Pea pods and math problems

How I wish I had paid more attention in math class!

Fresh peas are in the market now and I bought roughly 210 grams. 140 grams were pods and 70 grams were peas. I paid 20 uah per kilo which I think means the actual peas cost 33 uah per kilo. I can buy frozen peas (usually) in bulk for 24 uah a kilo - which, if my math is correct - means my time and money are better spent in the frozen food section of the grocery store (not to mention the temperature there is nicer now too!!)

Anyone want to proof the math?

Strawberries are about to reach their peak - twice the price over last year but cherries are actually CHEAPER than strawberries - though still more than last year. Don't know what i'll attempt to make or can this year - It is so hot and the days are very, very short with Saphira waking up so early. (I know the sentence doesn't sound logical - but the reality of my days prove it - I think the coffee factor - I don't start waking up until my second cup of coffee has something to do with it.)

A Broken Alarm clock

Our alarm clock is broken. For the last few weeks, we have been slowly and steadily been awoken by its blast earlier and earlier. Currently we are holding at 5:30. We would love to reset it, but somehow the Saphira clock has no manual. Last night Alister and I resigned ourselves to a no-win situation and went to bed at 9:30. Still bleary eyed, but more rested than the past few days, we all hit the ground running.

The day was lovely - sunny AND cool. And there are fresh strawberries coming into the market and the price has hit the frozen strawberry mark so I feel justified buying them. I bought them from a babushka. They were not the prettiest strawberries at the market, but they were garden grown and it is always nice to help a babushka who is probably living on a $120 a month pension.

They were amazing. I don't know if it was because they were the first fresh strawberries of the season, because they were garden grown, or what, but even the greenish ones were so incredibly sweet.

We also had a fantastic day at the play park. And the park is getting a face-lift. And I have 3 phone numbers, and two more on the back burner. I even have a "little black book" with the mothers' names and children's names and approximate b-days. but more on all this another time.

Am still pretty tired from this alarm clock battle, but today was a fantastic day all the same.

Accidental Cottage Cheese

I was all set to make Yogurt today but ended up with Cottage Cheese. The culprit was the "fresh" milk I bought in the store. Normally, we buy the long life milk and have it delivered once a month or so with our other stock up on grocery order. Delivery is free if you order about $80 so we can stock up on non-perishables. While this is very convenient - esp as I don't have to carry gallons of milk and a baby around every day - LongLife milk is a bit more expensive, so when I make yogurt I buy it in the "fresh" bags in the grocery store. This milk isn't exactly fresh, it has been processed somehow, but you never know how long it will actually stay good - another reason why we buy the long life as we know it will be good when we open it and will last a day or two in the fridge.

Anyway, I pured my 1.5kilos of milk onto the stove to bring to 200F, tried a spoon, noted it was a tad "off" but thought the boiling would kill anything in it and maybe add to the yogurt flavor process.

While it did kill everything, I will have to try again at yogurt tomorrow, what I got instead was white clumps in yellow water. A quick Internet search (what did they do before google???) confirmed this was cottage cheese, and was edible. And its tasty. The 1.5 kilos of milk produced only 225 grams of cottage cheese or what some may call closer to ricotta as it not the same rubbery curds we get in the states -and 1 liter of whey.

As Whey is incredibly healthy, I'm looking into what to do with it now - but in the meantime, if life gives you sour milk, make cottage cheese :-)

Cakes - Phase four

One hundred fifty-six cupcakes to frost, Onehundred fifty-six cakes, take some cream and smear it around, One hundred fifty-five cupcakes to frost.

Thanks to the help of three wonderful women - all cupcakes were frosted by 9pm. (Starting at 7 with a break for dinner) Everyone had fun and now the biggest question is how to get them to church in the morning. Not quite all 156 cupcakes will make it - a few have already left his world and several others got put on a plate in the freezer for a friend. But the tally is still over 120.

Whew. Overall it has been fun and a great learning experience - but I think I won't do something like this until Saphira graduates or some big achievement like that. All things in moderation - and this was a bit beyond that border stone.

Cakes - Phase three

Next step - lots and lots of cupcakes. Three people have come to help. The cake was made using the Hershey Sourcream cake and the Hershey heritage cake - the Sour Cream cake was the overall favorite. Not only was the taste and texture great - the color was amazing. Little bugs were for the babies and made from cottage cheese.

Saphira decided to dig into the big people cake.

Now she found her own lady bug.

Sweet Dreams

There were just too many good captions to go with this scene that we saw on our walk the other day:

Cakes - phase two

If you're following along - I'm baking an insane number of cakes and cupcakes for our one-tomorrow daughter. Did I mention I've never done cake decorating before? Frosting yes, decorating no.

Cake status

total batches of cakes baked: 7

Recipes used: 4 (used another Hershey - but it is untested as it is a cake base, not a cupcake)

1 large round cake in freezer

2 rectangle cakes in freezer

22 unfrosted large cupcakes in freezer

8 partially frosted large cupcakes in freezer

over 100 unfrosted mini cupcakes in freezer

Today I did the final baking and did a frosting test run with the Ukrainian dyes.

I also decorated Saphira's Sugar-free sirnik that I colored/sweetened with pureed cherries.

Then I decorated 4 cupcakes and 2 other sirnik "cakes" that I'm going to drop by a friend's tomorrow - her son was also born on the 13th!

All the sirnik bug were made using a silicone "bug" form.

The frosting of the cupcakes is taking as much if not more time than I feared - I think I'll put a call out for Saturday help.

Phase three will be Thursday night when I make the "big" flat cake for the country team meeting - as well as make up 30 hard boiled eggs for deviled eggs. Eek.