I want to drink that.

The bubble here is “cucumber alginate encapsulation.” Believe it or not, you can make a less technical version at home. Awhile back, Marcia Simmons from Drink of the Week and I made creme de cassis bubbles and floated them in champagne. Here’s a picture:

In our case, the bubbles were gelatin, creme de cassis, cherry brandy, and lemon. We mixed the ingredients together and then squirted them in a bottle of oil.

Then we stuck the bottle in the freezer overnight. The bubble formed as the gelatin hardened. We strained them, rinsed them off, and put them in the champagne.

Of course, our bubbles weren’t as nice as the ones in the video above. But it did remind me of this technique and made me want to play around with molecular mixology again.

If you want to play around with it too, you can check out our recipe on Marcia’s blog.

The above picture is our Sunday breakfast: homemade bacon, fresh-baked buttermilk biscuits, and scrambled eggs from our own chickens.

Having chickens is great, so far. The eggs are smaller than the ones you get at the grocery store, but it’s not exaggeration to say that they are the best eggs I’ve ever eaten. I don’t even have to add salt when I cook them. I like to fry them over-medium and eat them with toast, or poach them for a bistro salad. I haven’t tried baking with them yet, but I’ll be making ice cream with them in the near future.

Having my own eggs has coincided with the 550 million egg recall. As you probably know, these eggs had to be taken off the market because they could be contaminated with salmonella. That is pretty scary. Even scarier are the filthy conditions of the chicken farms that produced these eggs, which according to the above article include:

•Barns with dozens of holes chewed by rodents that mice, insects and wild birds used to enter and live inside the barns;

•Flies on and around the egg belts and hen feeders;

•Manure built up in 4- to 8-foot-tall piles in pits below the hen houses, in such quantities that it pushed pit doors open, allowing rodents and other wild animals access to hen houses;

•Dozens of hens, which had escaped their cages, roaming freely, tracking manure from the pit to other caged parts of the barns;

•Hen houses with significant structural damage and improper air ventilation systems.

This is on top of the questionable practices of many egg operations, which some people consider animal abuse. Chickens are shoved together in cages so small, they sometimes can’t stand up or move their wings. On top of that, they are often shot with antibiotics, hormones, and other drugs that you and I then ingest.

Contrast that to my hens, which are totally pampered–a real farmer would find it ridiculous how pampered my hens are. They have giant cages, they get to roam around the yard, and they get tons of treats and attention. They are my pets as well as my little egg machines.

The point is, I haven’t had to worry about the egg recall at all. And I’m starting to see another benefit to growing your own food, besides increased quality and saving money. It reminds me of the e. coli outbreak in Spinach that happened in 2006. Everyone was upset because they couldn’t eat spinach, but I grew my own, so I didn’t have to go without spinach and I didn’t have to worry about e. coli, either. Earlier this year, there was a basil shortage, but I grow my own, so I have more than I know what to do with. The price of beer is going up like crazy, but my husband makes excellent beer that costs under $1 a bottle.

Sometimes our food system seems rather unstable, which is why it’s great to have your own source of food. I am not that extreme about it. I’m not about to, say, grow my own wheat for my buttermilk biscuits. But it’s still nice to have the peace of mind when you sit down to breakfast that you know exactly where your food came from, and what went into it.

I like this little cloud shelf from DesignTorget. I’m not sure how much it costs or if you can get it in the U.S., but I had to put it up.

There is also one shaped like a castle:

(Via NotCot)

One of the great things about growing your own tomatoes is that they can be stored lots of ways. For example, last year I talked about how to sundry tomatoes in your oven. But usually I just freeze the tomatoes in containers. That way, I can pull them out for sauces, soups, or any other dish whenever I want.

Of course, frozen tomatoes aren’t as good as fresh tomatoes–you certainly wouldn’t want them in a salad–but they do have their charm. I know some Italian chefs prefer to work with canned or frozen tomatoes over fresh tomatoes. In any case, you’ve got to do something with the excess harvest from your tomato plants, right?

Here is my method for freezing tomatoes: a. clean the tomatoes, b. remove the skin, and c. put them in a freezer-safe container and freeze. Easy. I don’t bother with pureeing or slicing the tomatoes at this stage because I might want to use whole tomatoes later on. Also, cutting the tomatoes means you are likely to lose some of the juices in the process, which is sad.

How To Freeze Tomatoes

You will need:

The tomatoes you want to freeze
Freezer-safe containers, tubs, plastic bags, vacuum-sealer bags, etc.
1 large pot of boiling water
1 large bowl of ice water
Strainer
A slotted spoon
A knife

Directions:

First, prepare the tomatoes. Wash the tomatoes. With a knife, cut out the stem and any bruisings or bad parts of the fruit.

After you are done, it’s time to remove the skins from the tomatoes. Here is a trick to make this easy: get a large pot of boiling water. Beside that, put a bowl of ice water. Drop the tomatoes into the boiling water for 30 seconds-1 minute, then fish out with a slotted spoon. Drop them into the ice bath. When they are cooled, transfer them to the strainer to get off excess water. The skin will come right off. Much easier than a vegetable peeler!

Finally, put the tomatoes into the freezer-safe container. I usually smash them up a bit so they are sitting in their own juices because I find they freeze better that way. Seal the container and transfer to the freezer. Now you can have tomatoes all winter long.

So that’s how I do freeze tomatoes. What’s your method?

Wow. I am in love with this duikers fabric from skinnylaminx’s Etsy shop. It costs $14 a quarter metre.

I learned about it from a sofa before and after on Design Sponge.

The sofa was upholstered by a furniture and design studio in Austin, Tx called Spruce.

A duiker is a small antelope, in case you didn’t know. (I didn’t.)

So much of clutter in a house are little things like bag clips for open potato chips. I love learning tricks like this that eliminate the need for keeping those things around.

Here’s a great tip from Mother Earth News–if you plant garlic in the fall and harvest it next spring, you’ll have bigger, better bulbs.

According to the site:

Try to plant your garlic about a month before your ground freezes, so the plants have time to get established. During winter, the crop will go dormant; then once spring and warmer temps roll around again, your plants will experience a burst of growth. By summer harvest time, you’ll marvel at the success of your crop!

The above picture, also from the site, illustrates the difference between planting garlic in the fall versus the spring.

Sadly, the bulb on the left looks familiar to me. I guess I have been doing this all wrong. I am adding garlic to my fall planting.

In looking around, I came upon this tutorial from Refabulous, where you make a wallet out of a paperback book. This is right up my alley.

Refabulous says her wallet has lasted 1 1/2 years so far. The design is pretty good looking too.

There are lots of creative possibilities here. For example, here’s a wallet made out of a romance book:

I just may have to try this.

This is rather sloppily done, but it is a great idea, nevertheless. Inbaliya took old birthday candles and eggshells, put them together, and made floating candles out of them.

From what I can tell (the site isn’t in English), she melted the candles, and then poured them into the eggshells. Then she added a wick, which she held up from the wax with toothpicks, like so:

Turns out eggshells are the perfect shape for floating candles. Who knew? I wish these were a little prettier, but overall, a great idea. I might just have to try this when fall gets here. (Via Recycled Crafts)

I was going to appliqué with a needle and thread, but in looking around the web I learned that there is an easier method. You can use special paper to fuse the appliqué to the fabric. This video shows how it is done.

Somehow, this seems like cheating. But since this is my first time, maybe I should get myself some Bondaweb, or whatever the American equivalent is, and go with that. Thoughts?