cubed, hacked caprese

I tried this Smitten Kitchen twist on caprese, and it's an excellent seasonal recipe that transforms your guilty desire to turn eat nothing but caprese for dinner into a perfectly reasonable choice. I made it with fresh basil rather than the pesto and ate it plain and on sliced french bread. OUTSTANDING!

cubed, hacked caprese: "

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Enjoy Homemade Butter in Less Than Five Minutes [DIY]

Enjoy Homemade Butter in Less Than Five Minutes [DIY]: "

Homemade butter is vastly superior to its store-bought equivalent, but nobody wants to pull out or buy a butter churn. This churn-free method makes it worthwhile, producing the kitchen staple (and some bonus buttermilk, too) in under five minutes.

Danny at the Over The Hill And On A Roll blog has the instructions on making butter with just two ingredients:

• 16 ounces of heavy cream, chilled
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Basically, you're just beating the cream until it 'start to look like scrambled eggs' and separates into butter and buttermilk. After that happens, you'll remove the butter from the remainders and squeeze it into a 'ball-o-butter'. Quick, simple, and it'll make your cookies better.

Are there other groceries you make at home? Do you think they're better than the store-bought equivalents? Share your recipes, and their custom-crafted components, in the comments.

How To Make Butter In Under 5 Minutes! [Over The Hill And On A Roll]

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Family farmers: No NAIS in our name

Family farmers: No NAIS in our name: "

NPPC doesn’t speak for me: Rhonda Perry, a Missouri farmer and director of the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, is tired of Big Meat purporting to represent her interests in Washington. NAIS, a controversial animal tracking program [that we've covered numerous times], is just the newest example of the “farm lobby” abandoning the interests of actual farmers. But for once, family farmers had the opportunity to tell the USDA just how much they disagree with industry overlords: In listening sessions across the country, a vast majority of producers spoke out against the program, which is being pushed by the likes of the National Pork Producers Council and the National Milk Producers Federation.

Says Perry, “Given the shocking chasm between our corporate farm groups and real family farmers, NAIS is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to bad farm policy that emanates from of Washington. So the next time you hear that ‘farm groups’ oppose cracking down on antibiotics, or that they want to water down environmental regulations over factory farms or that we need another free trade agreement the likes of the one with Colombia, just remember whose interests these folks really represent–and it’s not rural America.” (Minuteman Media)

This isn’t exactly new news, but Perry says it better than many others we’ve seen. Read her op-ed, raise a fist, and hope the USDA and Congress are listening up.

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Recycle Wine Bottles into Stylish Outdoor Torches [DIY]

Recycle Wine Bottles into Stylish Outdoor Torches [DIY]: "

Think cheap Tiki torches are tacky? Want something a bit sturdier and with more refined looks? Use this simple tutorial to turn recycled wine bottles into swanky bug-repelling outdoor lighting.

Gerardot&Co., a design and marketing agency, put together a tutorial on recycling wine bottles into mounted torches. The design is ingeniously simple, and requires only a few bucks worth of parts from your local hardware store. You'll need a few copper fittings, a bolt, a few nuts, and a mounting plate, along with a standard torch wick and some oil.

Assuming you've got the bottles on hand, or some friends willing to down a few for a good cause, for under $50 you could outfit a sizable yard with wine-torches. Torches, we might add, that have a sizable 750ml reservoir to them burning bright, no matter how late your dinner parties last.

Recycled Wine Bottle Torch [via Make]

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Keep Your Plants Pampered with a Wine Bottle Plant Nanny [Outdoors]

Keep Your Plants Pampered with a Wine Bottle Plant Nanny [Outdoors]: "

You can keep your plants well-watered by arranging for Twitter alerts when they're thirsty, but using a wine bottle as a 'plant nanny' to maintain consistent levels of moisture seems more efficient. Plus you can sate your own thirst, too.

The Early Show has a neat way of saving $5-$50 by using empty wine bottles instead of store-bought 'plant nannies.' It's as simple as filling up the wine bottle with water, putting a spike on the end, and sticking the entire contraption upside down into a planter. Water will seep into the dirt gradually and keep your plants sated without drowning them.

It's a great, simple solution for keeping your plants watered without much work on your part (though you could also just choose more low-maintenance plants). Have your own neat use for empty wine bottles? Or do you have a particularly sneaky way of making your plants not even notice that you're gone? Tell us all about your tricks in the comments.

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A park really close to my house with a nice walking path

Tags: Colorado Springs, 2009

my Iowa roses are finally blooming!

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