Our four fruit trees that we planted this past fall have all survived the winter! wahoo! My princess peach tree should be blooming any day now, although it is fricken freezing in Utah again. The other three trees are either starting to get there leaves or have visible buds growing on them.
I am waiting to see any life in the grape plants that I planted last fall, so far they all look like dead sticks in the ground. My neighbors huge grape vine looks dead still too so I'm crossing my fingers that they will all spring to life again once the weather decides to be decent for more than two days. If that is the case I will have soooo much grape juice to make in 3 years :) (seriously I planted like 40 grape starts). If they don't come back I will pick up a new vine from the local nursery next year and try again.
My other neighbors let me dig up some of their extra raspberry canes and they are really doing well for the shoddy job I did digging them up. The canes are a thornless overbearing variety, and I am so excited about them.
My son picked out a blueberry bush the other day when we were at walmart, I've always wanted to grow one, but Utah really isn't the place to do that. So we picked up two bushes... but I've planted them both in bright yellow containers with the acidic soil that they need. I mixed half peat moss with an organic potting soil to plant them in. If I can keep them alive and happy I'll have to let you know. Since they are picky little buggers I have been collecting rainwater to water them with in the future. Lately we've had more than enough rain to keep them well fed. I also mulched them heavily with pine needles so in the summer months that will help keep the water from evaporating so fast.
My bare root strawberry plants that I picked up from walmart still look dead but I think they could be waiting for warmer weather too. So basically you can see that I am anxious for warmer weather and the possibility of my budding "Garden of Eden" I've got going on.
In this blog I try to find and use the simple things that make life good. Using my creativity I try to upcycle and do things for free or on the cheap, making the most of what we've got!
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Lentil Flour Brownies
I had heard once that you could make brownies with lentils; if you look it up you find lots of brownie recipes made from lentils, but they want you to cook the lentils first and I just wanted to grind mine in the mill and use lentils in place of flour. In case you are wondering I just have a stock pile of lentils and I wanted to use them :). So there wasn't any recipes for milled lentil flour brownies and I tweaked a couple recipes and put one together, and they actually taste great. I was worried because the batter definitely tasted beany but the brownies taste good and normal!! I'm no expert but this I believe is completely gluten free.
I milled the plain lentils in the kitchen mill, it made very fine dusty powder
Kid tested and approved - although Makayla didn't like the addition of chocolate chips on top.. ok.
this is how they looked before I put them in the oven (I had just put them in the oven and hurried and took them out for a picture so they are a bit shiner than when they went in)
they puffed up nicely in the oven
Milled Lentil Brownies
Recipe
- 1/2 cup mostly melted butter (too lazy to melt the whole thing)
- 3 tbs Agave
- 1/2 cup white sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1 tbs vanilla
- 4 tbs cocoa powder
- 1 cup Lentil flour
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- handful of semi sweet chocolate chips
There you have it, not the most unhealthy but also not the most healthy... baby steps. I adapted part of the recipe from here http://grainfreefoodie.blogspot.com/2012/01/almond-flour-brownies.html she used almond flour and a couple different ingredients and volumes than I did.
why not put some ice cream and chocolate syrup on top?
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