Hat-tastic

It's been so hot here, I haven't wanted to do much experimenting with new flavors. So instead I'm experimenting with hats. Yes, HATS! Well, one hat...

So the brim is rather wonky and the interior needs a bit of help... and some elastic.... but it's recognizable as a hat, so I'm rather proud of myself considering the only thing I've ever sewn on my own before is a potholder. 

Credit goes out to PandaFace on Flickr for providing the pattern. With some tweaking, I think can have myself a right snazzy hat. 

Victory Garden This Ain't

 It may or may not be common knowledge by now that I have bees.

There's something about beekeeping gear that lends itself to frump.

While my bees have been building their numbers, I've been growing sunflower seeds into plants that ought to have been put in a proper home by this point in their lives, and last weekend the garden bed was built for them. It was my birthday present!

 Today, the fun began. It was they day I got to play with dirt!

Three hours of sifting, hauling and dumping buckets of dirt and the box still isn't full. The plants still aren't in the ground. I did end up with a new pair of shorts courtesy of my old worn out jeans that jest decided they didn't want to anymore.

For those of you counting, that's both legs torn from the knee on up. 

Very unladylike, shame on me. 

Georgia Clay

 Some months ago we bought a house. (Yay!) The previous owner/tenant had not been too kind to it nor to the dirt driveway. While collecting fill dirt to fix the massive ruts and holes in the driveway, I kept finding huge lumps of clay. Knowing how good clay is for the skin, I couldn't help but want to make something of this find.

 Experiments are now under way to discover what can be done with this natural bounty.

 Today's experiment: Removing the sand, grit and leaf bits from the beautiful red clay.

Watery red clay, kindly note the lack of leaves, twigs or sand.

 There's a larger water-to-clay ratio than I had planned, so now it's time to let the sun do her work and evaporate some of the excess water. Give that a couple days and we'll see what there is to make of this gorgeous stuff.

 Also stumbled upon some white clay, well gray would be more accurate a description. Also experimenting on that, but there are red striations throughout the lumps and it seems that I'm just getting a rather ugly dirty brown watery mess from that bunch of clay lumps.

 Cross your fingers and we'll see what happens next!

On Brittle

 Long time no post, eh?

 Let's begin with a question: What is the single most annoying thing about brittles?

 Tell the truth now. I'm a big girl, I can take it.

 To me, the most annoying thing is that it goes sticky so quickly. I like it when candy can stick around a while. But brittle, after about a week and a half starts getting affected by the humidity. So you have to eat an ENTIRE pound of brittle inside a week. While some might not see this as a bad thing, I like my candy in moderation.

 So what can we do about this?

 I'm glad you asked!

 Experiments have begun (pictures to follow shortly) to determine the best way to preserve brittle sans preservatives. That's right, Sakura Melanie got herself a Food Saver!

Truffles, No Green Tea.

  My finished truffles. They are supposedly green tea truffles, but there isn't a hint of green tea to them. All I get is chocolate when I eat them. Much ramp up the green tea flavor next time.

  Also, will NEVER use straight cocoa powder on the outside ever again. The bitter shock of it totally ruins the nom that follows. 

  Did enjoy the not-so-green-tea-y truffle with my tea yesterday morning, however.

Whoopie Pies

   Just before Thanksgiving I got my first official order. Granted it was from a friend, but still. She wanted Whoopie Pies for her Thanksgiving. I got so excited to get everything ready, I forgot to take pictures of the process and of the final product. All I had left to photograph where the few that were too ugly to mail! So, here are the ugly ones. You'll just have to imagine how pretty the others were. 

   I remembered the photographs after I'd already packaged the pies, so here you see how nice and neat I packed everything. :)

Chocolate Cookies - End Results

 My chocolate cookies came out fantastic! They were more like decadent and delicious brownie bites than I had expected. The addition of orange zest while I rolled them into balls before baking was perfect. But I love a Terry’s Chocolate Orange, so I would think that, wouldn’t I?

 The cinnamon was so subtle I didn’t even realize it was there, so next time I’ll need to add a bit more. The mint… was mint. It didn’t wow me, but I wasn’t totally disappointed. Perhaps if it were straight peppermint instead of a mint blend, it would have been better.

 Overall, five stars, but definitely not a child’s cookie.