My First Signs of Summer

As I have mentioned before, the husband and I have decided to challenge our normally black thumb's this year and started an indoor garden. I'm excited to say, it doesn't appear I have killed anything yet, and were it not for our weather only warming up today, I feel many of the things I started from seeds would be much further along now than they are. I bought my tomato starts at the farmer's market, mostly because I really love tomatoes and I wanted to make sure they were started on the right track. This picture shows the first of my little Sun Gold tomatoes starting top turn orange! Yum! I can't wait to throw these onto salads and bruschetta!

Speaking of salad, here is some of our Little Gem lettuce. I have to say, if you are a novice gardener like myself I would highly recommend starting out with lettuces. All of mine sprouted quickly and have been doing just great. One of my co-workers is from Hawaii and has even given me some seeds for a Hawaiian lettuce variety, I believe Manoa. Once it is bigger, I'll be sharing that with you as well, I'm pretty impressed with myself to be making all of this grow. We even have some yummy basil getting bigger by the minute.

To really Impress you all, I may take a photo of the whole garden in front of out window. Our tomato plants are freakishly huge, the Sweet 100's are about 8 feet tall. Had I known they would get that large, I wouldn't have done tomatoes, my poor little apartment barely has room for me to move anymore.

Are any of you gardening? Are you lucky enough to have something outdoors or are you limited to indoor containers like me? I'd love to hear what kind of things you are growing and if they are having much luck this year.

Friday Food Craft: Strawberry Peach Cobbler

It must be summer, the farmer's market is finally starting to have yummy berries for me to turn into things like this! This cobbler recipe was an experiment of sorts, and again a hodgepodge of various recipes I have sitting around. Peaches and strawberries make quite the nice combo with a not too sweet crust. Yum! You can make a delicious Strawberry Peach Cobbler of your very own!



You will need:
3 ripe peaches, peeled and cut into thick slices
1 pint ripe strawberries
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup plus 1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup chilled butter, cut into cubes
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (optional)


Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease a baking dish (I used butter). After peeling and slicing your peaches, toss them with 1/4 cup of your sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Place them into your dish to bake for about 20 minutes, or until the peaches are tender and the sugar starts to caramelize.

Remove from oven and add your strawberries(washed and sliced if needed, I used Hood strawberries which are quite small) and another 1/4 cup of sugar. Place into the oven another 5 minutes while you prepare your cobbler topping.

To make your topping sift together your flour, salt, the last 1/4 cup of sugar and baking powder (plus cinnamon and nutmeg if you choose) and cut in your cold butter until the texture is close to coarse sand. Beat together your egg and milk and then add into the flour mixture. Spoon over the top of your fruit. Use your final Tablespoon of sugar to sprinkle evenly over the top of the crust.

Return to the oven and bake 15 to 20 minutes, until the crust is golden. Allow to cool at least 30 minutes before eating, fruit juices will be extremely hot fresh from the oven. Serve with whipped cream or a scoop of ice cream. Enjoy!

*If you happen to have a lemon laying around the house (which I did not) It would perk this up a bit to add the juice and zest of half a lemon in with the fruit, but It is yummy without it as well.

Painted Tiles: Space Invaders Coasters

In yet another installment of "crafts for guys" I made these Space Invaders coasters for my husband using the same technique of tile painting I used for these. The husband and I are total video game nerds, but I don't think anyone would turn these little guys away. The straight lines of 8 bit video game graphics really help give this project more ease if you aren't so handy with an Xacto knife, as a ruler can be used as a guide if needed. I personally like being able to tell my projects are handmade, so when a line isn't perfect, I don't freak out. As I didn't really give clear instruction in the other post here goes:

You will need:

A ceramic tile (or tiles) from the hardware store
Enamel paints
an image you like
contact paper
an X acto knife

*If your image doesn't fit on your tile, you can always crop it any way you like or use a copy machine to change the size to fit.

To start, I clean my tile with rubbing alcohol and then cover it with contact paper (any color will do), make sure to smooth out any bubbles.

Next, I placed my image onto the contact paper and taped it into place.

Then, using an Xacto knife, I cut around my image pressing firmly so I would cut through both my paper and the contact paper.

Remove your image from on top of the contact paper and then carefully remove the area of the contact paper you will be filling in with paint. I used the tip of my blade to help pull up a corner of the contact paper so it could easily be peeled. Peel slowly so that if needed you can redo any cuts that didn't go all the way through without distorting your image.

I then re-cleaned the exposed areas of my tile with rubbing alcohol and dryed it before applying my paint.

If only applying one coat of paint, I try to remove my contact paper guide while it is still wet to avoid messing up the paint edges. If I use more than one coat, I will score around the edges of my design again with my Xacto blade to prevent rough edges or paint peeling off with the contact paper.

Then, depending on your type of enamel paint, bake as directed to set your design permanently.

To make the coasters I used a sheet of craft foam, cut to size and glued onto the back to protect my tabletops from the rough tile back. You could, also frame these to use as wall art, simply add a hook to the back, use as a regular tile, place them into concrete pavers, etc.