Category Archives: projects

art of creation

garden seasons, months 01-03: winter, projects

Baking Party Nerves

12/20/2013 svseekins 9 Comments

What’s more fun than going to the mall in December? Well, many, many things… FAR higher up on my list is a party.

It’s an opportunity to pull out some seasonal music…. go through the cupboards… and dress up in something special…

That’s when I like to head to the kitchen. The season is about getting together with family & friends. Playing together in the kitchen is no exception & one of my favorite kind of parties.

Christmas baking is mostly created for others as gifts. Gifts of time & effort…. gifts from the heart …. Guilt Free calories.

gathering ingredients — photo by SVSeekins

Every year it surprises me how much skill is required to make a truly good butter cookie or an extremely fine shortbread. I mean, recipes look like paint-by-number instructions. It SHOULD be so easy. Gather ingredients, combine – – ta da!

But sometimes greatness balances on humidity & barometric pressure. For real! My Dad told me this & I’m totally going with it.

Either way, every baker experiences failure.

How can he / she best deal with that disappointment?

Christmas Tins & sprinkles — photo by SVSeekins

Well, to use a culinary cliché: When faced with a lemon, make lemonade.

This year I made peanut brittle. Sort of. It looked perfect … but was cement in the Pyrex. Through extreme ingenuity I was able to rescue the pan, but not the candy.

It turns out we’d stumbled upon the procedure for creating an incredibly tasty batch of sprinkles for ice-cream. It was really good, but still wouldn’t cut it for gifting.

Danish Butter Cookies — photo by SVSeekins

So I moved on to cookies. Gosh, cookies are so PARTICULAR! Thirty seconds one way or another can make the difference between raw & burnt. Well not burnt – but BROWN..

I reckon that a gradient of brown cookies should go into every gift, proving that they were handmade. This sounds totally reasonable, so that’s what I do.

But there are still a few really brown cookies leftover that just won’t do… They’re tasty, just too dry…. So, now I’m thinking they could be crushed & replace graham wafer crumbs in another recipe… Do you think that would work?

AB wearing 'something special' — photo by SVSeekins

I also need an evolutionary plan for the fudge that didn’t harden even after I’d meticulously heated it up past the important soft-ball temperature. It turned out like really stretchy toffee…. Granted, toffee is a delicious treat. Perhaps I’ll wrap it in wax paper & rename it? Maybe not.. too sticky. Ideas?

It’s amazing how any challenge seems easier when taken on together. We keep each other on track, share skills, and offer support & laughter… And when it comes right down to it, we relax & spike the lemonade.

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© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2013

projects

Coffee Grounds Make Good Compost

11/15/2013 svseekins 2 Comments

A few years ago I lived in a condo. There was no yard to garden nor any place to compost my kitchen scraps. Or so I thought….

Just down the street from me was the Compost Education Centre. They taught me to operate a worm bin. I know – – it sounds pretty gross, having worms inside my home, but really it’s pretty cool. No smell. Little fuss. Lotsa benefits for the house plants…

Why send all that potential ‘black gold‘ to the landfill, right?

Coffee, grounds & paper filter — photo by SVSeekins

Aren’t I virtuous? Even as an urbanite I can be environmentally conscious. 🙂

I remember being taught that coffee grounds were a no-no (too acidic), so those still go to the dump.

Bu wait!
Times have changed.

Chatting with Marika, operations manager at the Compost Centre,
it turns out that recent research shows that indeed the coffee itself is acidic, but most of that acid flushes out during the brewing process & little is left in the coffee grounds themselves.

So, it’s not so good to water your plants with coffee.

But it is ok to throw the grounds into the compost along with regular kitchen scraps.

Cool. Imagine how much more ‘black gold’ we’ll be making now!

Here’s some further info sources on composting coffee grounds:

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© SVSeekins and Garden Variety Life, 2013

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months 10-12: fall, projects

Duct Tape is My Friend

11/08/2013 svseekins 12 Comments

Cycling home the other day something in the gutter caught my attention. A roll of duct tape. COOL! I like duct tape.

It is very sticky & super durable. But this roll is special. It’s bright Pink 🙂 Almost fluorescent. Counter to the classic grey color, this roll is noticeable.

It would be ruined if left there 😦

Honestly, I did try to find the owner. Street & yards: empty. Pity.

I had to help (as a service to the community) 🙂
SCORE!

An idea formed… The fastest way to ruin a good tool is to leave it outside for a couple of days. And it happens far to easily. For ‘leave’ read also: lose, misplace, forget…

The elements are not kind. I try to avoid calamity by marking garden tools with something bright. I’ve tied orange survey tape to them – – but in autumn, orange is common. No good. I switched to pink survey tape. It works better.