those darn flies.

Fruit flies. Enough said.

Actually you better go and make yourself one of these.

They help. No really they do and they only take a minute to put together.

Collect: a spice jar, washi tape, piece of paper, a chunk of fruit (i used banana) and some apple cider vinegar.

How: Add pretty stripes of tape around the bottom part of jar, this is mostly to hide the unsightly fruit and future flies.

Next put in the piece of fruit. Then pour in just enough vigegar to come up the sides of the fruit with a bit still sticking up.

Now take your piece of paper and cut it into a semi-circle and make a cone taping the side to hold it together. The goal here is to have a very small hole in the bottom that the flies can fly into but not neccessarily back out again.

Place your cone with the small tip into the top of the spice jar. You'll now want to run a piece of tape around the jar and the cone holding the 2 together and making a seal that the flies can't get through.

And there you have it. A fruit fly trap. Happy hunting ;)

growing up.

Roots apparently run deep, or so they say. Atleast deep enough to last through driving rain and heat that can fry an egg. This garden seems to be taking hold and producing something edible.

 

just add water.

Gardening is easy. All you do is dig a hole, add some seeds and water, then boom you have an overflowing abundance of fresh vegetables for your family. right?

Okay so it's not really that easy. And there may be a few steps I left out. Like obsessing about what various insects might be having a family reunion on the underside of the leaves of your precious tomato plants. Or checking the 10 day forcast every hour to see if there might be the possibility of sun, you know some time in june. Or maybe spending hours researching various techniques in creating the most perfectly balanced compost tea that won't stink up your garage while steeping. Or maybe thats just me. Yeah at this point I might just have to throw my hands up and say whatever grows grows. or convert my raised beds into a fish pond.

bigger isn’t always better.

As a little girl it was told to me that fairy tale endings happened in a castle. A big palatial home with space for your treasures.

Today I see things a bit differently. A big space filled with treasures equals a lot of things that need to be dusted. I can think of other ways I would prefer to spend my day. But with all honesty there is one thing I would like to keep from the fairy tale...A man servant. 

Someone who takes out the trash. Someone who takes my car out for oil and filter changes. Takes the dogs for walks and carries all my bags from store to store without complaint or sigh. 

Sure you could argue that this is the role of the dutiful husband. But, hear me out on this, with your husband no longer spending his time doing menial tasks he can do more important things like play with the kids. Opening you up for time, I don’t know to maybe take a shower? Better yet to leave the house and get a manicure on all ten finger at once.

This fathers day think beyond the tie. Unless its a uniform for your new man servant.

do these pans make my buns look big?

With this weekend being a whole three days long, and you cooking out on the grill, oh come on you know you are, it's the unofficial start to summer and it is predetermined that all households must make burgers on the grill, might I suggest making your own buns. Sure this might seem like a daunting task and buns are like 99¢ at the store, but hear me out. These buns will elevate your burgers to legendary status. Your neighbors will all be talking over the fence about how "jane made her buns can you believe it?" "yeah, like from scratch" "and they were good, like better than peppridge farm good"

This recipe was adapted from a great cookbook called The Homemade Pantry 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making by Alana Chernila and I highly reccomend it. Her writing is delightful and engaging and recipes are easy to follow and produce great results.

Hamburger Buns

1 cup warm water

3 tablespoons whole milk

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (this is equal to a packet if thats your style)

2 tablespoons sugar

3 large eggs

2 cups white whole wheat flour

1 3/4 cups all purpouse flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted

optional - seeds for sprinkling on top like sesame, poppy or artisan seed blend

(1) Combine warm water, milk, yeast and sugar in a liquid measuring cup and set aside until foamy, this should take about 5 minutes. In a small bowl beat 2 eggs.

(2) In a large bowl, whisk together both flours and salt. Stir in the butter, followed by the yeast mixture and beaten eggs. Continue to stir until the ingredients start to come together. I find using a dough whisk helps a great deal with this.

(3) Turn dough out onto a floured surface and kneed until smooth, this will take about 8 minutes or so. Shape the dough into a ball and return it to the bowl to rise. Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours or until doubled in size.

(4) Line a baking sheet with parchment or silpat. Divide dough into 8 equal portions and roll each gently into a ball. Place them on the baking sheet about 2-3 inches apart. Cover loosely with the tea towel and allow to rise again for 1-2 hours.

(5) Preheat your oven to 400° with the rack in the center of the oven. On the bottom shelf place a METAL pan with about 1 inch of water. This will create steam, be sure you use a metal pan so that if the water should all evaporate you won't end up with exploding glass if you need to add more water later.

(6) In a small bowl whisk the remaining egg with 1 tablespoon of water to make a glaze. With a pastry brush coat each roll and sprinkle seed mixture on top as well as a sprinkling or course salt. Bake for 20 minutes rotating the pan halfway through for even browning. Transfer to rack for cooling and enjoy.