Wednesday's Hearth...the gardening edition

So, I've been wanting to plant a few things for us to eat. I wanted to get as local as possible with my food, which is growing it myself. And I wanted to start my garden from seed. Which is a pretty lofty thing for me, because my thumb isn't exactly green...it's not black or dark brown, but kind of muddy coloured. But oh well! I tried. My cucumbers are BURSTING, these babies are doing awesome! My pumpkins, despite the flood waters, seem to be doing awesome. Everything else... the rosemary, the tomatoes, the onions, the parsley and lavender are doing HORRIBLE. They got to the first 2 leaf stage....and that's it. They remained spindly and never got their true leaves. I'm not sure what I did wrong. I'll have to continue trying to figure it out, I know, practice makes perfect. But because of how good my cucumber plants are doing, I HAVE to get other plants now in order to keep them from dying as well. So I'll be heading to the local farmers market soon to pick up some already started veggies and herbs. I will probably pick up some flowers while I'm at it and work on the front yard some. Especially now that I have a whole summer to play in it. :) Yay! I have some weeding and some mulching and stuff to do this next week after finals. I have two more finals remaining and then I have my graduation on Friday. Which is why this blog has been kind of random when it posts. I'm sorry about that. I've been studying like crazy. Two down and two to go. And I think I've done well on both so far. So, no new recipe this week. Maybe next week, I'll post a couple.

Until tomorrow!

Triple "R" Tuesday...Random rrrrs

I was talking to my friend Ms. Em the other day and it all started with me asking her if she was still having issues with gluten, as I had just gotten a recipe book for gluten free cookies and I was going to pass it on to her. She was telling me of some plans she's made for her life and many of them include learning to sew and living more sustainably on the land. She's actually had a change towards being environmentally friendly around the same time I had. We have both laughed over this coincidence several times over the past week. And really, when you think on it, it is pretty interesting. We are friends, though we live a couple of hours from one another now. We keep in touch via this world wide web. She's "buying the farm" pretty much. Which is awesome. She's moving closer to work, though out of town. She's setting up garden and she's teaching her child(ren) how to live a more sustainable and respectful lifestyle. And I definitely understand and reflect her sentiments. I'm not buying the farm. This isn't in my financial future at the moment. However, one day, I'd like to be able to live outside the city limits with a few acres and have my own garden and such. That's a one day idea.

Today is can crushing day. We've gotten quite the torrential downpour the last few days so our can stash has accumulated to fill one shopping bag. This most definitely cannot do. Which it will only take less than 5 minutes to accomplish. But it's all the closer for getting it to the recycling center.

I found a nice inexpensive, folding clothes drying rack yesterday...at Kmart no less. Whoohoo! Things like t-shirts and light towels, wash rags can all go on this to dry. While I know it won't completely kill my need to dry my clothes in the dryer, it DOES help a little, and a little is better than not at all. I really do want a clothes line. Another reason to move to the country! So I can hang my sheets on the line. I can remember as kids we used to hang clothes on a line to dry. I also remember when my cousin hung a frog up there to see if it would dry too, but we'll not go into that!

So what small ways do you try to help your energy usage? Do you have everything hooked up to a surge protector and have it turned off at the surge when you're not using the stuff? Do you wash with cold water? Line dry? Hand wash? Turn out the lights when you're not using them? Does every light fixture have CFLs in them? Do you have ceiling fans? So what do you do...

Wednesday's Hearth...gardening and recipes of all kinds!

Yup, its the middle of the week again and there are a couple of recipes to share with you today. Two are food recipes and one is a cleansing recipe that I found in a book I got from the library, and it is really awesome. But first, lets tackle the garden! This past week my niece, the Goob, and I planted our pumpkins out back. Since then Momma Na decided to bring us lots of cold water, so since today seems like it's the prettiest day, I'm going to go out there and see if they've drown or not. My seedlings aren't flourishing like I would hope that they would, so I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing wrong. I'll have to figure it out. But my cucumbers are awesome! They're thriving in the window sill at the moment. Hurray! I grew something!

Now onward to the recipes. First is the recipe for the cleanser. This is a natural face cleanser. This is a cleanser for those who have dry or sensitive skin.

Oatmeal Cleanser

1 cup warm water
1/2 cup oatmeal (quick cook, plain, not instant)
1 tbsp honey

Put all ingredients in a blender and mix until smooth.
Place in an air tight container.

To use: Place a small amount in your hand and massage onto your face, rinse with tepid water and pat dry.

Oh and cheap and easy eye makeup remover!

(I worked retail and this is always between $4-8 per SMALL bottle. This always amazed me.)

1 tbsp each Canola oil, caster oil, and light olive oil.

Mix together and put into a clean container.

To use: put on a cotton swab and wipe over your lashes and eyelids.



Now onto the food recipes!

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins-makes 24 muffins (as gotten from The Frugal Girl

Dry Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (or 2 teaspoons cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon of cloves, ginger, and allspice)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup oil

2 cups peeled, chopped apples

Streusel
2 tablespoons flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4 teaspoons butter

Heat over to 350. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk eggs, pumpkin and oil together. Stir apples into pumpkin mixture. Gently mix pumpkin mixture into dry ingredients. Spoon batter into 24 greased muffin cups.

Combine streusel ingredients, using a pastry blender. Sprinkle on top of muffins.

Bake 20-25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Remove from pan and cool on a wire rack.

And

Beef Tortilla Casserole

2lbs ground beef
1 medium onion
8oz jar of taco sauce
6 corn tortillas cut into 1in strips
16oz sour cream
8oz of cheddar cheese

Cut up onion
Brown ground beef with onion until done.
Drain
Mix in taco sauce.
Add tortilla strips

Place half the mixture in a greased casserole dish (2.5 quart dish) and layer 1/2 of the sour cream and half the cheese. Repeat layers. And place in a pre-heated 375 degree oven. Cook until cheese is melty and bubbly.

(this is the basic recipe. Next time I'll probably cook the meat in a taco seasoning and add some salsa to the mix. It's good on its own, but for me, it's missing something texturally, and for Mr. V it's missing a certain "kick" he's used to)