Here’s hoping that all the fireworks around your home are the literal kind – the kind in the sky. Have a great holiday!
Top row: Chuck, Daisy
Front: Amigo, La Petite
Photo, of course, by the professional photographer in the family, La Petite.
Originally posted in July of 2009
Last week you saw this picture of Amigo enjoying a metal sculpture before we wandered into the restaurant for our Fun Day Friday experience.
Performance Art?
Last week we ended up in the Milwaukee suburbs to visit La Petite. She recommend a nearby Mexican restaurant, and look what we found at the entrance.
“Let’s go in, Mom, I’m hungry.”
Inside, we nibbled on the freshest guacamole I’ve ever tasted.
Crock of Guac – amole.
I sense a theme here. We didn’t set out to eat Mexican this summer, but June Fridays happened that way. Now what? I’ll let you know, readers.
I found these at a rummage sale. Naturally, I bought them. Chuck enjoys model trains and finds railroads fascinating, so it was an easy decision.
Chug Chug Chug Chug Chug
Then I made cookie dough. I added a little cocoa so I wouldn’t have to frost them and decorate with all kinds of sprinkles and other delicious but messy garbage.
I baked the cookies.
Cookies! All Aboard for cookies!
And while you Ooh and Aah over the adorable little engine, coal car, and caboose, let me tell the the rest of the story. I usually bake this recipe in winter, most often at Christmas. The next picture will show you why I tend to avoid this recipe in the humid days of summertime.
Oh, dear. Project derailed.
They tasted okay with coffee, at least. Maybe I’ll attempt to make them again in December.
Amigo and I have a tradition that goes back several years. Whenever we’re able, we go out to lunch on Friday. We choose locally owned places whenever we can, and we try restaurants that are new to us as often as possible. Last week we went downtown in our fair city and sampled a Mexican restaurant. Before we went in, we explored a junk-metal sculpture outside on the sidewalk.
Performance Art?
The food and beverages were awesome, too. This one is a winner. I’m sure we’ll be back.
This year’s rain barrel set-up is complicated. First we didn’t have a garage. Then we had a garage with no gutter or downspout. After that, we had a gutter and downspout, but we didn’t have the right support to get the barrels up high enough to be convenient and easy to use.
We now have the cinder blocks and bricks (Thanks, Home Depot and Habitat ReStore). When we can summon the energy, we’ll pile up the cinder blocks and set the rain barrels on top of them. In the meantime, I give you an encore featuring Chuck’s model train layout. Enjoy.
Chuck, dear husband of mine, models trains in HO scale. For the uninitiated, HO translates as small. Tiny. Put-on-your-glasses and look very closely for details. Itty bitty.
The building below is part of a granary in his layout. The rain barrel is about the size of my pinkie fingernail, if not smaller. Yes, dear readers; he made a rain barrel in his train layout in tribute to his wife’s green philosophies.
Now if only I can stop him from buying the shopping bag that says, “I carry this bag because my wife cares about the environment”!
The haul – week one
In case you missed it on Facebook, here’s the counter full of goodies gotten while the gettin’ was good, real good, at the first downtown market of the year.
How’s that for an amazing run-on sentence? I’m almost proud.
I did not buy rhubarb, for obvious reasons. There’s a recipe for rhubarb bread pudding sitting on the table and calling my name. I’ll freeze whatever’s left over.
Ah, the rhubarb. We’re having a bumper crop already. I used up a little in a strawberry rhubarb ice cream. For my next trick, I modified a classic cake that I usually make with applesauce. In place of the applesauce, I used rhubarb sauce (you guessed that, didn’t you?) and then baked them as cupcakes instead of in the 13 by 9 pan
In case you don’t like to click on links, here’s the updated version.
Depression Cake (named for a historical time period, not the illness)
2 cups strong coffee
2 cups raisins or chopped dates or other dried fruit
½ cup rhubarb sauce
2 cups all-purpose flour (or whole wheat pastry flour, my favorite)
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. each ground cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts or almonds (optional)
Powdered sugar for garnish (or serve with whipped topping)
Preheat oven to 350.
In large saucepan, combine granulated sugar, coffee, raisins, and applesauce. Simmer 10 minutes. In large bowl, blend remaining ingredients, except powdered sugar. Stir raisin mixture into flour mixture. Pour batter into well-greased and floured cupcake pans. Bake at least 20-30 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or serve with whipped topping.
The original was adapted from a recipe in a California Raisin cookbook put out at least twenty years ago.
I never had rhubarb in my yard when I grew up. If we ate it, I don’t remember. I do remember my next door neighbor having a substantial rhubarb plot behind his garage. His youngest had a little trouble saying his R sound, so he called it ‘Woo-bob’.
When dear sweet Chuck and I bought our house, we discovered rhubarb growing along the back lot line. I decided the south side of the garage would be a better location with more sun, so I transplanted the rhubarb plants. With the transplant, they spread.
Then I bought my first rain barrel and set it up under the downspout on the south side of the garage. That entailed moving the rhubarb again, this time to the patch beside the deck that had held hollyhocks. When the hollyhocks came down with rust two seasons in a row, I pulled them out for good.
Now the rhubarb is thriving in this spot. It’s growing so much that I’ve even given away a few small plants. By the reports from my friends, the transplanting worked well for them, too.
Rhubarb is often the first harvest of the year in my northeastern Wisconsin climate. So far this season I froze some, gave some away, and cooked the rest into a rhubarb-strawberry syrup to flavor my first attempt at strawberry-rhubarb ice cream. Mmm, it’s tasty. I’ll definitely do this again.
An Early Harvest
Ready to cook, bake, and freeze.
Want more harvest posts with pictures? Go to Daphne’s Dandelions for her weekly gathering called Harvest Monday.
Actual conversation in car on interstate highway —
Chuck: Is that a tanker that says “Coffee?”
Daisy: I thought it might be a mirage.
Chuck: Wow. Pull up next to it with your mug, turn a spigot, and refill in motion.
Daisy: I have an empty travel mug. It’s at your feet.
We approached the tanker. Here’s what it looked like up close.
“Best Coffee on the Interstate”
Is that a “flammable liquids” sign on the lower left? That’s some strong coffee there, driver. Better add cream and sugar.
I put in the plants, and I pulled off the masking tape grid. But wait – it’ll be much easier to imagine if I just give you a picture or two.
Beans! Beans on the right, tomatoes on the left.
A thin layer of grass clippings functions as mulch for now. Meanwhile, behind the garage, the pile is shrinking.
Good intentions – the pile was mostly topsoil, so Chuck made a new outline from repurposed boards and started spreading the soil.
The reverse angle image –
raspberry canes!
A few raspberry canes survived the garage construction. I have a few more in buckets; I hope to transplant them to this area to restart the raspberry patch. In a year, or maybe two, we’ll have raspberries again.