Baking day

Today was a baking day. I wanted to bake bread and looked through lots of recipes and settled on one from my friend Ann. She is an expert bread baker and turns out beautiful loaves of bread made with whole wheat and white flour. The recipe has 1/2 cup of honey which makes it really delicious. For lunch I made the tomato (and bacon, cheese & arugula) sandwiches using one of the 3 loaves that the recipe makes. The bread tasted great, just have to work on my technique to create a really pleasing looking loaf. I would also like to be able to slice it thin enough to put in the toaster....maybe that is overrated. It is possible to make toast in the oven using the broiler.

Next I made a Chocolate Soufflé Cake. The recipe calls for a garnish of chocolate whipped cream! The recipe is from Sarabeth Levine's book Sarabeth's Bakery, From My Hands to Yours. The book was a retirement gift and I plan to work my way through the recipes in this fabulous book. In addition to the recipes there is a wealth of information about baking so I will learn a lot in the process!

Too bad you can't smell the aroma in the kitchen!

Tomatoes galore!

Yesterday I had to rescue the tomatoes. The morning glory vines were strangling them. A number of years ago I planted the most beautiful deep blue morning glory plants on the lattice at the end of our deck. My farmer friend said I was completely crazy and she was right. The blue morning glories were fabulous, for the summer that they bloomed. Since then, no more big blue blooms, but thousands upon thousands of morning glory plants sprout in the garden.  I haven't planted the blue morning glory plants again, but am reminded of them each time I snatch a seedling from my garden.

The cherokee purple tomatoes are the best for a sandwich. Slather a dollop of mayonnaise on toasted bread, thick slice of tomato, salt and pepper, slice of cheese, baby arugula lettuce and crisp bacon and you have the best tomato sandwich in the world!

Doesn't it just make your mouth water!

Who said you can't grow lettuce in the summer. All you need is a nice piece of shady yard, mine is about 3 x 12 feet. Already harvesting the second crop and it isn't even August. Another farmer friend says she keeps it going all year long. Lettuce in January!! Now if the tomatoes would just cooperate.

The little sun gold tomatoes are so delicious that some of them never make it into the basket when I am picking. The San Marzano and Roma tomatoes are roasted on a half sheet pan, drizzled with salt and olive oil. About 50 minutes at 350 in the oven and they are shriveled having lost a lot of water and concentrated all of that tomato goodness into a delicious package. All last winter I used them to make spaghetti sauce and soup. Once they cool after coming out of the oven, just put them into quart sized freezer bags, squeeze out the air and pat them flat. Find a shelf in the freezer where you can lay them down to freeze and done! When I use them to make soup or spaghetti sauce, I just thaw and put the contents of the bag into the blender which grinds them up, skins and all. Yummy!

First cut the tomatoes in half.

Cut out the stem and scoop out the seeds, then sprinkle Kosher salt and drizzle with olive oil.

Roast on the middle shelf of the oven at 375 for about 50 minutes.

Cool and place in a zip lock bag, squeeze out the air and seal. Place flat in the freezer until completely frozen. Use all winter for yummy soup and spaghetti sauce.

When I was at the Atlanta Botanical Garden last week, I saw a great way to stake tomatoes. It used 4 long bamboo stalks, shaped like a teepee with a square bottom. Then cross pieces were attached from pole to pole for added strength. Tomato plants were placed at the base of each vertical pole. I am going to try that next year. Last year I had to tie the tomato cages to the chain length fence to keep them upright, they were so full of tomatoes. So far this year all are still upright with just stakes and cages. The advantage to the bamboo teepee would seem to be that it allows more air around the plants. They get too crowded all wadded up in the tomato cage. Now I just need to find some bamboo this year to have it on hand next May.

The best thing to eat in the summer in that tomato sandwich, standing at the sink with the juices dripping down your chin, can hardly wait till tomorrow for the next one!

It's raining frogs!

OK, it is not really raining frogs, but it is raining a lot this summer and after seeing these frogs, you may feel like it is raining frogs.

The first frogs are at the Atlanta Botanical Garden's frog exhibit. The volunteers feed them crickets or fruit flies depending on the size of the frogs. Many of these tiny frogs are very poisonous in their native habitat, but not in captivity according to the docent at this exhibit. They are from Central and South America.

Dendrobates auratus, green poison dart frog from Costa Rica.

Fringed leaf frog

Blue poison dart frog













The next group of frogs are at the Georgia Aquarium. First there is a skeleton of a Goliath frog. These giant frogs live in Africa. They can be 3 feet long when stretched out.

Amazon milk frog

American bull frog

Waxey monkey frog from Argentine, Paraguay and Bolivia.

Chinese gliding frog South East Asia (Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos)

Well, that covers 4 continents!

The Atlanta Botanical Gardens, Imaginary Worlds, Plants Larger Than Life!

There is an amazing exhibit at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. It is called "Imaginary Worlds, Plants Larger Than Life." It is a partnership between the Atlanta Botanical Garden and the International Mosaiculture of Montreal. Each piece is a living sculpture. Their steel armatures are covered with a special fabric containing planting pockets for plugging in thousands of tiny plants of varying color and texture. This exhibit will be at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens through October. Throughout the garden, dedicated volunteers provide interesting information about the exhibits!

There was an enormous butterfly.

Even a butterfly needs grooming to stay in shape!

The cobra was huge and had the most interesting color pattern of succulent plants

He must be 12 feet tall!

Here is a close up of the cobra's pattern on his body, all made from living plants!

This gnome looks like he escaped from the book "Where the wild things are" by Maurice Sendak.

There were 6 rabbits roaming in the grass,

and some very happy fruit

even a unicorn grazing

a big shaggy dog 

and a 25 foot tall Earth Goddess beside the waterfalls of the Cascades Garden.

