Art Every Day – Day 49 – EDIBLE art!

Years ago my parents gave me a plastic bottle intended for making pancakes easy. I never actually tried it until *today* — and in among spirals and an accidental turtle pancake came this little robot dude!

IMG_7322.JPG

I couldn’t decide which of these two photos to post, so you get TWO photos of the robot pancake – one with and one without the most awesome WI-shaped cast iron pan.

IMG_7324.JPG

Thanks to Jesse for encouraging some pancake drawing beyond just spirals!

 

Latvian Easter Eggs!

Successfully convinced BOTH parents to take some time out of their evening to make these with me! I love making these eggs.  Unwrapping them at the end and seeing what patterns you’ve made is the best. It’s like Christmas.

 

Olas

 

 

Maple season is here!

Confession: I don’t know if the maple sap season is actually here or if I’m early or if I’m late (or maybe even on time) BUT ladies and gentlemen, we have sap!

Front yard – I can see this one from my living room 🙂

Maple02

Back yard

Maple01

 

 

Last year I borrowed equipment; this year I have my own.  Last year I tapped only 2 trees; this year I’m considering tapping the two from last year AND the two on the curb… but I’m not sure about (a) whether I’d have enough room in my fridge for twice as much sap as last year and (b) is it even legal for me to tap two trees that are technically city property?  Some additional investigation is in order.

Last year, I passed on the community sap boil; this year I’m going to go!  Assuming there even IS another community sap boil.  I haven’t seen any ads in the places I saw them last year… again, more investigation is in order.  Otherwise, I might be having my own all-nighter in front of the fire.  Who wants to join me and set things on fire while boiling down some local sap?

And now…. for something different!

In January, I made a savory birthday cake for my party.  Several brave souls were willing to try it, and I like to think that they even ENJOYED it!  I certainly did.  It was a nice break from the usual sweet things found at a birthday party.




My kitchen was busy last weekend…

This is what just over 4 hours of canning will yield in my house:

(14 pints of canned peaches plus a medium batch of peach jam [8 jars], a medium batch of cherry-rhubarb [8 jars], and a small batch of peach-cherry [5 jars].)

And then you get even better/faster at it 🙂 I’ve since also canned 5 pints of elderflower cordial (yay urban foraging!), but that stuff isn’t very photogenic.

Rhubarb mimosas

Pretty drinks this morning at brunch (before the sparkling part was added):

I made rhubarb syrup earlier this month and this was its first public debut. It turns out I like it better with a lemon-lime soda than with champagne, but there is still much room for more experimentation!

Strawberry Lemon Cake

Last weekend it was a dear friend’s brithday. We planned a semi-surprise party and I was in charge of CAKE! Here’s what I made. A lemony strawberry cake. This involved making cake, lemon curd and lemon mousse. YUM!