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May 10, 2009

Dave’s Easy Rhubarb Cake Recipe

Posted by Hilary under Baking, gardening | Tags: , |
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Earlier this spring, sometime in March, I went around my garden taking pictures of the earliest signs of life coming up.  Some of my favorite pictures is of my rhubarb, making their presence known with their pink and bright green display coming up through the leaf mulch.  I liked it so much I made one of the pic’s my blog banner.

rhubarb

rhubarb 3

rhubarb 2 Now that it’s May my rhubarb is beautifully full.  The plants were getting so big that I decided to cut some last week and start baking with it or freezing pies (I’ve been told I make a MEAN rhubarb pie).  I wasn’t sure if it was too soon, but the plant looked ready so I just went for it!

May R 2May rhubarbThe pictures above can’t even begin to show just how immense these plants were before I picked some for my baking endeavors.

strawberry barb 1The elusive “strawberry rhubarb”.  I’m not sure what it’s real name is, but country folks or folks who just really know their rhubarb LOVE this variety.  Dave’s parents gave us this plant this year and it’s already doing really well.  I picked some of this too and incorporated it in with my “Victoria” rhubarb.

strawberry barb 2It’s naturally sweeter than regular rhubarb and has thin red stalks.  When you pick it, it actually seems to be a little sticky.

When you see a strawberry rhubarb pie, chances are it’s regular “Victoria” rhubarb baked with actual strawberries.  Not the Same!

Anyway, the point of this blog was to share a yummy and amazingly easy recipe that my boyfriend showed me.  I apologize that I can’t give exact measurements.  That’s just how I roll.

Easy Rhubarb Cake

1 package white cake mix

2 cups rhubarb, chopped or diced (you can use more or less rhubarb.  2 cups is an estimate)

1 pkg. strawberry jello

Mix the cake mix according the the boxes instructions and pour into a greased pan.  In a medium to large bowl mix chopped rhubarb with the jello powder.  Plop the jello-ed rhubarb onto the cake batter that is already in the pan.  No need to stir, the pieces sink to the bottom.  Bake at 350 until toothpick or knife comes out clean.  Let cool.

The result is something like an upside-down cake.  I would love to try this in a bundt pan some day!

-H

 

March 17, 2009

Heavenly Compost

Posted by Hilary under gardening | Tags: , |
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I’ve been an apartment dweller for pretty much my entire life up until about 3 years ago when my boyfriend and I decided to buy an old Iowa four-square to fix up.  So far home ownership is great, even though we quickly learned how spoiled we’ve been from living in apartments for so long.  We sometimes curse the house when we have to shovel or snow blow mountains of snow (we live on a corner lot), and sometimes fend off panics when realizing that it costs a lot of money to fix some of the smallest things.  Overall, though, home ownership has been very rewarding and educational.  I never imagined that I would get so into something, and it surprises me that I get really excited about the most random things…like compost.

Everything I’ve read and every gardener I’ve talked to sing the praises of a good compost to fertilize anything from rose bushes to tomatoes.  I really caught on to the idea once I started seeing great results with the use of grass clipping in my veggie garden.  So since mid summer of last year I’ve been dumping everything from orange and banana peels to coffee grounds and spent grain and hops (used in my beer making endeavors) into a big plastic bucket that I keep covered in my kitchen.  I think I have some brown (dead leaves & straw) in there too, but it’s been so long I can’t be certain of this.  Right now when I open the lid I see a dark putrid mess!  OK.  It doesn’t smell that bad.  It wouldn’t be in the house otherwise.  But it looks disgusting, and amazingly it keeps melting down or working itself together, so I always seem to have enough room to add a little something extra.

Anyway, I’ve been cooking this stuff up for a while and I have these visions of tilling it into my vegetable gardens soil and growing the biggest, most amazing edibles on the planet.  Then I fall back to earth in one big thud realizing that I really don’t know what I’m doing; that I might do more harm then good if I put that glop out there.  I wonder if I should tone it down first in a real compost pile before I try using it.