In this video, two giant 'fish' are dancing around a pond!

This garden is found on the roof of the gift shop. 

Right after I took this picture, it started to rain, no one had to water the plants today!

Visit the Journey North website

The Journey North website, see the link at the right, is an incredible resource of science and social studies related activities. One of my favorite projects was the Symbolic Migration of the monarch butterflies. My classes participated in this activity for many years when I was teaching. In the fall students make a paper butterfly and write a brief message on the back including their name, school and address. These paper butterflies are then sent to an address in Minnesota where butterflies from all over the country are collect and forwarded to the monarch butterfly preserve in central Mexico. This happens in the fall. In the spring the senders receive butterflies from all over the country. The Journey North website provides a way to tell the senders where their butterflies went on their 'return migration' from Mexico. All throughout the year, Journey North updates the website with monarch migration news. It is a great project and my students really enjoyed sending the butterflies in the fall and receiving the packet in the spring!

Another project that we did the last two years that I taught was the Mystery Class project. This was a phenomenal integration of math, science, social studies and culture. It begins in late January and runs through early May. Ten mystery classes are identified throughout the world and sunrise and sunset data for each location are provided each week. Students subtract to figure out the photoperiod of each site and graph the data to see if the daylight is increasing or decreasing to know whether the mystery class is in the northern or southern hemisphere. On the equinox in March, the sunrise is posted for the the prime meridian in Greenwich and the 10 mystery classes. Using this data the students figure out if the mystery classes are east or west of the prime meridian. Then over the next few weeks, cultural clues are given for each mystery class. Students used Google Search to narrow down the location of their mystery class. At the end of April we sent our answers for the locations of the 10 mystery classes to Journey North and waited anxiously to see if we were correct.

This year the students in my class correctly identified all 10 mystery classes! It is absolutely the best interdisciplinary project I have every used and highly recommend it to teachers everywhere. My 2nd grade class was one of only a handful of classes participating on the primary level, but classes from elementary through high school participated across the country. If I were still teaching, I would make sure we did it every year!

These are only two of the many activities and resources on the Journey North site. It is really worth investigating.

Flan - the perfect dessert!

Flan is a popular dessert in many Spanish speaking countries. It is also a very popular dessert at my house! The main ingredients are eggs, condensed milk, vanilla, salt and more milk. The last ingredient, milk, is where I made a change in the recipe. Some people use whole milk, others use evaporated milk At first I tried half & half, but found that whipping cream made an even better flan.

My recipe for flan:

• 4 eggs
• 1 can of condensed milk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• a pinch of salt
• heavy whipping cream (use the condensed milk container, fill it with the cream to measure)

**Prepare the loaf pan by making a caramelized sugar syrup. Place a cup of granulated sugar into a heavy bottom sauce pan and add just enough water to make the sugar like 'wet sand'. Mix the sugar and water thoroughly.






Place the sauce pan on medium heat and do not stir the mixture. Watch it carefully. Large bubbles will form, then the sugar will turn into a brown liquid.

When it is a nice caramel color, take the pan off of the heat and carefully pour it into the loaf pan.

Immediately place the hot sauce pan in the sink and fill with cold water. This will make cleaning it a breeze.

Swirl the hot caramel sauce to coat the sides of the loaf pan, again--be careful- the hot syrup burns! Let the pan cool while you make the custard. The caramel will harden.

Now while the caramel is cooling you can make the custard. Begin by beating the eggs until well mixed. Add the condensed milk, whipping cream, vanilla and salt. Remember to use the empty condensed milk can to measure the whipping cream. Mix until thoroughly combined. A whisk is adequate for mixing.

Then pour into a loaf pan that has a coating of carmalized sugar.
** See directions above for caramel coating.

Place the loaf pan into a larger rectangular pan that is half filled with hot tap water. Cooking the flan in the water bath will ensure even cooking.

Cover both pans with a tent of foil. Cook at 375 degrees F for 55 minutes. Be careful when removing the foil tent to check the flan, there will be lots of steam inside.

The flan is done when a knife inserted into the middle of the flan comes out clean. Allow it to cool and then cover with foil and put the flan into the refrigerator to cool completely. I try to wait to eat it the next day, sometimes we are patient, sometimes not!

Ready to serve and enjoy!

Planting azaleas

Today a neighbor and I planted azaleas that we grew from cuttings of her plants. Fall of 2012, I took cuttings of her red ruffled azaleas and put them in the mini hot house that we call 'the cathedral'. This spring they bloomed! Today we planted them between her larger plants, hope they continue to grow! Now it is time to collect some more cuttings and make more azaleas.

This is one of the baby red ruffled azaleas.

I first tried growing azaleas from cuttings about 4 years ago. The lilac colored plants with large blooms are a variety called Corsage. I couldn't find more plants of that variety and tried making cuttings from my plants using a root growing powder. It worked so well that I ended up with 15 plants and planted some and gave several to my sister. Since then I have had similar success. In the front yard I have some that are now 2 and 3 years old.

This plant is two years old.

All of this began many years ago when I put a cutting in a clay pot and 'forgot about it'. It was on the north side of the house. The next spring I noticed that the cutting was growing. I planted it beside the deck on the east side of the house.  That plant must be 13 years old by now.

My husband built the 'cathedral' using glass from old wooden windows that someone was throwing out. He salvaged the glass and built new frames for the glass. The front of the rooting box has the glass windows, the back has a cover of plastic.

Inside the rooting box I put a thick layer of soil conditioner, about 6 inches thick. This is a great rooting medium. Thanks to David O'Ferrell from Guilford Garden Center for that suggestion!