One of the biggest perks of having a house is also having a yard. We love us some yardwork. We finally bought a shovel this weekend, so we added a couple of shrubs and some new raised garden beds to our family!
If you have ever tried to dig in Austin dirt in the hot season, you will understand why I now have blisters all over my hands. My goodness, it was like digging a hole in cement.
Like farm to table, except it started as a pin… get it??
Here are some of my recipe pins that I am excited to try soon. Quinoa and blueberries for breakfast. Sweet and salty bagels. Shrimp and grits. Gluten-free almond coconut cookies. Let me know what you are cooking up this weekend!
PS: I just hit 2,000 pins this morning! How exciting for me!
Double PS: Isn’t it the worst when you see something, and it leads to nowhere? I assure you that all pins that I can remember have been tried and tested.
This week we went to Blue Star Cafeteria. We drank our coffee, and I was jealous of his cheese grits. (But he’s the best so he shared with me.)
As in a quilt made of free tshirts. College is all about the free tshirts.
I have carried this huge collection of shirts to every place I have lived in Austin for the past like 6 years, with the goal of making them into a quilt. I finally looked at it and thought: well, I have some time now, if you’re available…
So I got out my scissors and did some cutting, and wondered why I didn’t do this years ago. Do you ever have those projects where you keep the supplies around, and mean to get around to it, but just never do, so the supplies are just sitting there taking up space? Well, this is mine, and I just did the first step. Can’t stop me now.
Remember these? We are getting ready for the arrival of a new table for our work room, and I’ve been doing a lot of cleaning out and organizing. I happened to remember cereal box holders. Now we have a couple homeless bags of cereal, but two brand new ribbon and interfacing holders. I covered them with brown paper, and then added some tape accents. They almost look like two really tall books. Like for giants to read.
So while the rest of the people seem to be enjoying fall (?), it still seems pretty much like summer down here. But football season has started, and it did rain a little yesterday, so I have some hope that fall might start in the next 3 months.
Until then, we will embrace the ice cream weather. My latest batch was coffee ice cream, and I mixed tiny chocolate chips into it. Then I happened to make these very thin chocolate chip cookies. Stick the two together, and you have the perfect ice cream delivery system.
These cookies are correctly engineered for ice cream sandwiches. They are thin and soft enough to bite into, but still strong enough to withstand the ice cream. They also seem extra porous, so they kinda soak up the ice cream without getting soggy.
I am getting pretty good at the homemade ice cream thing. The addition of mini chocolate chips is highly recommended.
Perfect (end of) summer treat.
Guess what? These cookies don’t have any sugar! (Which is a mild lie since they have molasses in them, but you don’t put in any extra sugar.) So they are healthy! (Depending on what you are comparing them to.)
Make them for yourself!
Heat 1 cup molasses to boiling point. Remove from heat.
Stir in 1/2 cup butter and 1 tsp baking soda. Then stir in 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 3/4 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 tsp ginger.
Chill the dough. Roll out very thin (1/16″) Cut into shapes. Bake on parchment in 350 oven for 5-7 minutes or until set.
I probably underbaked these a tiny bit, so they were still a little soft. I think they are meant to be a little crispier, but I bet they are a treat either way.
Speaking of baby-sized squashes- zucchini muffins are delicious. Whoever thought of putting vegetables into muffins and spreading the rumor that it makes them healthy is a genius. (Fun fact: According to the internet, the zucchini, like many of its garden friends, is actually a fruit.) These ones taste more like maple and walnuts than zucchini, which is probably why they taste so good.
Next time, I might try this recipe for chocolate chip zucchini muffins (no butter or sugar!).
This was a very selective harvest. It was also a test to see how many pear tomatoes can be eaten in one sitting. (Answer: all of them.)
And who doesn’t love when squashes grow to the size of a small (or medium) sized baby. There will be grated zucchini in the freezer for years.
Hens and chicks planted in a chicken planter. Get it??
We clipped some of these, and I brought them home to plant. I don’t know how they will do planted in a regular, boring pot, since they have grown accustomed to being so hilarious all the time.
guy and his girl 