Like I mentioned earlier, I’ve read about the stuff.  I know the basics.  I know what not to put in compost, and I know the basic construction of the traditional compost bin/pile.  I’ve also heard of people putting straight coffee grounds and tea bag contents directly into their gardens, and I’ve even tried the rotten banana trick with my roses in late Fall (it seems to work).  I have to think there might be something to putting such a concentrated cocktail directly into the mix of things.

So now I’ll put it out there into la la land and ask anyone who might happen upon my puny little blog.  Should I do it or shouldn’t I?  Any suggestions would be great:)

(sorry.  no pictures today!  you can thank me later.)

-H

 

March 10, 2009

The seeds are seedling

Posted by Hilary under Personal, gardening | Tags: , |
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I have more than twice the amount of plants started than I need for a great garden this year, and I keep planting more!  This all started a few weeks ago when everyone is supposed to start their garden plants for the summer so the plants are nice and hardy by the time they are supposed to be planted.  Then a backup is planted just in case you have a late frost, or your garden gets flooded, or your cat eats or lays on top of your original plant.  It all makes sense except for the part where I plant so many tomato plants that I could fill my vegetable garden with tomatoes alone and still have a few plants to spare!

This Midwest winter keeps wanting to hang on.  Spring peaks through just for a sec and gives us a taste of what we are craving, and then it’s just as quickly taken away.  I’ve heard that we might not get much of a Spring at all.  That we might transition from the sort of cold to the very hot.  I’ve heard that it might flood again, and I heard that it might not.

I felt the need to blog, but feel that I barely have a creative bone left in my body.  I feel that if I keep planting things, Spring will come a little more quickly.  I feel that time wizzes by too quickly and time stands still when we are waiting for something.  I feel that it is dangerous to blog while drinking, especially if you’re a light weight like me;)

As I am typing this the wind it howling through my old, old house and I think we couldn’t be further from Spring. And then I remember my plants, my seedlings-all the wonderfulness that is waiting.

the-river

 

July 31, 2008

hydrangea blooms

Posted by Hilary under Personal, gardening | Tags: , , |
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I feel a little foolish because I sort of forgot about this blog thing for a while. I must be a very busy bee these days.

Anywho, I don’t have much to share in terms of words today, but I remembered that I took some pictures of my hydrangeas this year. I’m excited that they decided to bloom because last years late frost prevented them from doing anything other than growing gigantic green foliage. The flowers turned out to be a baby blue with some having purple and pink tones.

For those of you who don’t know much about this plant, you can manipulate the soil to produce a desired color. Acidic soils produce more of your pink hues, and alkaline soils produce your blues. I didn’t do anything to the soil, but I’m thinking I will visit the nursery this fall to see what kind of things I can put in my dirt to really purple them up.

-H

 

June 10, 2008

So I’m growing some ginger

Posted by Hilary under gardening | Tags: , , |
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Quite a few weeks ago, maybe it was more like two months ago, I bought a huge freaking ginger root from the grocery store to make some kick ass Japanese food one night. If any of you have tasted straight up ginger you know that it is quite flavorful and strong. Needless to say I didn’t need but a little bit, and the rest of the root sat there waiting to be used again.

I must have forgot about it for a while (my taste for ginger comes and goes) because the next time I saw the thing it had sprouted some cute little green knobs. It reminded me of a potatoes eyes, and then I remembered that to grow a potato you use a potato. Without doing much research on growing ginger I went to work using the little knowledge I have of potato plants as a basis.

I should first preface the route I chose to grow ginger by stating that had I looked into the process even slightly before I started, I would have done things a little differently. Instead, armed with the confidence I had over the potato thing, I snipped part of the root off that I thought had the prettiest bud. I left the bud to sit outside for a couple of days, partly to get accustomed to the heat and humidity of the outdoors, and partly to heal itself from being separated from the rest of the root. When I thought it was ready I just plopped it into a pot of mulch and compost, then watered it. At least I got the bud side up part right.

I’m looking forward to what (if anything) might sprout up. I found out [later] that ginger doesn’t like a whole lot of sun, so this plant will do well in a less sunny room. The best part is that when I need more ginger I’ll only have to dig it up, use what I need, then bury the rest to grow some more!

H