Oh my darlin, oh my darlin...

I loves this snack-time surprise!

I have parties in my tummy all the time!

Dandelion Slayer

Believe it or not, we only went to the hardware store once this past weekend!  We went for a bunch of things, but my most important purchase was one of these:



Giant Garden Fondue Fork



A weed-ripper-outer!  I'm pretty sure the sellers just mowed over all of the dandelions last year, so this is what my yard looked like before:



I even found one that already had 3 seed heads about to open,
they'd been yellow and I missed it!



And this is what it looked like after:



Those are piles of DIRT.  Stop thinking otherwise.



Maybe the snow this morning covered this mess up and made it look a little better?  If not, at least they blend in with the rabbit holes...  Actually, as I was digging out a particularly stubborn patch of dandelions next to/over one of the rabbit holes, I was suddenly overcome by the fear that it would turn out not to be a rabbit hole, and that a skunk or opossum would come out and bite me and give me rabies!  Luckily, that didn't happen.  (My foot did slip down inside though!  EEEeeek!)

After I finished making the front yard look like a battle zone, I looked at the backyard and did nothing but sigh.  Then I went outside and set up "repotting" camp for four of my houseplants in the driveway, and I came back inside with eleven potted plants!  They're reproducing like bunny rabbits!

Yaaaaay!

There are green things growing in my yard! 

But I don't know what they are! 

Maybe daffodils?

The anticipation is killing me! 

(Perhaps some of these surfaced at Thunder Moon Farm last year???)

I can't smell anything!

It's been a long couple of days.
That's the last tissue in a box that was only opened on Wednesday!

(Not pictured is the gallon of ice cream* Husband brought me for lunch yesterday... I could almost taste it!)

* "The best medicine!" according to our local CVS Pharmacist

Yo ho and really bad eggs

Yesterday was not my day.  All sorts of things went wrong!  But one very important thing went right:  while the rest of connecticut waded through the muck, our (empty) basement stayed dry!! HOORAY!  To celebrate, I decided to try using up some leftover egg yolks to make my husband a delicious caramel flan like his abuela makes.  FAIL

Lets start at the beginning.  I should have realized these eggs would not bring good tidings, based on their origin.  Why did I have extra egg yolks?  Because I used the whites to try and save my cloudy chicken broth.  Apparently, when you make chicken broth, you're not supossed to ever let it boil, ever.  I was tight for time and lacking this pertinent information, so I boiled the heck out of my chicken bits.  Gross foggy brown liquid later... I did some research and found out that you can fix this mess by boiling it with a mixture of egg whites, crushed shells, and vinegar.   THIS WAS NOT PLEASANT (this chicken just wont leave me alone!)  It smelled really weird and was very difficult to clean up... but it worked!


Flan Comparison Diagram

So now I had some decent chicken broth, a weird smelling kitchen, and several egg yolks.  There's not a whole lot you can do with egg yolks on a weeknight.  But it just so happened that my pantry was stocked with condensed milk*, evaporated milk, vanilla extract, and sugar.  So I tried my had at microwave caramel flan... otro desastre.  Still tasty, but definitely not the smooth creamy custard known as flan.  Maybe it wasn't really the egg yolks' fault, seeing as I chose a microwave as my heat source.  Eggs + microwave tends to end badly, but I'd heard it could work...  I'm pretty sure flan isn't supossed to bubble and puff into layers as it cooks.  Nor is caramel supossed to turn into rock candy on a spoon.  Oh well, at least it still tasted good!

*I never used ot have condensed milk in my pantry, but husband eats it with saltines - it's his favorite meal.  And I thought I had a sweet tooth!

Cranky Pants

Lack of sleep + train chaos + damp + cold = Liz on the verge of tears

Wimping out + going home + coffee + strawberries + bathrobe = Happy Liz

And now there's sunshine streaming in the window! 

Once in a while, taking the easy way out can be the right choice.

(Don't tell your children!)

PS - anyone willing to knit me a pair of these?