full day of work of climbing ladders etc.  Say a prayer we get one built this year, so it's ready for next year.

I hope your weather is better and your gardens are doing good.  I'm just very very concerned again this year.  We need the food from it too. 

I'm also frustrated with our Governor.  Yesterday he lifted the ban on non-essential travel, but I'm so confused if he lifted the stay-at-home order or not.  When the media asked questions, he never answered them directly - is it an order?  is it strongly recommended? is it an advisory?  There was no direct answer to it.  He also lied.  He said 95% of Ohio would be open by the end of May, and that is not true.  Restaurants running at 50% capacity and some not even open.  Even the library is only doing curbside, and that is not the same for them either.  He said churches were never closed.  Huh? Like I said, I'm so confused and what they are doing, but he did say no groups of 10 or more and yet we can sit with 50 strangers in a restaurant.  It's so messed up in our state, and they are still pushing the wearing of masks.  That's been an argument from the beginning.