With A Recipe In One Hand And Potting Soil In The Other

The other day over at The Smoke Eater's Wife (Have you been there yet? You should go check it out!)  Jessica was talking about dirt manicures, a.k.a planting a garden.   I decided to take her advice and start one since I am tired of paying SO much money for fresh herbs at the store.  In fact, I thought I'd use the experience to teach Button about how things grow and let him plant his own garden in this nifty little platter by Miracle Grow that has one wall that's clear so he can see how things are progressing.  I also thought that if he got to plant and harvest his own veggies, then maybe he would be more inclined to eat them...wishful thinking?

So, I got my little seed starting kit and I planted my herbs (and some tomatoes and beets) and put the little plastic "greenhouse" lid on it and really just paid no attention to it for a few days.  The seed packets said I wouldn't see anything for at least a week.  This morning (three days after planting) I peeked into the greenhouse to check on the water level and I have stuff growing!  My thyme and my beets have started to sprout already!! Which by the way I don't know what I was thinking by only planting five beet seeds.  I want to try my Aunt's recipe for pickling beets and I think I'm going to need more then just five (if they all sprout).  Now comes the real test.  I've never gotten past the seedling stage.  Keep your fingers crossed :-)

Like I said before, I'm tired of paying so much money for fresh herbs at the store.  They give you so much more then you need and now that I type this I'm thinking to myself, "I should have just chopped them up and placed them in an ice cube tray with a little water, froze them and thawed them out when I needed them"  I've seen this tip a dozen or more times in magazines and on websites or I could have dried them out and stored them.  Oh well, the garden is started. 

The night before I planted my garden I was making dinner and it required only a quarter teaspoon of fresh minced thyme.  How easy would it have been just to pop outside and snip off what I needed.  Even with the really expensive fresh thyme, this recipe was unbelievable!  It came from Taste of Home and it was a Potato-Topped Chicken Casserole.  It reminded me of a really hearty Fall dish.  Ground chicken, carrots, onions and potatoes were the stars of the show and the great thing...it made enough for a second casserole to freeze for later.  I'm not a leftovers kinda gal but this was THAT good.  Click the Taste of Home link above and give it a try.

With A Recipe In One Hand and And A Pastery Bag In The Other

Butter cream frosting.  I used to hate the stuff as a kid.  I was more of whipped topping kind of kid when it came to what was on my cake.  I still don't like a lot of butter cream on my birthday cake.  But, this month I have fallen in love with the butter cream from the Wilton website.  Now, I have taken every possible Wilton course I can at my local craft stores and in class we always used "class butter cream"  it tasted a bit greasy but I just thought that's what homemade butter cream tasted like.  But this frosting tastes the way butter cream should.  It wasn't too sweet and had the right amount of butter taste.  And I made LOADS of it.

Why all this butter cream you ask?  Well, as stated in my earlier post I'm way better with gum paste and fondant then I am with butter cream.  I was asked to make my husband's Grandmother's 81st birthday cake.  I started out by making over 120 royal icing apple blossoms and then I changed my mind and thought about making some gum paste roses.  As pretty as the decorations are from the fondant and the gum paste I got the impression that the family wanted butter cream.  All that butter cream was for practice.  I made rose after rose after rose.

With every cake that I make, I get better and better.  I look at this picture and I can see where I need to improve.  But it is a HUGE improvement over my first cakes.  And so, I will keep practicing and I will keep making cakes and I will keep getting better and better :-)

P.S.  My husband's Grandmother loved her cake.  The family thought I did a great job as well.  In fact, we brought the cake to the restaurant and the table next to us thought my cake was so nice they asked for a piece.