March cooking class was French Onion Soup and Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting. Judy used 6 pounds of beef shank meat to make a beef broth. The soup used 4 pounds of onions and dry sherry. We ate it with a small baguette topped with Gruyere cheese. Delicious.
Judy adjusts her recipes for high altitude baking. I am loving learning how to do this. For instance, in this cake, 1 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder is adjusted to 1/2 tsp for high altitude. She used 5 eggs and 1 yolk instead of 4 eggs. Her frosting was great....not too much and not too sweet—4 oz. cream cheese, 2 T whole milk, 1 t vanilla, 2 c sugar. (She left out the butter, added whole milk instead of sour cream, and cut the cream cheese in half...it worked!)
We bought this set at Home Depot. We went there for something else and ended up with this. It's comfy...not sure how well this wicker will wear in the AZ sun but we will see. It's going to live under the west facing deck.
Randy is making more garden beds. He buys metal corners and they come together pretty quickly.
He has already planted peas, carrots, onions, beets, broccoli, radishes and some herbs.
He placed this large bed on top of the mound that we had planted in corn last year. He just dug around the outside until it was level. We plan on planting corn again....in stages.
We can't decide what to do around the outside of the beds.....weed cloth and granite? grass? Before we do anything we have to get the dirt level in this area.
In the next few weeks we hope to put a "ceiling" on the west facing deck so that the furniture doesn't get wet when it rains/snows. That's Matt's job. We also hope to get the lattice and window boxes painted. All of the plants are ordered from our local nursery. We are trying to find someone to help us plant them all.....it's quite a lot.
The french onion soup looks yummy! The carrot cake...so moist...I like the patio furniture and the garden is looking great!
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