In the course of one of my seed trades, I was directed to MasterCook. They have a promotion that gives the program away to culinary students and teachers. I inquired if #2 might qualify, as he's home schooled and loves to cook, but neither of us is a professional, nor is it a college instructional set up. I was pleasantly surprised when they agreed! I made an account tonight, and hopefully after school work tomorrow he can take time to get to know the program and maybe start his recipe collection! I know he's looking forward to working with all of the new vegetables that we've been collecting seeds for. I figure using this program will help him to be a little more organized than trying to bookmark recipes in various cookbooks, cooking magazines, and recipe card boxes. Once he's gotten the hang of it, he's going to blog a review. He's been busy with school work and field trips, so we haven't had a lot of time for cooking, but now that things are settling into more of a routine, he should have more time to play in the kitchen and get back to his blog.
And speaking of that seed trade, the kids and I were very excited when the box came. I was anticipating some Gold Nugget squash, Turkey Craw Pole Beans, Key's Tennessee Orange tomato, and three sunflower varieties of seed. She sent a lot of extras, including several more varieties of sunflowers (which #2 quickly added to his seed stash), mixed zinnia seeds (which #3 paraded through the house with before I could convince her to keep them in the seed box), Homemade Pickles cucumber seeds for #1 (who thought the name was absolutely perfect), Purple Hyacinth Vine seeds for #4 (I had to look these up, I thought the seeds looked beautiful, but the flowers are gorgeous - #4 is going to love growing them), and even some fennel seeds! Wow! Thank you NCRedBird from DavesGarden!
And on a side note, we've decided to attempt rabbits again. We had them before, but my allergies got worse and at the time I was pregnant with #5 and was told the allergy medication wasn't good to take when pregnant. That coupled with pregnancy complications and a terrible winter and it was a bad experience all around. We will only be keeping a trio this time - two does and a buck. I realize it may be offensive to some people, but they are for meat breeding. Their poop will be used as fertilizer in the garden, they'll be able to eat the plant/garden scraps, and yes, the intent is to breed, grow, and eat the offspring of the original trio. I picked up the does today. Both brown. So as not to get attached to them, I will simply refer to them as Doe 1 and Doe 2. Our last rabbits all had names, which is why I never could come to actually slaughtering any of them - just sold the babies as pets. Now it's a matter of feeding the family, so breeding will be scheduled, and hopefully with selling a couple babies from each litter, I'll be able to have them pay for themselves (food wise). I'm still looking for a buck.
We have the first frost-advisory tonight. I covered the remaining dozen tomato plants and the Silver Mound that I planted recently. I hope that's enough to save them. It's supposed to be in the 30's again tomorrow night too. Yuck. I'm not ready for winter yet!!