Nest

A dove has made her nest in my decorative, pretend birds nest.

I love how it looks like the little fake birdies are tending to her or something. Maybe they're pissed off that she stole their nest? It will be rediculously adorable when there are eggs and baby birdies though. It'll look like they've got a fake mom and dad, hehe.

Roasted Garlic and Asparagus Quiche

It is finally spring! Asparagus is in season, and I am obsessed with roasted garlic right now, so I wanted to create a quiche to incorporate both.

Oven roasted garlic has an almost sweet flavor. Very different from fresh garlic!

Mmmm, asparagus!

Evilducky's Roasted Garlic and Asparagus Quiche-

Ingredients:

One unbaked pie crust (use your favorite recipe! Mine is whole wheat pastry flour and butter)

2/3 bunch fresh asparagus

3 tbs olive oil

1 1/2 heads garlic

1 handful of grape tomatoes or one small tomato

4 eggs

1/4 cup half & half

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 tsp sea salt

1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

1 cup grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese

Directions-

Preheat oven to 400°. Wash asparagus and trim bottom 1/4 of each stalk. Lay asparagus in a baking dish and coat with 2 tbs olive oil. Cut top 1/4 off of the garlic heads. Drizzle them with the remaining olive oil and wrap them in foil together. Place the asparagus and the garlic in the oven. Take the asparagus out after 20 minutes and let cool. Take the garlic out after 40 minutes and also let cool. Once cool remove garlic cloves from their papery shells and mash with a fork. Chop most of the asparagus into half inch long chunks, but leave a few whole to decorate the top of your quiche. Turn oven down to 350°.

Beat the eggs with the half & half and sour cream. Add the smooshed up garlic, the chunks of asparagus, and salt and mix well. Fill your pie shell with this mixture, and top with the shredded cheese. Add a few slices of tomato and reserved asparagus spears to the top and bake for 40-45 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Shiitake Adventure

I must admit, I cannot take credit for this awesome idea. It was all my boyfriend's doing! :)

After that bad ice storm we had, there were many fallen branches laying around town, including my back yard. So my boyfriend suggested that we take some of them and try to grow some shiitake mushrooms for us to eat! So he ordered us some shiitake spawn plugs from this place.

Last weekend we plugged the logs...

The first step was to drill LOTS of holes to fill with the spawn plugs. It was good that our wood was all nice and fresh, and that it fell during the winter, because the wood has a higher protein content in winter and the mushrooms will like it!

The plugs are small dowels cut from branches already full of shiitake mycelium. If mushrooms were plants (which they aren't) the mycelium would be the body of the plant, and the mushrooms themselves would be the flowers or fruit. These little plugs will (hopefully) allow the mycelium to spread to the rest of the log. Eventually, if the mycelium are happy enough, they'll go "bom-chicka-wah-wah!" and the result will be mushrooms!

After drilling the holes and inserting the spawn, the holes are covered with wax to seal them in.

Then we arranged the logs in the shady spot on the side of my garage, on top of some nice chunks of wood Velocibadgergirl gave me!

And now? We wait! It could be 6 or 9 months before we see any mushroom action, but I will definitely post photos if anything interesting happens! I'm super excited! I bet I'm the only girl on my block with a mushroom garden in her backyard! :D

Cinderella?

There was a random yellow Barbie shoe in my driveway. I thought it looked cool.




Coming soon- part one of the Shitake Adventure!

a sea of peeps

If anyone likes cuteness and lives near a Rural King store, the chick days are going on right now!

I wish I could have audio recorded them. Part of the awesomeness is all the tiny peeps!!! :D

Prepare to have your mind boggled

Apparently there is a market for fake, press on, french manicured TOENAILS! People buy these! *head explodes*

Is it just me or is this exactly what is wrong with our society? Anybody??

Brak's Magic Toenail Song-

I have a magic toenail
I keep it on my foot
It's always there to rescue me
When someting goes ka-put

It has the cutest cuticle
Free of all disease!
As toenails go it's really quite
Extraordinary

Thank you Thank you
Thank you Magic toe nail

I love my magic toenail;
It's magical and good.
Sometimes I take my toenail to lunch
and give it a sandwich,
because it likes to eat the sandwiches

Thank you Thank you
Thank you magic toenail

I love you magic toenail!

Moonflower Seedlings