Tara's Birthday and BACK TO SCHOOL and a yummy veggie dish

WHEW!  The past few weeks have been crazy!  Tara's and my birthday's are in the last week of July, and the kids started back to school the end of last week (August 9th).  They only had 2 months of summer vacation this year, but at least we'll get out late May next spring.  WHATEVER!   We were going to do a cookout for Tara at the house this year, but we were going to try to make it to a short vacation, but it never happened, and it was kind of too late for invites.   I made Tara a 3D Hello Kitty cake and I think she liked it.  I only wish that pan had somewhere to put the candles beside's the feet... I guess she just has fabulous flaming foot claws.  LOL  I also made a few cupcakes with a bow in the top "corner" with the extra mix I had left over.  This cake was made with Wilton's 3D bear pan, and I shaped the ears, and decorated it with butter cream icing.  Oh, and the whiskers are icing covered spaghetti.

Oh, and we made some DELISH eggplant cannelloni (I guess you could call it that), but it was a very yummy vegetarian dish we made for dinner for some vegetarian friends.

1 large eggplant, sliced in 1/4" to 1/3" slices.
1 batch homemade ricotta cheese  (http://www.framedcooks.com/2011/08/how-to-make-fresh-ricotta.html)
1 sundried tomato
1/4 cup chopped cilantro

Sauce
4-5 medium tomatoes, peeled and diced
6 cloves garlic
half a medium onion or about 6 shallots
basil to taste
oregano to taste
salt to taste
Olive oil

I put the diced shallots and garlic in a saute pan with EVOO and cooked them till they started to go clear.
Added tomatoes, and I grabbed some fresh herbs (about a teaspoon finely shredded each), and about a tablespoon of salt.  Once it starts to boil, turn down to a simmer and simmer till done.  You can also add some good red wine if you want, but I couldn't find the corkscrew!

While the sauce is simmering, I took the ricotta, added the cilantro and the finely chopped sun-dried tomato and mixed.  Then I took the mixture and put about 1 to 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of the mixture in the middle of the eggplant slice, and rolled it up.  Then, place in a casserole or lasagna dish, folded side down, so that it will stay wrapped up.

Once the sauce has been simmering for a bit, you can either take an immersion blender or pour the sauce into a blender and blend until smooth (or almost).  Pour over top of the eggplant and bake until warm through.

I think some veggie mozzarella would have been nice, but alas, I  had none, and no time to make it.  This is definitely going to be a keeper.

It's been awhile, but I've been a busy bee!

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted, but in my defense, March and April we were very busy.   In March we started getting our garden ready, we planted seeds for tomatoes, peppers, onions, lavender, spearmint and dill.  Unfortunately, only the herbs and a few onion sprouts came up.   We created boxes for our herbs... they look so nice!  Also in March is my oldest ones' birthday and my Mom's birthday, and we planned a little cookout for Lydia and we got together and ate out for Mom's birthday.   I also went ahead and got my top bar hive (March) and my bees (in mid April).

In April, we proceeded with plans for the garden, even going ahead and bringing some plants out and starting some flower seeds in the ground.  Then, it decides to get cold again, just at (and past) the last frost date.  We covered stuff with hay and much and we only lost a few leaves to the frost.

In early March I saw a pintrest post that was a cute paper rose wreath made from coffee filters.  I thought "I can do that!"  Well, I did it, but it took 2 packs of coffee filters, almost 3 of the small bottles of craft paint, and 2 rolls of packaging tape and almost 2 months.  It was a lot of work, but I think it came out well.  I've got a few more touches to put on it, like I want to get some pretty green, wide ribbon to make a small bow and use that ribbon to hang the wreath.

Meanwhile, because of rain, commitments and such, we've just gotten our garden in the ground (mostly).  We ended up having to go get some tomato plants and green bell pepper plants, the seeds didn't sprout at all!  :(  but we hope to plant those asap.  Phillip was going to do that this morning, but it started raining.  Maybe it'll clear up later today.   There's a chance of rain all week.

