New Juice drink experiments!

Kira loves juice, so I'm trying to buy many of the fruits when they are on sale and make combinations of juice on my own. This week, Fresh Brown and White Coconuts were on sale along with Pineapples! Guess she gets her favorite tropical drink this week!

Coconuts are very versatile fruits. You can extract coconut water, coconut milk, coconut oil, and coconut toppings all from the same fruit. Once you learn how to open and utilize them, it doesn't take long to get the fruit and juices out. :)

Brown and white coconuts look similar but are different in taste and texture. The brown coconut has very tough meat to remove, while the white is softer. The taste of them also varies. White coconuts I've found are typically sweeter than their brown family members. Contrary to what you may read on the internet the white coconut is NOT a young coconut, its a different brand altogether.

After removing the water and filtering it, you can drink away. The "meat" is easily removed with a serrated spoon. If you have no intention of using the remainder of the meat after making milk, you can just crack the outer tough shell with a hammer, after emptying 2 coconuts of their meat, throw them in the blender with 2 to 3 cups of hot water and puree away.

Filter out the meat by product with a cheese cloth and viola! Fresh homemade coconut milk! The cream layer on top can either be stirred in before you pour a glass, or you can remove it and put it in the fridge to use as oil for cooking.

The leftover shell can be crushed and used in your garden, it has so many wonderful nutrients to help plants grow strong and productive. 

ENJOY!

The Easter Eggs!

Well we're finished! Kira loves them, and they turned out gorgeous! Here is how you finish your egg dying!

Once they've soaked for a few days, hard boil them in their respective juice colors. After they're done, store them in their color containers 1 more night with the juice and veggies pieces. The next morning take them out, cut the string unroll them and clean off the excess particles. Once they've dried you can give them a shine by using some olive oil on a towel to coat them.

You can put the juice in smaller containers and let the kids use them as water colors! The veggies can be either discarded OR if you have a garden growing you can stick the remains in a food processor with some water until they are as pureed as they can get. Mix it in with the soil as natural fertilizer for your growing seedlings - They'll love it and you'll have no waste to get rid off!

ENJOY!

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Easter is close at hand!

With Easter coming up, I'm going to get Kira involved in a fun way. We are dying Easter eggs this week and why not do something different..Typically you go to the store, buy the eggs and packaged dyes and come home. Hard Boil the eggs, and soak them for a little bit in the dye to get the color you want. However, outside of seeing the colors there really isn't anything fun involved in the process, or if there is, we can always make it better!

We're trying natural dyes this year! I found some ideas and gave them a shot! We won't see the final results for a few days but so far it was great, lets hope the color is as pretty as I've seen in some of the other blogs. 

The steps are as follows:

In order to give your egg a pattern with the dyes you'll need to wrap them in onion skin, and place parsley/Dill around the outside. Some of the eggs should be left WITHOUT onion skins and just wrapped in Parsely/Dill (You'll see why later) You need to make sure they are secure against your egg so wrap it with Kite string and tie it off. It should look something like this:

Next you get your dyes together by making them from vegetables, spices, and coffee!

Frozen Blueberries - Beets - Red Cabbage - Coffee - Tumeric - Paprika are the ones I've chosen to use for this year. If it works out well we will use more colors next year. Vinegar will be used in almost all of these colors - The reason for the vinegar is to help the eggs absorb the color into their shell. Using natural dyes will not change the taste of your eggs. Lets begin!

ALL OF THE EGGS WILL BE DYED IN RAW FORM - THEY WILL BE COOKED LATER.

Tumeric 3 Tbps - 2 Tbps Vinegar - Just enough water to cover the eggs in the solution.
Tumeric will give you a Yellow/Honey Color.

3 Beets sliced - 2 Tbsp Vinegar - Add water until the eggs are covered.
Beets make a beautiful red color.

Pomegranate Juice by itself. No Vinegar needed.
Makes a purplish colored egg

Red Cabbage chopped - 2 Tbsp Vinegar - Add water to cover eggs.

Makes a Cobalt blue color- Surprise!

Beets chopped with the eggs hidden in the mix. 

3 Tbsp Paprika - 2 Tbsp Vinegar - Add water to cover eggs. Stir mixture completely.

Makes a beautiful Orange Color - The shade is dependent on the Onion Skin color you choose to wrap the eggs in.

You can also use Strong coffee by itself, fill a bowl up to cover the eggs and leave them overnight.

