July 2022 - Coming Home to Eden

Hello! This will be another quick post. I have recently started making yogurt again after a break. With that yogurt I can make peanut butter popsicles! My children love these. Okay…we all love these! They are super simple and require only a few ingredients. Actual individual ingredients. It always drove me nuts looking for recipes online to find ingredients with ingredients when I was trying to look for simple recipes that were decently healthy. Now, I am not calling this healthy but it is simple and not full of additives.

Folks looking for an exact recipe, hold on to your seats! This will not be that! I do not measure, but I will give you an idea. The ingredients I use are peanut butter, plain yogurt, maple syrup and a pinch or two of salt. I make my own peanut butter and do not add salt which is why I add it in the recipe. If you are using peanut butter that is salted, omit the salt.

I use approximately 1 quart of plain yogurt, around a cup of peanut butter, and pure maple syrup to taste plus a pinch or two of salt for depth of flavor. I blend these up in my blender. That is the first part. One you blend that up, pour it into a popsicle mold but do not fill to the top. The recipe gets yummier in a moment when we make what I call peanut butter caramel.

Okay, on to the caramel! This is also super simple. Take about a cup of peanut butter and add some maple syrup to taste plus a pinch or two of salt if using plain peanut butter. Mix these up and add blobs to the already filled mold. This is why you needed to leave some space. Also freezing does expand the liquid contents.

Sorry for the fuzzy photo. I didn’t see that it came out that way until it was too late to retake. I used it anyway because I wanted to show you what it looks like! Next, put the top on the mold and add popsicle sticks. Lastly, put them in the freezer. It is that simple!

I had left over mixtures so added them to my favorite Kerr jars for individual ice creams and sorbets. I also love these for jams and jellies. They are short and squatty which makes them easier to stack on shelves. I will provide a link below for everything I used here. Don’t forget to leave space for expansion when using glass in the freezer. You also need to use straight jars. Not doing so can result in broken glass and wasted food.

The fuzzy pictures were from the way I angled the camera with the sunlight apparently. Here is what I had left over using these 8 ounce jars. I put lids on them and popped them in the freezer. Done! Nut butters make fantastic ice cream bases because of the fat content. They make ice cream rich and creamy. They are also a nice source of protein. I hope you enjoy this recipe!

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Hello folks! This will be a quick post to share about a bed that I made this morning. I have wanted to make a woven bed for years. Probably about 10 years actually. If you knew what was going on in my life, this might seem a little crazy. I have wanted to make this specific bed for a year. As soon as I finish a project another idea comes to me. Last year I added the perimeter of strawberry beds as you can see in the photos.

Baskets are so aesthetically pleasing and satisfying to make. Well folks, this is a essentially a basket for dirt. I have been struggling with something and woke at 3am this morning. Since I couldn’t sleep, I decided to get up and take care of the pile of dishes in the sink and tidy up some. I threw a load of wash in and did some other work until about 9am. I started thinking about making this bed again a week or so ago. I thought it could be something fun and functional to do with my little one. I decided to instead do this for therapy for myself today.

Instead of going out to the woods to find wood, I used my blackberry canes from last year that were dead for stakes. I weed-whacked the area as short as I could prior to starting. I cut the stakes with these clippers. These were the only tools needed.

I pounded the stakes in with a mallet every 6-8 inches forming a curve as I went. I added a couple at a time to each side to watch the line come together nicely. This curved shape was going to be made with rocks as you can see in the picture a couple above. We had pulled a few big rocks from out back to use last year but stopped there.

Once all the stakes were in, I got some old cotton things that I had saved for using as landscaping fabric to block out the sun from the grass and weeds below. I laid the barrier down and started weaving my walls. I used an old pillow case, some curtains and a sheet. Any natural fabric will do.

In the spring we pruned our grapes and saved the vines to use for something. I did not have this in mind then. I thought about maybe making harvesting baskets or a garden sculpture. I have more left so may do something more with them later. These vines were lovely to use and I love the look of them.

Here you can see the bed with some grape vines woven in the front.

Here is a close up of the weave. I love the little curly Q’s.

This shows most if the weaving done.

Next, my husband delivered me some wood chips via the wheelbarrow. I shoveled out the entire load as a base layer for the bed. To give you an idea of size for reference, the end of the beds in which butt up to the woven bed are 3’.

Here she is all filled and ready to be used! It took two loads of compost in the wheel barrow courtesy of my husband to fill. He shovels in, I shovel out. This was done with zero monetary cost. Dead blackberry canes, old grapevines from pruning, free wood chips from a kind tree service, and free compost from our composted chicken bedding and manure. This took around a couple hours to complete mostly alone. I have no idea how long this will last but I was willing to take the risk for some therapy for myself. We have a whole hedge of hazelnuts that would be fantastic for weaving garden beds and so much more when they get big. Perhaps that is a post for another day. We also grow willow for basket weaving.

View from above.

I may clean this up a bit…I may not. I like the rustic look and it is functional as it is. I hope this inspires you to use what you have to make a garden bed today! Have a wonderful day!

Peanut Butter Popsicles

Woven Raised Garden Bed