play

It's so fun to watch and listen to these two play together.  Most recently you can find them playing camping, office, or hunting.  The first two require getting out lots and lots of toys and setting up "camp" or the "office."  When playing office there is usually a lot of work to be done.  This requires crayons, stamps, markers, tape, cardboard, and paper.  Hunting usually requires lots of animals and Emma's kitchen utensils to "take all the meat." 

Either way, listening to their imaginations run wild never gets old.

peppers + cornbread muffins

We've been enjoying a little green in the house this winter thanks to these fun pepper plants. These are a Siberian pepper called Grandpa's Home Pepper.  We ordered the seeds because it said they had more than 50 little peppers per plant and that they produced all winter in low light.  Both were true.  The hardest part about these was getting them to sprout.  There were only maybe 15 or so seeds in the pack and only two sprouted....months after we planted them.  We had pretty much given up but kept watering them anyway.  It paid off.

 These tiny little peppers have some serious flavor. We've been throwing two or three into anything that can handle some spice.  We've also been saving the seeds, drying on the counter, since we are enjoying them so much. 

I made some peppery corn bread muffins and tossed in a few of these peppers minced up.  Yum!

Peppery Corn Bread Muffins
adapted from Gooseberry Patch

1 c. yellow cornmeal
1 c. flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp. dried basil
2/3 c. chopped peppers (green, yellow, red, or a combo)
1/4 c. corn
1/4 c. butter
1 c. milk
2 eggs

Stir together cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, chili powder, and basil.  Saute peppers and corn in butter for 3-4 minutes.  Beat together eggs and milk.  Mix together the pepper/corn mixture, milk mixture, and flour mixture.  Add to greased muffin cups.  Bake at 400 for 15-10 minutes.  Makes 12 muffins.  


In other gardening news, we got the greenhouse all cleaned out (and by we I mean Ryan and the kids while I was at a stampin' up party with my friends!) and ready to plant.  We are going to start our tomatoes and peppers (inside) this week and some greens and radishes will be making their way into the greenhouse.  I did manage to get all of our seeds organized and inventoried and we put in a couple orders for some things we were missing.  I'm looking forward to lots of gardening time this year!  

 

helper

It's cold and snowy here. 

So thankful for my carrying-in-the-wood little helper!