St. Patrick's Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day. We aren't Irish, but it's fun to celebrate anyway:)  I love rainbows. They remind me of God's promise, they are pretty, and Sister girl has been coloring them a lot lately.  I love the color green.  I love the idea of Spring being right around the corner, and I LOVE ham and cabbage.  When I was a girl, my Mom always put a green streak in mine and my sisters hair.  She always made sure we had on something green, so we wouldn't get pinched (I love to pinch people who aren't wearing green on St. Pat's. I get lots of weird looks....doesn't everyone know about the pinch for not wearing green?)  I put a little green streak in my girls hair today, and it made me think of my Mom, and how much I love carrying on this tradition<3 

 Dinner will be ham and cabbage, and pesto bread sticks, since we have leftover Ruthless Rye infused pizza dough from our shamrock pizza.  The Big B's are going to have a green tinted bubble bath, with some doubloons thrown in.  Our Southern family always sends us Mardi Gras gift packages, so we have lots of silver, green, and gold coins:)

                              Happy St. Patrick's Day 2014!

Green oatmeal for breakfast. Look closely, you will see green tips at the end of the ponytail:)

Little B liked his green oatmeal.

Finishing up our craft (and his lunch.)

"Unlucky" 4 leaf clover shaped pesto pizza for lunch.  Overcooked due to cranky Ubba Chub baby, and trying to get ham and cabbage thrown together, and in the crock pot.  Turned out really good.  The Big B's, and myself ate the whole pie:)

The pot of gold at the end of my rainbow...every day<3

Spring has sprung! Eh, forget it......false alarm

Tuesday it got up to 53 degrees!  I was outside, in a tshirt, and comfortable. Wednesday cooled off, got up to 40 most of the day, rained,  the wind kicked up, and it snowed a little overnight. Thursday morning....7 degrees, wind whipping. Give me a break!  The weather is really flip-floppy this year.  I can deal with cold....just don't tease me with nice a day or two, then switch back to frigid.  My husband was chopping wood, which I thought looked like fun.  I tried it, and I sucked.  Really glad no pictures got taken of that, because I'm sure my facial expressions, and form were pretty scary.  Spring is coming to stay soon....I hope.  We went out and played on Tuesday, I'm glad we enjoyed it while it lasted.

Wee #3's first time outside to play.

A little grub love.

  

Whacking things with sticks is fun.

Impromptu picnic, set up by the big B's

This was the hat on our "Princess" snowman. Someone decided to dig it out of the snow, and put it on:)

Crackers, cheese, and apples al fresco.

Sister Girl is starting to make some really cool stuff!  I had to fight to keep this one, so I could put it on the fridge.  I dig the rainbow, and the mushroom looking pink thing.  I think she called it a rocket.  Either way, I love it:) 

Making Water Kefir

I've been reading about all the health benefits of water kefir. We take probiotics daily, eat homemade yogurt, and sourdough bread. I've brewed kombucha, but no one besides me really cared for the taste. I ordered live grains, and within two brews, my grains tripled!  Making water kefir pop is easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

First attempt at making water kefir soda pop. This is what the first ferment looked like.

Second ferment, in the snazzy stopper bottle purchased just for this experiment. Cherry-lemonade, turned out pretty.

Tart, bubbly, and ready to drink. Water kefir soda success:)  Little B didn't know what to think. He doesn't dig on carbonation.


I make mine by the quart, like this-

Dissolve 1/4 cup of Sucanat, and 1 teaspoon of  blackstrap molasses in 1/2 cup of warm water in a quart size mason jar.  Fill jar up the rest of the way with cool water, add 1/4 cup of grains, cover with a coffee filter, secure filter (I used a hair tie), sit in a warm, dark place for 24-48 hours.  You can really tell when it's ready if you use the Sucanat, because the color changes.  When it's changed to lighter, golden color, it's done.  Using a plastic strainer, I strained out the grains, and added the water kefir directly to my clean bottle.  The grains are ready to be put back in to another jar, with sugar water, and the process starts all over.  I added a 1/2 cup tart cherry juice, 1/2 cup cherry juice, and the juice of one lemon to my bottle, applied the stopper, and let it second ferment for 24 hours.  Easy!  I was pretty amazed at how fizzy it turned out.  The second time I made it, I added a pinch of sea salt. The grains love the minerals. Between the molasses, and sea salt, my grains went gangbuster.  I had enough grains after two brewing processes to give away a 1/2 cup of grains. Not too shabby.  I have looked at a lot of recipes lately, and they all seem to vary on the amounts of grains and sugar to use by the quart.  I think I was using too much of each for the quart size jar, but.....I've had good results, so I'll keep doing it this way.                                                                                                                                                                                                        

Bloggers are needy....at least I am

Why write a blog no one reads? The same reason I started it....to fill the void of giving up Facebook for lent. Truly pathetic, and exactly why I started it (and haven't returned to it since last year.)  I guess it would only be needy if  anyone read it, and responded?  Perhaps. Maybe I'll figure out how to actually do this blogging thing, and report things of interest....maybe. Meh.