How much!?

I went to my local natural food store this week.  I normally am not that careful about checking over my receipt (I know I should be).  But this week I happened to glance over it.  I bought one small butternut squash.  Here it is next to an average sized peach.

Now imagine my shock when I saw the price!  $9.49 for one small squash!?  I know that organic produce is a little bit more expensive than conventional, but this seemed a bit excessive. 

When I looked more closely I saw that the receipt said 4.77 lbs of butternut squash.  There is no way that is a four and three quarter pound squash!  So I took it back to the store and politely asked about it.  The woman working at customer service was very nice and apologetic.  She gave me a full refund for the squash, so basically I ended up with a free butternut squash. 

A happy ending.

- Laura

Blueberry Picking

My sister found a blueberry farm about an hour away from us.  She invited me to come with her and my niece to pick some blueberries.

It was a lot of fun!  Or at least it would have been if the heat index was not 105!

We arrived at the farm and there was a small building where you picked up a bucket and caught a hay ride type trailer out to the berry farms.  The buckets were lined with plastic bags so that you could just take the bag out of the bucket and take it right home when you are done.  Pretty clever!

Mary picked out a bucket. 

Posed for a quick picture.

And headed for the hay ride. 

I was not even sure what kind of plant blueberries grew on.  Turns out it is a tall bush.  I was surprised how many berries grew on each bush!

We spent a few hours picking berries.

Mary helped for a while.

But then was caught red handed eating berries out of the bucket!

After we picked the berries we returned to the same building to have our berries weighted, pay for them, and return our buckets.

I think we all felt like Mary by the end of the day.  Hot, sweaty, and tired! (Notice how wet her hair looks, that is all sweat.)  But we got about 5 lbs of berries which is enough for us to freeze some to eat later.  Blueberries are super expensive during the winter! 

We felt a lot better after we cleaned up in the bathroom.  Then we got ready to head home.

I guess that we wore her out!

 - Laura

Kirkwood Market

I went to a local market in Kirkwood which is a suburb of St. Louis.  The market is open every day of the week, which I was impressed by.  The one in my area is only one day each week for a few hours.

When I got to the market I discovered that more vendors show up on some days than on others.  There were only three vendors the day that I went. 

I was kind of disappointed though because one of the vendors sold fruits and vegetables that they obviously had not grown locally.  Mango and kiwi in Missouri?  Prepackaged raspberries and mushrooms with commercial brand names on them?

However, they did have lots of locally grown tomatoes.  This was my favorite part.  You just cannot beat home grown tomatoes!

 The peaches had just come into season, and that is what I ended up buying.  I ate one each morning for breakfast.  They were delicious!  I was disappointed that I could not buy anything else because I did not think that I could safely transport them all the way home to the Chicago area.

- Laura

Roots

Felt-O-Rama is on a one week hiatus...  Come back next week for a great felt project!  

I learned something interesting a few months ago from one of my co-workers.  She also has only a balcony (I like to refer to it as my half a yard) to garden on, but she has a great green thumb.

One day as we were discussing our gardens she told me that if you cut a piece of a plant off and put it in water it will soon start to grow new roots.

I thought this was pretty cool, and I wanted to try it.

A few weeks ago I was checking on my bean plants which are planted in a container on my balcony.  One of them seemed slumped over from a particularly windy night.  I tried to pull the plant back into an upright position.  The plant snapped right off near the bottom of the stalk.  I really did not think that I had pulled it that hard!

So I remembered what my co-worker had told me, and I decided to give it a try.  I put the bean plant in a glass of water.  After a few days the plant started to slump over a little bit.  I was getting worried that this was not going to work.  However, a few days after that the plant had little roots growing out from the bottom, and the rest of the plant had perked back up!

I left it about a week more so that the roots could grow a little bit longer...

And then I replanted it in the container that it had originally come from.

- Laura

Homemade Bread

I have been anxiously awaiting this package in the mail for a few weeks.

It is a 4 quart polycarbonate food storage bucket with a plastic lid that is not totally air tight.   When the box arrived I opened it, took out the container, and washed it up.

Meghan recently sent me this book about making homemade bread in just 5 minutes a day! 

There are many different recipes in the book, but they are all variations of the basic recipe.  These are the only supplies that you need for the basic recipe.

The recipes are so fast because they make many loaves at once, and the dough stores in your fridge until you are ready to bake it.  It is also very easy to mix and store all in the same container.

After mixing the dough you leave it out to rise for two hours, and then put it in the fridge for up to two weeks!  Here is the dough just mixed. 
 

After one hour.

After two hours. 

When you want a loaf of bread, you simply take out the dough, shape it, and let it rise for 40 minutes. 

And of course bake it and eat it!

Mmmmmmm, warm homemade bread. 

- Laura