Happy Mother's Day

To my amazing mother
Who is far away
Know that I love you and
Hand picked a bouquet

Know that I am thankfull
For everything you do
Because I'm the luckiest daughter
To have a mother like you
<3

adult twist on a childish favourite

In the spirit of all things garden. I decided to make a chocolate dirt pie just like my mother did for me when I was a kid. The secret is making your own homemade graham cracker crust which couldn't be easier! All you need to do is heat your oven to 350 degrees, crush about 8 full size crackers add to a medium sized bowl, add 1/4 cup of white sugar and about a 1/3 melted butter. Simply mix these three things together well and press into a pie tray. Add to preheated oven and bake for about 8 minutes. Feel free to use less sugar or omit and add a couple tablespoons of honey for it's natural sweetness and decrease to 1/4 of butter, just needs enough to coat all pieces.

crush em' real good

make sure to press against the sides of the pie dish

step 2: make chocolate instant pudding mix according to package directions, allow 10 minutes to set in fridge, it will thicken. Give it a quick stir and add to cooled pie crust

step 3: add a layer of fresh berries, choose your favourite or whats on sale... like  I did

huge strawberries, or just tiny hands

cover with a layer of cookie crumbs. I suggest Oreo

the ol' familiar worms on the dirt pie

My boyfriend recently baught me a cake carring case, he knows me too well. Perfect since we are going to a dinner party at a freinds and bringing dessert. How clever.

This is a very easy almost no bake recipe that is perfect for those who want to make something fun, tasty and not too challenging. Hopefully you will all make this kid classic.

I hope I paint alot this summer, heres to the start

close up

To live is one of the rarest things in the world
Most people exist,
That is all
-Oscar Wilde

sweetpea and progress

3 stages of pea plants, my favourite, its so cute

my cucumber plants are doing so well

beauty

basil progress

lettuce

thyme

Inspiration

My friend Jess took some amazing photos, i thought I would paint a picture of one of her paintings for some spring insiration and an exam distractions. I just paint for fun and only have dollar store paints so its hard to get the colours just right.

I changed some things on the painting and didnt include some stuff

The Big Greenhouse

I have recently joined and enviro group at school and am participating in a ghroup gardening project, vegtable garden and wildflower garden. Very exciting! heres some pics of the greenhouses from our first day of planting seedlings. We were lucky enough to get a tour of the rest of one of the green houses. enjoy!

this is the plant zoo as they call it, its just a collection of exotic specimens

Some super wierd crazy looking plant that I thought was interesting enough to share

very cool

tunnel of greenhouse

one of the smaller greenhouses

an experiment trying to get leaves to grow roots

fish in the greenhouse

Hike

I went back home for easter and went on a spring hike with some friends just outside of town to some local caves

found this spray painted inside one of the caves. so pretty

one of the little ponds along the trail

till the garden, pluck the weeds

backyard garden is a mess and taken over with blue flowers

started to till the garden and dag up some carrots leftover from last year

had to get the man to do the mens work, roots galor in the garden plot so we tried to get rid of what we could

first of the multiple carrot find

Sugar cookie spring

sugar cookie watering cans
proof I love gardening










thought I was being funny

Backyard in Spring

I have always dreamed of a yard full of flowers. I got my wish, not sure what kind they are but I love them

Its starting to look alot like Easter

Got into the baking spirit of things

homemade easter coloured merangues

had to get out the easter cookie cutters, $0.59 each from Bulk Barn

making the parents gifts for going home for the weekend

Recipe: for Success, not disaster

HERB & CARMALIZED ONION BUN IN THE OVEN

Not the best photo, but if you ask those who tasted it it was mighty good
This will be a future recipe I will use with my own homegrown herbs onc ethey are matured

Recipe as follows, feel free to be free with it and alter recipe to your liking.
I believe that the joy of being a chef is making every recipe origanal and custome for you and those who you cook for, if you can be free in the kitchen, your food will taste much better as a little bit of your creativety and soul will be in every bite.

