Cranberry Heaven

Sugared Cranberries and
Cranberry Spice Syrup
Makes 3 cups cranberries

Sweet and tangy sugared cranberries make a surprising addition to candy bowls, your favorite apple pie recipe, cheesecake,baked brie, pancake or ice cream topping.

Ingredients
3 cups sugar
2 cinnamon sticks
6 whole cloves
3 cups water
3 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed
1 cup superfine sugar

Mix sugar, cinnamon sticks and cloves with water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Simmer for 1 minute, stirring until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl. Stir in cranberries. Cover and refrigerate for about 8 hours. Drain cranberries. Reserve liquid, strain out cinnamon sticks and cloves and use as a simple syrup to add a holiday touch.

Place superfine sugar in a bowl and gently toss in cranberries, coating evenly. Place cranberries on a baking sheet to dry, about 1 to 2 hours.

Store in an airtight container.

To Can Syrup

Fill jars, leaving 1/4 inch headspace and boil in water bath canner for 20 minutes. When serving, if you'd like a thicker syrup, simply add a little cornstarch before heating it up.

~~~

We sprinkled sugared cranberries and poured the cranberry spice syrup on top of our pancake dinner last night. It was absolutely delightful! And if you will be coming to Sunday family dinner this week, these will be featured in our pancake bar. I mean, who doesn't love breakfast for dinner? Especially with something as sinfully delicious as these?

Thanks Whole Foods and USU Extension services
for helping me out on this one!

Dear Santa,

{Crowing Rooster by Hans Droog}

I have been a good girl this year. I'd really like an eglu chicken coop and some cute little hens to lay eggs for me. I asked my cute primary kids at church to tell my husband thats what I wanted for my birthday, but he didn't get me one, so now I'm asking you.

Just a cute chicken coop and two hens. The hens only make soft clucking noises so they won't wake up the neighbors at the break of dawn, and they would be so cute wandering about the yard and ever so useful with their fresh eggs and all. Oh and I wouldn't mind the above painting either. That's all I'm asking. Pretty, pretty please?

Signed,

Becca

My Patio Stairs

Originally I wanted something like this surrounding my patio stairs:

{click to enlarge}

But I found out this past summer that my tall house keeps this area in the shade until it receives afternoon sun starting around 2:00. But then the neighbors trees start giving me late afternoon shade, so they really don't get a ton of direct sunlight. So obviously my sun loving vegetables didn't do very well in this spot.

But it doesn't mean I can't grow edibles there! A quick google search told me I just need to plant different ones this coming year like any of these that do well with less sun and/or shade:

Arugula, cabbage, kale, lettuce, mustard greens, pak choi, parsley, sorrel, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, beets, brussel sprouts, radishes, swiss chard, collards, chives, garlic chives, onions, cardamom, mints, sage, dill, oregano, borage, chamomile, several kinds of thyme, bush beans, blackberry, currants, gooseberry, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, several kinds of pears, hardy kiwi, filbert, hazelnut, and yellowhorn.

Now, which ones do I want to try? Which ones will do best in pots? Hmm, decisions, decisions!

The Salad Garden

Care to go lounge in the garden, soak up the sun and pick your own salad while you're there? I think its a fun idea and I think I have a spot for it too!

{via Country Living UK}

This could be really cute with oh say, a red or yellow {or even teal!} adirondack chair. Or even better, a luxurious chaise? I mean, why not romance the salad garden?

Now my chairs aren't quite so loungey because they belong to my patio set but they are frequently moved around the yard to the west fence to take advantage of afternoon shade, or to the firepit for roasting marshmallows. But I think they might take up a more permanent residence by the west fence and instead of taking out the lawn, I might just do a salad box or two on tables inbetween the chairs instead.

The Basement Grocery Store

It all started with Blast From The Past. The scene where the mom is shopping in the bomb shelter with a grocery cart, like 30 years later! How cool is that? Yeah, I want my own grocery store too!

So I was trying to find some peach crates for my root cellar and came a cross a whole bunch of fun produce department products to make my own little grocery store even cuter!

Washable baskets

Cute deep baskets

Even a real produce stand!

Cute hanging baskets to put on the walls.

Even something like this would be cool!

Or these if you don't have shelf space anymore.

Just put these out nearby on the floor.

Or a real decorative produce cart if you have room!

Or even stands built to hold lots of baskets!

Yeah, there are a lot of products out there to help me design my own cute lil' grocery store!

{via avisbag and Hubert}

Garden Tomatoes in December

Santa Cow wants to show you our tomatoes!

Remember my big box of green tomatoes? Well, we're still eating them! But we're down to the very last ones to ripen. They've kept quite nicely in the garage all this time!