Walking Tour of a Snowy Day

I thought you might like to see a snowy day in Minnesota.

Today we had a little snow fall, a few inches.

I helped to push 2 cars out of snow banks.

Nothing special, just a Minnesota day.

See the rabbit tracks across my path?

Or rather my tracks across the rabbit's path?

Foot trap.

Across a field.

Drift.

Through the woods.

The last tree on the edge of world!

More snow and a road....if you can find it.

Ice covered vines.

The Ladies liked to sit under there in the summer.

Tree fingers and cockle burrs.

Gnome home.

Winter flowers.

Chicken Coats

I get to chicken sit again!

Yay!

I spent a couple hours with the girls today.

And made them coats.....

I think this picture below sums up the Ladies opinion of coats.

A few of the girls were being picked on by their sisters.

Now they sport stylish pink fuzzy coats to cover their bare backs.

Warm and toasty!

I cut the holes too big on the first couple.

They are very easy to make.

No sewing!

This one is the right size.

It fits tighter across her back.

Look at little Hawky!

Pretty girl!

Avocado and Ponzu

I'm a Foodbuzz featured publisher. Sometimes I get samples of things to try out.

On Wednesday I found a surprise package from Kikkoman on my doorstep.

Yay! for surprise packages!

As you can see from the picture above, my bottle leaked inside the package.

Whoops!

Guess Kikkoman didn't plan on freezing Minnesota winter weather.

Couldn't they just have mailed a coupon for a free bottle?

Oh, well I liked getting a package!

The first thing I tried the Ponzu with was an avocado.

Mmmmm it was soooo good!

Lime, salt, sweet with rich buttery avocado.

Yum!

Check back later for a shrimp croquette recipe using Ponzu.

Lunch At Grandma's House

I had lunch with my Grandma last Wednesday.

It was really fun!

And she made another great lunch, including this yummy caramel apple pie.

I had two pieces!

And then I took a nap.

Ha ha

Grandma with her yummy caramel apple pie.

Cute potato and pea boats.

Close up of caramel apple pie.

So sweet and gooey, but not too sweet.

It tasted healthy......in a good way.

Seed Box

I saw this great idea on another blog My Tiny Plot.

She organized her seed box by month, but because my growing season is so short here, I didn't think that would work for me, so I used plant names.

I also used a bright neon orange box, so I can't lose it in my garden.

Before.

My "seed box".

Very unorganized! I just put all my seed packets in this cardboard box and when I wanted to plant something I would dig through all of them.

Not the best system.

In fact, last year I forgot to plant shell beans, because I didn't see the 2 packets until August.

Whoops! Too late!

Now.

Nice and organized.

Now, I can see what seeds I need to order for this year - mostly peppers, flowers and one or two new tomatoes, but I have lots of seeds to use from last year.

I also like this box, because it has a cover.

(It's a shoe box.)

DB's Challenge - Nanaimo Bars

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

I did not have very much luck with this recipe. Well, the recipe was fine. I just lost my ability to read or something and had to make the recipe twice. One recipe that was waaaay off and strange (although everyone at work ate it up and said it was sinful) and one recipe where I followed the recipe (whoa! what an idea!).

When I followed the recipe the bars turned out perfectly and were delicious.

The mistake bars were good too, but they were really messy to eat.

Let me explain about my mistake. Like I said, I didn't read the recipe. I skimmed the recipe and read something about pudding. So when I was at work, it was 2 days to the post deadline and a huge blizzard blew into town, shutting down all the roads, I panicked!
I needed to make the bars and I couldn't get to the store to buy a package of pudding mix.

What to do?

Go to my Mom and ask her.

How do you make pudding at home?

She whipped up a batch of vanilla pudding for me.

Fast forward to me making the bars.

The recipe called for 2 Tablespoons of dry pudding powder.
I put in 2 cups of pudding!

It wasn't even close to the recipe.

(insert me rolling eyes at myself)

~

Alls well that ends well though.

I made the bars again....2 days past the deadline.

Sorry Daring Baker's!

And the bars are very yummy - rich,but tasty.

I ate one for breakfast.

Part of the challenge was to make our own graham crackers to use in the nanaimo bars crust.

Like I said before - biggest blizzard ever- and I couldn't get to the store to buy the gluten free ingredients.

True, I could have planned better and bought the ingredients ahead of time, but I was distracted with my planning for the Potato Dinner Party.

~

So, I didn't have any whole wheat flour.

I ground up some oatmeal and made oatmeal flour.

Oatmeal flour.



The rest of the ingredients.
I decided to make chocolate graham crackers.

Graham cracker dough mixed up.

Graham crackers rolled out.

It is a very soft and tender dough.

Oh yeah, maybe that's because I used pastry flour and oatmeal flour.

Again - big storm and empty cupboards.

Graham crackers baking.

I cut the crackers after they came out of the oven.

And then I let them sit out to dry.

They broke apart (fell apart) very easily.

Nanaimo bar crust ready to mix up.

Now stop reading: 'Cause I'm about to show you my mistake recipe.

This is all the lovely pudding my Mom made for me with lots of powdered sugar.

Pudding filling poured on top of the crust.

Lots of layers.

Chocolate on top.

And this is what it should look like!