Easy Cheesy loaf of Bread:

1 tbsp lemon, fresh of juice
1 cup milk
2 1/4 cup All purpose flour (feel free to use whole wheat, I substituted the 1/4 with flax seeds)
1 small onion diced (vidallia or just regualr cooking onions if you wish)
1 cup of whatever kind of shredded cheese you wnat (old cheddar with some parmisian, I recomend)
1/4 cup of your favourite mixed herbs (I used, oregano, thyme, rosemary, garlic powder, chives, black pepper, [dried or fresh])
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp cold and finely chopped butter

Steps to Success:
Step 1. preheat oven to 375 F, in a small bowl strir in lemon juice with milk in order to sour the milk for atleast five minutes. In sperate larger bowl, mix together flour, shedded cheese, herbs, baking powder/soda, salt until well combined

Step 2. cut in butter until crumbly use two knifes. Add your carmalized onions. Add milk and stir until dough comes together. You can either kneed the dough on a lightly floured surface or just in the bowl (less mess), until it all comes together, kneed about ten times.

Step 3. place dough on parchment paper lined baking tray and pat it down until its 1 inch thick all around like a disk. Dust the top of the loaf with flour. Score the dough into an X to be fancy smancy. Bake for around 30- 35 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Transfer to cooling rack once done and let cool before you dig in.

Hope you try this easy recipe. It's very quick, healthy if you use wholewheat flour, requires no eggs, little butter, and no yeats so no wait. perfect for a beginner bread maker.

Excellent for an easter brunch, sure to impress anyone, serve with cheese slices, or butter or whatever you want.

I found this recipe in a Sobeys magazine from LCBO. I changed the recipe a bit to suite my own liking and hopefully yours as well

Sprout

Day 4 of Growth: Welcome all into the world

 Unfortunatly since I dropped the greenhouse after I seeded and lost the order of what was what I can't be certain as to what each sedling is yet. I'm guessing this is goign to be Peas. First growth is sooo exciting. The babies are being born. I have been takign good of them, watering gently with my spray bottle.

Thinkign it's Peas, Zuchinni or Cucumber. If anyone is an expert, let me know.

Thyme, So pretty

Thyme sure goes by fast when your watching plants grow

They grow up so fast, one day their a seedling, the next there going out on a pasta dinner

just a crew together growin

I think this is green leaf letuce, cute none the less

Here the whole bunch, some sprout'n others still taken their time

My landlord says no pets, he never said no plants

Ugh Oh

Had an accident last night and knocked over the whole tray of seeded pellets. Now all of the pellets are out of order and we don't know for sure if some even have seeds in them as we lost some dirt along with it. I guess we will wait and see. Silly me.

Home Sweet Greenhouse

Day 1: The process of starting a vegtable garden indoors to get a head start

Puchased a pellet greenhouse kit from Canadian Tire equipped with 50 biodegradable fibre grow pellets with humidity dome. Big Up's to my boyfriend who hooked me up with the CT discount.

Chia Indoor Garden kit for growing herbs, a Christmas gift from my boyfriends sister, a thoughful gift if you ask me.

Step 2: hydrate the pellets with warm water, let the expansion begin

Before

After

The pellets grow instantly and quickly absorb water, great for indoor gardening as the mess is contained and you can keep your apartment clean as well as it's pretty cool to watch them expand and grow before your eyes. Now if only plants grew that fast.

Purchased new seeds from the Home Hardware just down the street from us. Seeds are only $0.49, practically a steal. baught my seeds last year from here for the same deal. It's in my blood to be a deal hunter and grow a bountiful garden. Perhaps I am a bounty hunter. Oh how much better the produce will taste knowing it was such a good deal!

A sampling of what types of vegtables I will be growing this summer. I also decided to grow forget-me-nots as they are my favourite and a butterfly mix of cutting flowers to brighten up the home and hopefully attract butterflies like it says.

Creating my own mini Greenhouse by using household plastic wrap to help incubate the seeds, above will be basil. Heres a little poem I wrote to speed up the growing process.

Hello, future pesto!

Germanate your seeds and grow

Sow your seeds and plant your roots

For us to eat your basil shoots

I'll be patient, but can hardly wait

To use you as a seasoning on my dinner plate

Now we patiently wait. Stay tuned for pictures of the sprouts.