Kansas – The Nation’s Breadbasket

I was born in Virginia, but I’ve spent most of my life in Kansas.   Even though I’ve always lived in cities, I’ve never been far from fields of wheat, soybeans and corn. 
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture , Kansas is the top wheat producer in the United States.  (We’re number one!  We’re number one!)  This year, [...]

Fancy Foods Word Quiz — How much do you know?

25 FANCY FOOD WORDS USED ON ‘TOP CHEF’ (Do You Know What They Mean?)
See how many of these food words you can correctly match with their definitions. 
1. Ganache (GAHN-ahsh)
2. Ceviche (seh-VEE-chay)
3. Risotto (rih-SO-toh)
4. Carpaccio (kahr-PAH-chee-oh)
5. Hamachi (hah-MAH-chee)
6. Rémoulade (ray-muh-LAHD)
7. Chiffonade (shihf-uh-NAHD)
8. Panna cotta (PAHN-nah KOH-tah)
9. Hearts of palm
10. Geoduck (GOO-ee duhk)
11. Aioli (ay-OH-lee)
12. Pain [...]

Second Annual Strawberry Photograph

 
My strawberry patch has grown even larger this year.  Hurrah!  Here’s my post with photographs from last year, in case you missed it.   Strawberry Fields.

Make This No-Calorie Chex Mix

Here’s how to make no-calorie Chex Mix.  You won’t even get your hands dirty. 
Chex Mix Jigsaw Puzzle.

Pesto

A hard freeze is forecast for tonight so I’ve been washing off my outdoor potted plants and rolling them indoors in my decrepit little red wagon.  I’ll worry later about finding them sunshine in the walkout basement. 
I just cut the last of the basil to make pesto.  Basil is the first to die when the temperature hits freezing, [...]

The Most Dangerous Recipe in the World

Chris B. emailed this recipe to all of her friends, and we’re so grateful.  She tells us we’re now only five minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night.  This makes it one of the most dangerous cake recipes in the world.
FIVE-MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

1 coffee mug
4 tablespoons flour (plain, not self-rising)
4 [...]

Sunflower Season

Kansas is the sunflower state, but we had to go to Oklahoma to find these vast sunflower crop fields (pictured above and at the bottom) near Quapaw in mid-September. 
Heading south on Highway 69 in Kansas, we passed mile after mile of green soybean rows and the brown stalks of ready-to-harvest feed corn.   Cattle and horse grazed in lush [...]

Queen Elizabeth II’s Scone Recipe

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              In In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain sent President Dwight D. Eisenhower her recipe for “Drop Scones,” which she had promised to give to him when he’d visited her at Balmoral Castle. Eisenhower was an avid cook.
Elizabeth II doesn’t seem like a likely cook, but she was an auto mechanic during World War [...]

Berry Picking by Moonlight

How did chiggers make a living before people started wearing clothes?
An entomologist explained in a college “bugs and boys” class that chiggers have weak mouth parts so they need pressure to clamp onto our skin.  The invention of elastic waistbands was a huge boon to chiggerdom. 
This is blackberry season, which means every time I bring in a [...]

Strawberry Fields

It shouldn’t be this easy!  Two years ago, I shoveled a few scoops of strawberry plants from my mother’s strawberry bed, threw them in a trash bag and then dug them the next day into my garden bed. The few grew into many, even engulfing the mint.  If you can crowd out mint, you are some awesomely aggressive plant, like kudzu [...]