New Mulch ~ So Neat & Tidy

I've been putting down new mulch in the pathways lately, half a yard at a time.  This is what it looked like a week ago, after the first yard.

I've been getting half a yard, all that will fit in my little Toyota Tacoma, most days after work.  It only takes four wheelbarrows full, half an hour, to unload and spread.  Below is what it looked like today after spreading the latest half yard.

I'm lovin' it!  And all just a little half yard at a time.  Like eating an elephant.

I was just talking about this to a customer yesterday, and another one today.  They were both overwhelmed because I'd just explained to neophyte-gardeners-them how much compost they'd need to haul and spread and work into their planting beds and over their lawn.  I told them of my garden mulch project, how I'm doing it just a half an hour a day, and how good it's looking after just a little more than a week.  I gave them a pep talk about how they could do it themselves, that they didn't need to hire anyone or beg favors from guy friends with trucks.  I wish I would have had these pictures to show them.  

I used to get two full yards at a time when I had my big truck.  It was a chore to unload.  I'd be out there for hours shoveling and spreading and shoveling and spreading.  I came to dread it.

So I avoided doing it.  I'd sheet mulched and put down new mulch each year, but the weeds kept coming, some probably because I waited 'til the last minute, avoiding.  Last year I had some health problems (I'm a lot better now.), so the weeds really got away from me.

 One year of seeds equals seven years of weeds.  I saw the writing on the wall early this year (after two days of pulling weeds out of the walkways, and that was with Rhonda helping. Ugh.), so sprung for black contractor's plastic right away and made the firm decision to just eat that elephant one half yard of pine bark mulch at a time.  

I'm done fighting weeds.  I want a pretty garden that's easy(er) to keep up.

 I think I have it now.

I may sound all calm here, but inside I'm jumpin up and down and dancing a HELLUVA jig!  

Champagne Cake for Mardi Gras

I am SO proud of this one!  I think it's the best decorated one yet.  I still have lots of practicing to do, especially making the corners of a square fondant-covered cake smooth.  But from where I was over a year ago, I'm doing pretty good.

I'm not one for hearts and such, so I chose a Mardi Gras theme for this February birthday cake.  I used tumeric for the gold fondant, and TruColor Natural Food colors for the purple, green, and gold decorations.  And I was also able to play around with rice paper for the feathers on top.  What fun!

I learned a lot on this cake.  I can't wait to do another like it.  Maybe on the Day of the Dead, or Talk Like a Pirate Day!  Oooooh, how much fun would those be?!

 Champagne Cake
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup champagne
6 egg whites

Preheat oven to 325° & prepare a 10" round cake pan.

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together, and then blend into creamed mixture alternately with champagne.

In another large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into batter to lighten it, then fold in remaining egg whites. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake at 325 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 25 to 30 minutes or longer, until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

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More Pictures with the New Camera

When I looked out my front window this morning,

I saw this...

The sunrise was shining off the sycamore trees.

I had to grab my camera and go play.

I walked out to the porch and looked through the viewfinder, but the scene wasn't quite right.  I walked down the front path, out to the driveway, and partway up it.

I had such a wonderful time, seeing my home through the eyes of someone else.  Instead of seeing it all at once, warts and all, I saw little places that could be framed, that would stand alone as beautiful. Everywhere I looked, there were sweet little scenes within the whole.  The sycamores led me to the barns that led me to Daddy's shop that led me to the creek that led me to the cabin that led me back to the barns.

An hour later I came back inside to download the photos. 

I did something wrong and lost all but the two above.

Sigh.  

I had an excuse to go back out again!

Who lives here I wonder.

Maybe this guy?

Nah.  He's too small.

Pecans.  Lots and lots of pecans.

I have fat squirrels.

The Open Hay Shed.

Daddy built that forty-odd years ago.

The last Longhorn.

I shall call her T-Bone.

My neighbor, Cosmo.

Sugar Pie.

Tiny little Sugar Pie.

The horses, Shirley Anne and Christmas.

They're so shiny.

He has such a kind eye.

The Big Old Barn.

We used to store hay in here.  We'd back a trailer full right up to those

double doors and pile it all up inside.  It's seventeen feet high at the 

apex.  It was always such a good feeling every year when it was full.

The End.

Pictures with the New Camera

I got a new camera, so I took it out to play with it today.

I love winter gardening.  Everything grows so much slower, 

so it's easier to keep up with.  The bugs move slower, too.  Love that.
You don't have to kill yourself watering so much, and it's hard to
get heat stroke working in a winter garden.
Everything is just much more forgiving.

Got the onions planted.  Last year the Texas Early Whites kicked butt in the
keeper category.  They lasted 'til November before they started sprouting.
All the rest long since had.  So I definitely planted more of them.  

And since there's no such thing as a bad onion, I had to plant some of all
the others, too.  There are few things better than a red onion
pulled fresh from the ground.  I love to eat them with mayo and bacon.
My own version of a BLT - a BOM.

Pretty purple Brussels sprouts with Swiss chard, kale, kohlrabi,
and little ol' leeks in the front corner.

Sprouts are hard to grow in Texas.  They're really new "branches" or "heads"
of the plant growing on the sides of the stalk, so need a long, stable cold
period to grow without wanting to open up their little leaves.  Mine are already
starting to open, probably because it was 82 degrees the other day.
But since the entire plant is edible (and I love them the most),
I think they're worth a spot in the garden.  