The end of April brought Phillip's Mom's birthday, and since she was turning 70, his sisters wanted to throw her a really big party.  I was asked to do the cakes, and she requested a strawberry shortcake.  Some of the family do not like strawberries, so we did a chocolate cake as well.  Each of the cakes were what I call a "half sheet cake".  Basically, take your regular sheet cake pan and put the long sides together on the cake board.  The strawberry cake was filled with strawberries and homemade glaze, and then iced with stabilized whipped cream, and more strawberries in glaze on top.  The second cake was devils food cake with the stabilized whipped cream and chocolate syrup drizzled on top.  They turned out well and everyone seemed to like them.

One last note,  when I got my bees from the guy, I got what was called a nuc.  More or less 5 frames of bees.  We had put them in an 8 frame hive box we had, but had no clue on how to get them from the frames to the top bar hive.  We talked to some people and we just pulled the cover off, took some of the bars off, and set the small hive body on top of the top bar, then a piece of plywood on top of the remaining bars so they would hopefully expand out into the top bar.  So far, they're just using the big hive as a porch.  But in the 3-4 weeks the bees were in the 8 frame hive, they had all but run out of room!  Wow the hive grew quick!

My project last week February 19th

I finally was able to go back up to Brushy Mountain Bee Supply this weekend.  They're only open Monday thru Friday, when I'm normally working, so I have to take time off work to get up there.  But, I now have a bee jacket and veil.  YAY!  Hubby and I are considering our options on the hive we'll use for me.  I'm tempted to use a top bar hive, but unless I wanna spend $300, I'm going to have to build it myself it seems.

Since I was there, I went ahead and got some things I'd been wanting to get for making some of the medicines and cleaners around the house.  (Sounds almost menacing, to me, for some reason).  But I bought a couple essential oils, some coconut oil, and some beeswax (since we're not really generating a lot in our one hive right now).  Well, Sunday afternoon, while it was snowing and yucky outside, I attempted a few recipes I've found on Pintrest for various things.  First the first aid ointment.  It turned out well, but with one note, I've got to buy a better shredder.  My old cheap plastic one has finally bit the dust and pretty much the handle has broken to bits.  I then proceeded to just scrape the shredder across the beeswax to shred it, but in the process, I also shredded my thumb.  Good thing I was making first aid ointment, huh?  LOL.  I put it to use right away.  :)  I made 3 large (4 ounces each), and 4 small (either 1 or .5 oz each) containers of the ointment.  It smells wonderful, and the kids are already coming to me when they get a scratch or something, "Mom, I think I need some of your first aid cream."  Here's the link: http://frugallysustainable.com/2012/01/building-your-medicine-chest-first-aid-antiseptic-ointment/

While I had the things out, I also whipped up some homemade deodorant, from yet another idea on Pintrest.

I've got SO much I need to do right now!  I want to start planning my garden, get some landscaping type things done here at the house, get the housecleaning caught up,  get some sewing done, and also building a beehive and contacting someone to buy some bees!  Oh, and a beekeeping class that I REALLY want to take starting next month.  *sigh*  Busy, busy bee!

Tara's Rose Headband

Tara, my youngest has recently become totally enamored with headbands for her hair.  I saw a picture on Pintrest about how to make a fabric rose bracelet.  I basically took the idea and expanded it.  I made three roses with twice the length that the tutorial suggested, and then made more roses (smaller ones, per directions on the tutorial) to fill out the top (it took 4 more, 7 total roses).  The tutorial said to glue the roses to felt, and then glue that to ribbon.  Smartie me thought, "Why glue it to the ribbon?  I'll sew it!"  Halfway through the third,  large rose, my poor fingers cried out and simply refused to push the needle and thread through anymore.  It was just too hard to get the needle through the glue that was gluing the roses to the felt.  Oh well, I glued the rest, and it turned out pretty well.  Oh, and one other change, is that I pressed the strips with my iron after the first couple roses.  I found it just too hard to keep the fabric from straightening back out while winding and twisting.













Here's a link to the tutorial that I followed...
http://soisawthistutorial.blogspot.com/2011/05/rosette-bracelet-tutorial.html