Spring is finally here in action as well as on the calendar! I just got my sweet pepper plants started today, eek! They'll be late for harvest.

This year I've decided to try growing potatoes in straw instead of by trenching.  So today I bought some two foot tall chicken wire,  drove six stakes in and wrapped the chicken wire around 'em. The next step is to plop the potatoes right onto the surface of the ground!!! Then fill the pen up with straw, water, and wait.  We'll see how it turns out!

I found instructions on-line for removing old seasoning on cast iron. It seems that the easiest way is to throw whatever piece needs reseasoned into the oven and set it on self-cleaning.  I tell you, it worked like a charm! And boy was it nice to get the nasty 'pre-seasoned' seasoning off... I hate that stuff.   Once it was off, I spent thirty minutes scrubbing the rust off... apparently a layer of rust had formed under that nasty stuff. :(  I reaseasoned it with lard for 20 min. at 475 degrees. I have another pot which needs that done as well, and my griddle.

We've been getting our butter from a localish farm for the past couple months, and it's delicious butter. The problem is, it stays hard even at room temp. :/  We found that mixing it with Honey makes a delicious, spreadable breakfast butter, but we needed something that wasn't sweet for our dinner breads wich abound in garlic and herbs!  I tried mixing it with EVOO but it was terrible... all the green stuff sank to the bottom after discoloring the entire batch, an it tasted terrible.  But I believe I've finally hit on the winner.... I went and found the cheapest Olive Oil... the stuff that's yellow and has no nutrients left. It works beautifuly to soften the butter and doesn't alter the flavor one little bit!  It even past the taste test of my siblings. :)

I'm dying to figure out how to flip an omlet in the pan. Any tips?

Well, it wasn't my intention that this blog be entirely taken up with 'foody' subjects, but so it seems to have been! I have to go now to check my yogurt which should be done incubating about now and I still need to slice my seed potatoes for planting tomorrow evening.

Cherrio~