Jihyun Ryou - a Korean artist about her storage solution for vegetables

Making over flopped Amish Friendship Bread; Free garden seeds at TreeHugger

My Cranberry Walnut Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce is a riff on Charlie Trotter's Cinnamon-Raisin Bread Pudding with Vanilla Anglaise. Actually riffed on his Cinnamon-Cranberry Bread Pudding recipe but couldn't find the recipe online, and you know I am too LAZY to type it up myself! I used 3/4 cup of dried cranberries and 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts with the last of the Amish Friendship Bread that was in the freezer. I'd screwed up one batch of the Amish bread by forgetting to add oil, but the bread pudding recipe made DRY AS TOAST friendship bread into something moist and yummy! (My vanilla sauce recipe is much simpler than Charlie's: Put 1/2 cup melted butter, 1/2 cup canola oil, 1 cup milk, 1 tsp. vanilla extract into a small pan, add 1 cup sugar with 3 tablespoons flour whisked into it. Cook and stir 'til the sauce thickens and coats the spoon.)

Hey, check this out over at TreeHugger's site: "5 Ways to Get Free Seeds for Your Garden." Okay, time for me to get off the computer and do some seriously mindless activity for awhile. Such a BUSY day...my brain could use a rest! *wink* What mindless activity is in store for you tonight?

Wish I hads and had nots

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

Carl Sagan

Wish I had not been wishing there were more hours in the day. Woke up this morn at 2am and couldn't get back to sleep. Ugh! Blame it on the decongestant I'm now on. Guess the bright side is my loss of appetite. I cooked a soup at lunch (a riff on La Cuoca Ciccia's Chard Chick Pea Stew recipe), so I ate a protein bar for supper. As you can see from his plate of Venison Stir Fry, Hubby had something better in mind.

Wish I had bought this motion-sensing nite lite years ago for night trips to the mud/laundry room. Now I don't have to turn on the multi-bulb ceiling fluorescent light when all I need to do is put one little thing in the washer. Btw, LOVING my new camera (Sony Cyber-shot; sure beats the TWO that I tried and then returned. Wish I had bought this one first!

Wish I had tried growing mung bean sprouts long before now. Soo easy--some of these are destined for our salads at lunch today. Not sure if the leaves should be discarded. Anyone know? Guess I'll find out soon enough!

Hope your wish I hads and wish I had nots grow fewer and fewer every day...and I wish the same for me!

Flopped pizza dough made a fine focaccia!

Thought I'd share the rest of the story about the other half of my pizza dough from the other day. First half didn't raise much, so I ended up with a thin crust pizza, which tasted great btw. Left second half of the dough out to see if it would raise if given more time, and guess what? I FORGOT it!! By that evening the dough was only slightly raised and somewhat crusty on top. Having nothing to lose, I went ahead and patted it into a pan and poked holes in it for focaccia. It worked!! (Usually sprinkle focaccia with oregano, but I ran out last week and haven't had the chance to replace it.) 

Sweet Potato Harvest 2011. Hubby says there are about 40 more potatoes out there waiting to be dug!

Hope to get in some camping this week! Anything fun on your agenda??