Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Boo-boo-ies! And strawberries too!

When Buttercup was a toddler she used to call blueberries, "boo-boo-ies." This has kind of stuck and is a moniker we toss around quite a bit in our house.

This morning the girls and I decided to head over to Bauer Berry Farm to pick some of these:

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It was a bit damp (rained last night) so we brought some Girl Scout sit-upons and an old towel. The weather really was perfect - cool and cloudy, but no rain. We brought two ice cream buckets and set to work.

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It didn't take long to start getting a significant amount of berries in our bucket!

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After awhile Buttercup got distracted by a nice big frog hopping around, and a little creeped out by several daddy-long-leg spiders crawling around the blueberry bushes. Daisy was quite the trooper and picked a lot of berries.

Then the girls thought we should ask if they still had strawberries for picking, and they did! So we consolidated our blueberries into one bucket and headed to the strawberry field. We ended up with a nice bucket of strawberries too.

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In the end, both ice cream buckets were almost full, and now we have 4lbs of blueberries and 4lbs of strawberries. I think we need to get busy in the kitchen! I will probably freeze some of the blueberries... maybe make some freezer jam, maybe some blueberry buckle or cobbler or something. The girls were thinking about making smoothies. Yummy!

Monday, July 6, 2009

Check out the chard!

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This year I decided on a whim to try some swiss chard in the garden. I have a vague memory of my grandmother growing swiss chard in the garden, and sending some home with mom and me when we visited in the summers.

I bought this rainbow chard - the stems come in different colors, though it seems to be mostly white, yellow and magenta. It looks pretty though! (Don't mind the owl overlooking the chard - he's just hangin' out.. perhaps watching for chipmunks, maybe enjoying the sun, we're not sure. He's pretty demure).

So tonight I went out and gathered some chard. I cooked it very simply tonight because I was also making a veggie primavera that was a bit more... time-consuming I guess you could say. Anyway, I sauteed some onion and garlic in some olive oil, added the swiss chard, put in a bit (few tablespoons) of chicken broth, and then let it sautee for awhile. Seasoned with salt and pepper - it was wonderful! Now Mike wants to plant a whole raised bed of chard next year. I do think that perhaps I should have planted more!

I have to say one of the fun things about having a garden is that the kids are much more willing to try things. They stroll by the green onions and pull some of the tops off and nibble on them... they pull mint leaves and do the same. Well, Daisy is one of the pickiest eaters I know, and has already made it clear she does. not. like. spinach. I explained swiss chard was like spinach, and lo and behold... she decided to try it! Of course in her typical style, it had to be a small bite with a separate fork (God forbid the chard taste linger on her pasta fork!). As it turns out, she didn't like it ("blech!"), but hey, I give her points for trying.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Happy Fourth of July!

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Cupcakes... yummy! I made homemade vanilla cupcakes today, with vanilla buttercream frosting. Buttercup piped the frosting on most of the cupcakes, and we added some sprinkles and cute decorations. Fun!

Oh, and my search for a white pedestal cake stand is over - found this cute one at an antique mall in Indiana.