Ta da! New beds in the old cow pastures for tomatoes!

Rebecca started picking them as soon as she was out of the car and I started thinking about what we could make with such an abundant supply of foraged food.

A quick internet search lead me to dandelion wine and off we went.  We had an easy project that would fulfil my foraging and homebrewing-while-pregnant urges for the season. I think we’ll save Sarah’s dandelion jelly for next year.

We picked a gazillion dandelion heads right before leaving and  then we took them back to the city to complete the job.  While Becca was at nursery school the next morning, I quickly separated the petals from the bitter green bits with the kitchen scissors.  It took about an hour and stained my fingers.  Next I poured boiling water over them in the crock and then covered it up and walked away for 3 days.

After adding lemons, oranges and honey to the mix, a steady 30 minute boil finished it off. A quick strain in to the carboy, some yeast, and an airlock and that’s it.  For real measurements and quantities see the MotherEarthNews Article, I just followed their instructions since their cider information was so helpful. Unfortunately we got carried away and forgot to take a specific gravity reading so we may very well be making some sort of mead-like moonshine. We’ll let you know this winter.

Lately I’ve been serving what what we refer to as a stacked grilled cheese.  Great bread, perfect ingredients, stuffed into a cast iron grilled cheese. They’re so good, I think this one has to be a contender for Canada’s Best Sandwich.

Using a loaf of Ace Bakery’s Rosemary Focaccia as the base, I stack

Sun Dried Tomatoes in Oil (cut with a pair of scissors)

Roasted Red Peppers (in strips)

Extra Old Cheddar (the sharper, the better)

Fresh Basil Leaves (washed and ripped)

Fiddleheads (steamed)

Butter the outside of your assembled sandwich

Grill in an evenly heated cast iron pan.  After you’ve flipped your grilled cheese, use a second cast iron pan to flatten your sandwich while the second side is cooking.  Like a cast iron panini press.

This Italian tasting sandwich can be made with all local and seasonal ingredients here in Ontario and goes well with a fresh salad or simple a side serving of more fiddleheads.  You have to enjoy them while they last.

This is my first time using our new cutting boards from Timber Green Woods. They are simply gorgeous, pieced together with different sustainable woods and I’ve been enjoying them so much it’s hard to remember to take their picture.

A cheerful little package arrived today.  It contained a sweet sheep bib (baby’s quilt will have this fabric in it too) and tiny organic hat for the first few days.

{ update }

more good mail today.  I think I’m done now. A little robin shirt and thefabric for the baby’s quilt!

Way back in January,  I was inspired to clean up my pantry.  Friends at Well Preserved and Folks Gotta Eat were writing these great posts about overhauling their pantries and finding 10 bags of quinoa, 4 bags of icing sugar and secret stashes of pudding mix.  Well I dove right in, found my share of ridiculous things, like instant chocolate mousse from our trip to Italy 4 years ago and four types of dried basil, and then promptly felt very very pregnant and couldn’t even open the pantry let alone edit and post photos of it.

The great thing that came out of this project is we finally finished organizing the spices and they still look great.

This is such an easy peasy project you can finish in one afternoon. You’ll need a can of chalkboard spray paint and a white pencil crayon (I like the Staedtler Omnichrome ones) and a new box of lids.

2 coats of spray paint and you’re good to go!

The pencil crayon lasts longer than chalk and isn’t messy.  It wipes off if you want it to with a damp cloth.

Ahhh, and doesn’t the calendula look nice?  I think I’ll go brew a pot to celebrate getting this post out of my drafts folder.

Some time last week I was lucky enough to be featured on etsy’s front page.

One thing always leads to another and this time that means this article and my fractal broccoli photo published on Wired.com.

So thanks To April Deacon for making a great Etsy front page treasury and to Natania Barron for calling my seeds ”welcome additions to any geek’s garden, especially if you want to make a statement.”

It’s been a fun few days of shipping out mathematical vegetables.

What a March! In like a lamb and out like a lion weather wise.  The second busiest month in our three year history is coming to an end and we have some projects we’d like to share.

Our biggest news is that we are moving ahead with the purchase of 14 acres of farm land and an English style Loyalist barn in Prince Edward County, Ontario. We are planning on having a fantastic kickstarter campaign starting in April so you can help us preserve this historic barn. It has had quite a rough winter.

After quite a bit of work and some help from our friends over at ohmyhandmade and boutiquemama and have a new online shop up and running here on this site. To celebrate this project finally being finished ( it has been a long time coming), we’re giving each customer that checks out with the new shop a pack of french breakfast radishes along with their order.

Last but not least, I have a copy of Gayla Trail’s new book all about growing herbs, Easy Growing, that we’ll be giving away next week. It’s pretty great.

I should have a little more time for the blog this month and have some good posts planned as thanks for such a great month.

She’s said camera for a while but now it’s “Beck’s Camera” and “Becca Needs Beck’s Camera”.

I’m glad they’re hers.

She also has a few sentences.  Funny that they are mostly about gardening.  She’s been desperate to plant, even lining up beans on the table and burying them with a spoon shovel.  Now that we are finally back out side she asks for seeds every day.  ”Becca Plant the Seed!” She’s very good at it and we should have lots of thyme growing among the flagstone in no time.  She tends to use a bigger shovel the smaller the seed.

We’re taking the weekend off to rest so she’s in perfect health for some minor surgery on Monday.  We’re finally having this pesky tongue tie taken care of and I’m very curious to see what developments we see in her speech following her frenectomy.

The annual You Grow Girl Seed Exchange Package arrived just in time for a quiet cup of coffee.

Toronto West, Scadding Court Community Centre, 707 Dundas St. West, Saturday March 3rd 12:00 – 5:00

Toronto East, Evergreen Brickworks, 550 Bayview Avenue, Saturday, March 10 11:00-4:00

Scarborough,  Heron Park Recreation Centre, 292 Manse Road, Saturday March 17 12:00 – 4:00

North York , Lawerence Heights Community Centre 5 Replin Avenue, Sunday March 25 1:00-5:00

UPDATE: See you tomorrow!