Purple, red and blue colors in fruits and vegetables are from anthocyanins.
While they are antioxidants, it hasn't been proven that they actually do us
any good.  I disagree.  Since seeing so much purple in my garden
and then on my plate makes me deliriously happy
- because PURPLE! -
I claim it DOES do me a lot of good.

Collards in the front.  Time to make a mess of them.  Mama was from Jackson, Mississippi, so I come by my love of them honestly.

Cauliflower and Romanesco, just starting to head up.
See how the leaves in the center are all pursed together like they're
puckering up for a kiss?  There's your sign.

More kale.  The one on the right is one of my favorites - Red Russian.

Dino Kale, aka Lacinato or Nero Tuscano.  

Makes some badass kale chips.

Hon Tsai Tai sprouting broccoli.  I want to harvest some, 

but the bees are loving it so much I'd feel guilty.

But maybe there's enough for me, too.

And the artichokes.  I need to fertilize them and give them some compost.

I've really neglected them, but they keep giving me 'chokes every year anyway.

Not bad for a glorified weed.  A thistle.

Pretty, giant, yummy thistles.

It's so interesting how the same type and cultivar of plants can have such
different leaves.  Georgia collards do that, too.

Mmmmmm, dinner.  I ate it up with some butter and chicken

fried up in my cast iron skillet.

Nomnomnomnomnom.

Pretty in Purple

Purple.

Purplepurplepurplepurplepurple.

I love purple.

It's pretty with green.

It's pretty alongside green.

And it's pretty instead of green.

The Perfect White Cake

The Perfect White Cake, from Cooks Illustrated by way of I Am Baker.

This is the best, most useful white cake I've ever baked or tasted. I haven't tried a LOT of white cake recipes because once I tried this one, it was so far and away better than any other I've ever baked or tasted that I quit searching for "The One."  Because it IS "The One."

The latest Perfect White Cake I just baked this afternoon using
gluten free flour (garbonzo bean based), fresh out of the oven
and still hot. Baked at 325F for one hour and fifteen minutes.
This one was even lighter than the one baked yesterday at a
lower temp for longer time.

I've made this in all kinds of ways: regular wheat, gluten free, all purpose flour instead of cake flour (*without* added corn starch), even forgot the vanilla once (accidentally putting in extra almond flavor instead), and it has always been fab.

It's springy-soft, but dense enough for fondant and stacking. (Full disclosure - I have yet to stack anything bigger than a three-tier, 8"-6"-4", so not sure how it'd hold up if you try stacking a 14" one or so, but I'd think it'd do well with good support.)

It isn't bright, clear white, but if you need that level of whiteness for a wedding or such, I'd try bleached white cake flour, clear vanilla, and substitute solid-at-room-temp coconut oil for the butter. I've used coconut oil instead of butter or shortening in other baked recipes, and it's always great. Make sure your almond flavor's clear, too. I've not tried this level of changing up the recipe so you would want to do a test run of course, but can't imagine that it wouldn't work quite well.

Just a note: bleached white flour is just that - bleached.  So in no way is it organic or even halfway healthy.  Would I ever use it?  I'm not sure.  Maybe.  Only if it was a very special circumstance when regular yellowish flour wouldn't work.  But I surely wouldn't do it often.  Everything in moderation.

Also, it may need baking for longer than the 25-30 minutes given in the recipe. Test at that time and see how you come out with it. I can't remember for sure how long at 350F, but experimenting today with baking lower and longer to get it lighter on the outside, it took an hour and fifteen minutes at 325. Came out beautifully.

Even the bottom was beautiful. I lined the pan with parchment
paper only - no grease or flour or anything else.

It freezes well, too. I did an experiment with one once: wrapped it in three layers of plastic wrap, then in a ziploc freezer bag, froze it and kept taking it out periodically to taste test it, sometimes letting the whole thing defrost and sometimes just cutting a piece off and putting it back. Six months later and it was still *really* good, as good or better than when first baked.

And, if all that's not enough, since the flavor is so neutral (yet still OH-SO-TASTY!!), you can use just about any filling or frosting or icing or ganache you can think of.  ... Well, maybe not avocado.  Yeah, probably not that.  But I bet it would even be good with cheese.  Mmmmm cheddar.  And bacon.  Ooooooh!  Bacon cake with chocolate ganache!  Nomnomnom.  I'm going to the grocery store tomorrow...

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The Perfect White Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour (or all-purpose - just substitute 2 Tbsps per cup with same amount of cornstarch - if you don't have cornstarch, it'll still be very tasty, just a bit more dense, like pound cake)
1 cup milk at room temperature
6 large egg whites at room temperature
2 teaspoons almond extract (or leave out, subbing ONE extra tsp vanilla)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened but still cool (if all you have is salted butter, just leave out the salt above)

• Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans.
• Make sure milk and eggs are room temperature. Pour milk, egg whites, and extracts into medium bowl and whisk until blended.
• Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter, cut into cubes and continue beating on low for about 1-2 minutes.
• Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to flour mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat for about 1 minute.
• Pour batter evenly between two prepared cake pans.
• Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 27 to 30 minutes, though could be much longer depending on your oven.
• Alternately, for a lighter crust: Bake at 325 for one hour, test, and bake for an additional 15 minutes if not quite done.

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Three-tier, gluten-free Perfect White Cake with cream cheese frosting. Made July, 2014.

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Snow Cake ~ January, 2015

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