I Have Strawberries!

This spring I decided to grow some things that I could later eat. In the past I've successfully grown tomatoes, but then I found out that tomato plants had to be replanted every year and that kind of turned me off to growing them again. I've also semi-successfully grown basil in the past; it took a few attempts but I had a good bit going last fall. I completely failed at trying to grow a raspberry bush in a 5 gallon bucket.

So this spring I decided that I wanted to grow some things that we easy and that I wouldn't have to replant next year. In end I went with basil, cilantro, and strawberries. Since we had a strangely cold spring I had to start my growing indoors. I grew the basil and cilantro from seeds and the strawberry from what appeared to be just roots. The basil and cilantro did really well inside but the strawberries never took off; I'm not convinced that I didn't plant them upside down.

When it finally got consistently warmer outside I put the basil and cilantro on the front steps and eventually planted new strawberries - this time from actual plants. The basil didn't last long, I guess that's what happens when they don't get watered. The cilantro is doing pretty well even though it was touch and go there for a while. The strawberries are doing amazing! I even have a beautiful red one that should be ready to be eaten in a few days (though I won't be able to eat it because I'll be out of town).

I chose strawberries because I read that they are pretty hardy and that they can last about 3 years, even through harsh winters. Since I hate replanting stuff every year and since I'm not great at remembering to water things, they seemed perfect. Hopefully we'll continue to get along nicely through the summer and the next few year.

Recipe: Oven Pancakes

The recipe for Oven Pancakes comes courtesy of Stickboy, CJ's friend who lives in Sweden. Apparently CJ and Stickboy email pretty much every day, it is precious, and on one of those days Stickboy shared a recipe, so CJ tried it, and it was really good. Stickboy shared said recipe using the metric system, so we had to do some conversions but I think it turned out great.

Ingredients:
Bacon*
1 egg
2/5 cup flour*
4/5 cup milk*
salt

*No amount of bacon was included so I guess everyone is free to add as much as they'd like. The conversions came to fifths of cups, which is strange, so CJ rounded to fourths of cups.

Instructions:
Cook the bacon, set aside. Mix together the egg, flour, milk and salt. Add bacon. Pour into a greased baking dish (an 8 x 8 worked really well for us). Bake at 435 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes or until the outside is brown while the inside is still moist. Top with jam. Serves 2 - 3.


CJ and I love these. They are really easy to make and are really good. We've topped with strawberry, grape, raspberry, and apricot jam as well as almond butter and it seems as though you really can't go wrong.

Here is the nutritional information assuming 4 strips of bacon were added and it makes 2 servings. This does not include jam or other toppings. It is a safe bet to assume that every tablespoon of jam has about 50 calories, a ton of sugar, and not much else.