ALL Egg mixtures should be left overnight for AT LEAST 2 days. You will get color, but the longer you leave them in the solution before you cook them, the richer your colors and the darker your patterns from the parsley/Dill/Onion skins. This is before you cook them - Once they've soaked for that long, you can cook each bowl individually till the eggs are hard boiled. Don't throw away the dyes or veggies just yet, you can still use them for more things.! ^_^

EGGS WITH ONION SKIN WRAPPED / DILL / PARSLEY - You'll want to use these ingredients:

Strong Coffee
Tumeric
Paprika

Pomegranate

EGGS WITH PARSLEY/DILL WRAPPING ONLY - You'll want to use these ingredients:

Spinach (For a green color)

Red Cabbage

Blueberries

Beets

We will see how these turn out and post them up in a few days.! 

Attention pays off!

Kira's garden has exploded with life. She demands to see her plants daily, referring to them as "Me" meaning "Mine" (we are working on that word..), pets them, talks to them, and plays music. They seem to love it as I've never seen plants grow so quickly. I relocated some outdoors, and I'm currently working on building a trellis to train her cucumber plants to go up instead of spread along the floor. Who knew gardening would be so..interesting? Next issue is dealing with the deer and rabbit who like to eat all the plants. Looks like this went from a small experiment into a full fledged garden.  While I'm not complaining. it certainly hard as times to get stuff moved when she is too young to know where she can and can't go. Her naps seem to be getting shorter, and her needs are growing as much as she is. 

  This is the part of life I miss, the exploration of life for the first time. She is so excited to learn, share her experiences (despite not being able to understand any of it) and relish seeing new things. She brings a sense of peace and fantasy back into my life, ones that you typically put in the back of your mind while you're flooded with work and trying to live. It's refreshing :)

Garden Mayhem...

    Well, Kira's garden is doing something I didn't expect....it's actually growing! I honestly thought most of these seedlings would die. The packets even say only 50% chance of survival because they are untreated and not genetically modified for guaranteed growth....

    Kira's been waking up excited to see them every morning. She plays songs for them, shows her new toys off, and talks to them. It seems to be paying off.... We will have more fruits and veggies than I know what to do with...Thank goodness for family and friends who are more than willing to take the extra off of our hands. Now I'm not so worried about having more than I can handle, I hate wasting food! When they say allow for 6 to 8 weeks for a seedling to sprout and grow enough survive going outside, I'm not sure what they had in mind. We only started this garden 2 weeks ago and they are very large...Praying for warmth so I can place them outside sooner.

   They also mention "thinning" the seedlings, which I've tried. Kira is O.K. with me putting the seedlings into larger containers and spreading them out, but she was so sad when I "killed" one...since she points to each individual cup every time she gets near the sprouts, one wonders if she's actually counting them! LOL I do hope they all continue to grow this well, she'll have lots to do come spring/summer.

More to come!

Toddler's and Gardens!

My daughter Kira has turned the big "1" in February and man, have things started to pick up!! She's talking more, running around, climbing and repelling off of things and reeking havoc like she's related to Tarzan. I'm finding it hard to keep her occupied without getting deterred. Having to read the same book or play with the same toy 20 or 30 times a day is tiring. Since it's still too cold to take her outside much, finding new things to do is a bit of a challenge. 

So, we've decided to start a garden! In part because we have a small budget, and it gives me something to work on. I've taken into account Kira's persistence to be part of what we are doing, so she's our official garden "caretaker".  Does she understand the concept of cultivating? Not at all! She does enjoy watching the seeds sprout; frequently petting them and saying "Awww" as they grow. Hopefully this will encourage her to eat what she is growing, and be gentle with living things. So far so good! 

  

   With toddlers, bright colors are a must! So the veggies and fruit we've chosen to grow have just that; LOTS of color. Purple, white, dark orange Carrots, Freckled Romaine Lettuce, Cucumbers, Watermelons, Cantaloupe, Strawberries, Blueberries and so on. The Plants are growing in one of our windowsills so she can see them everyday.  She even brings her toy dog that plays music over to the plants, thinking they would enjoy listening to a song or two as much as she does.

We aren't quite sure how long she'll keep interest in this new project, but perhaps being part of a daily routine will be beneficial. Once it's warmed up here we will transfer her veggies and fruits outside.  Spring can't come soon enough!