Seedlings

Look at my itty bitty babies!

From the top there's spinach, shasta daisy, and hollyhocks. The other seeds are germinating, they just aren't tall enough to take pictures of yet. I can't wait to transplant in a few weeks!

Crescent rolls

I got on a baking kick this past week.

First it was banana nut bread made from an old Alabama cookbook. Scrumptious!

Then I decided to make some garlic bread sticks to go with our spaghetti dinner. I've never made these before and didn't have a recipe in mind, so I used the one in the West Bend bread maker pamphlet.

Here's their basic "dinner roll" recipe:

• 3/4 cup warm water
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 Tb milk
• 3 1/2 Tb sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 Tb butter
• 1 1/2 tsp bread maker yeast (from jar)

I put the stuff in and set it to dough cycle. When the dough was ready, I split it in halves, one for the garlic bread sticks and the other for some kind of dinner rolls.

The sticks I made first, rolling them into little snakes and setting them on a cookie sheet to rise. When they had risen for about an hour, I brushed them with a mix of olive oil, garlic powder, and salt. I baked them at 350 for about 12 minutes. They turned out wonderful, and tasted almost like Olive Garden bread sticks!

While the sticks were rising, I got to work on the rest of the dough. Since we were having company the next night and I was going to serve roast and vegetables, I decided to try making some crescent rolls to go with them.

I split the dough into two balls, then rolled each flat with my handy marble rolling pin (LOVE IT!). Once they were about 1/8 inch thick, I cut each circle into 6 pie-shaped wedges. Then I rolled each wedge like a typical crescent roll, and wet the point to make it lie down.

Here's a picture of the baby crescents ready to go:

I put them in the fridge immediately, and pulled them out the next day after work to rise. After an hour, I put them on the pizza stone, brushed them with melted butter, and popped them in the oven to bake at 350 for about 17 minutes. They plumped up so nicely! When they came out, I brushed them with more melted butter.

That night, we four ate the WHOLE DOZEN of them! I guess they were a hit. Too bad I didn't have one left to take a picture of, though. : )

I'll definitely be using this recipe again. I like that it didn't require a lot of butter, which made the rolls a lot less fatty than their Pillsbury counterparts. Now, I won't say these rolls are HEALTHFUL by any stretch, but they are a good alternative and cost less to boot.

Have a good weekend everyone!

My latest obsession

I like dirt. I like growing stuff in dirt. I like eating stuff that I've grown. So my latest obsession has been the raised vegetable bed. Look it has dirt in it finally!

I'm using a method called "winter-sowing" to plant seeds pre-season. (You can read about it by clicking here...) Typically, Nashville weather doesn't allow for direct sowing until mid-April, due to frequent late frosts. But with winter-sowing, it doesn't even matter what the weather is like. Once the seeds sprout, get a few sets of leaves, and harden off, I'll transplant them into the bed.

I hope this method works, since seeds are SO cheap!

I ran out of take-out containers with lids, so I had to start using old planters. The only issue with this is how to secure the plastic wrap on top. I didn't have any rubber bands big enough around. But I got a great idea, and it worked like a charm.

Do you notice anything odd about these planters?

Perhaps they feel PRETTIER than the other planters? HA HA!!

Hello, again

Sorry to have been absent for so long! I've been CVSing as usual for the past few weeks, only I've been trying to spend ECBs, so I haven't had anything to brag about. Today I spent some more, but I thought I'd post about it anyway, just for kicks.

Here's what I got today:

• 2 boxes of Garnier Nutrisse hair color, on sale for $5 each, get $5 ECB when you spend $10
• Secret Flawless deodorant, $3.99, get $1 ECB
• Crest ProHealth, $2.99, get $2 ECB
• Vaseline Men's lotion, $3.69, get $2 ECB
• 3 General Mills products, 3/$10, get $5 ECB on 3

Subtotal came to $30.69. I used a $5/$30 CVS coupon (from the scanner), and manufacturer coupons on every product. The total came down to $16.19, and I paid with $15.97 ECBs. I paid the remaining $0.22 plus $0.78 tax in cash. I got back $15 in ECBs. That means I paid less than $2 total for all this! (Spent $15.97 ECBs and $1 cash, got back $15 ECBs) Well worth it for the hair color alone.

It's humbling to actually admit to everyone that I color my hair. But I'll have you know I AM a natural blonde, it's just not a "pretty blonde." Some call it dish-water blonde, yuck!

I'm looking forward to trying the caramel flavor Fiber One bars. Lance and I really like the peanut butter bars, and often have them for breakfast. They're rather filling, and they taste like a dessert. I'm hoping we'll like the caramel ones just as much.

Hope everyone has a good week!