Windowsill Gardening and Cadbury Cream Eggs

Now that the weather has turned and the snow is gone I'm thinking more and more about gardening. Determined not to let our lack of balcony or outdoor space deter me, I had already been planning to use our huge windowsills. Our building was built in 1931 and if the windows aren't original they must be pretty damn close. There are three panes of movable windows on a sash/pulley system but we only leave the inside window closed and there's a screen on the outside - which means we have about 6-8 inches of big wide windowsills that can fit a decent sized window box, planter, or container - we keep our compost box in one of the kitchen windowsills already. We also have multiples windows in almost every room which gives us...9 windowsills total to work with.

After doing some research I'm pretty excited to get started on this project. We have windows on two sides of our building but unfortunately one set faces east and one north, giving us no direct sunlight. It actually gets pretty bright during the day but not enough for most plants to grow. I'm planning to head down to Sage Garden Herbs to have a look at some artificial lights and get some advice on the best plants to try out. Sage Garden Herbs happens to have a great article about indoor gardening that answered a lot of my questions.

At this point I'm not sure exactly what I want to grow. I know I'm going to do a variety of herbs and also salad greens but I'd like to try some more challenging things as well. I know I'll have to experiment to see what works but I came across a great resource that I'm hoping to pick up at the library or bookstore (depending on how much I look the book when I actually get my hands on it). McGee and Stuckey's Bountiful Container: Create Container Gardens of Vegetables, Herbs, Fruit, and Edible Flowers has great reviews and a few mentions around the blogsphere. According to the reviews and product info, this book has some really in depth info about all kinds of produce and the best growing conditions for each. I love books that are full of information so I'm hoping it lives up to my expectations.

I have so many toys that I want to buy right now. Spring is a good season for inspiration. After researching dehydrators for a while I finally decided on a model and purchased it online. I went for the Excalibur 2500 model - this brand had the best reviews on the web and I found a Canadian retailer that offered free shipping and got a decent deal. It's supposed to arrive pretty quickly so I'm excited to get to play around with it. I already have some neat ideas collected from different blogs. I'm looking forward to making some posts about it. I have to admit I'm really excited at the prospect of making my own jerky. Now that I'm gluten free it can be hard to find jerky that uses a wheat free soya or teryaki sauce.

Speaking of other new toys, my new food procesor should be arriving any day. I talked to my mom who said that as far as she knows the compay is just going to give me a new one. Woo! It was my fault I broke it but their fault for selling us a product that you can't replace because "it's only sold in Canada". The new model they're sending me is going to be replaceable if need be, although I'm hoping I can make it last more than 6 months this time.

Either than getting excited about things I could buy and things that are heading my way in the mail, I haven't really been doing all that much cooking...except for one Easter treat that I kind of regret discovering because they're so easy. A couple of weeks ago I was craving a Cadbury's Cream Egg, as I do because I love them. But I didn't feel like going to buy one so I googled "cadbuy cream egg recipe" and came across some idea's. I ended up basically using this recipe but with a few changes. I mean, you can't make these things without using Cadbury's chocolate - that's the best part! I halved the original recipe too because I got about 20 smaller eggs out of it. I found that if you did the eggs too big they were just too much cream and not enough chocolate.

Homemade Cadbury Cream Eggs

• 1/8 cup butter
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1-1 1/2 cup icing sugar, to your taste
• 2 milk chocolate cadbury chocolate bars
• 1 dark chocoalte cadbury chocolate bar

Mix together butter, honey, vanilla, salt, and sugar. I found this was easier to do by hand. I went by how it felt to get to a proper consistancy. Not too runny but not too stiff (the worst thing ever is to get a cream egg from the store only to find that the chocolate has a hole in it and the gooey part has gone all hard).

Take the mixture and put it in the fridge for 1-2 hours or freezer for 30-60 minutes if you're in a hurry (like I was). Take the mixture out and shape it into little eggs and spread on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. Once they're all shaped, pop them back into the fridge or freezer for the same amount of time as before.

At this point, you can start melting your chocolate in a bowl. I use a metal bowl inside a small pot with boiling water so the chocolate doesn't burn. Once the chocolate is melted and the eggs are well formed, take a spoon or two and drop each egg in the chocolate making sure it's well covered. I used the spoons to let the egg roll off back onto the cookie sheet. Once you've coated all the eggs return to the freezer for another 30-60 minutes. Re-melt your chocolate and re-coat every egg up to 3 times. I only did this twice and found that it was enough. Return the eggs for the fridge or freezer for at least 1-2 hours to properly set. Then enjoy your eggs!

*If you're feeling less lazy than I was you can also be creative and make a yellow yolk as described in this recipe. I just didn't feel like it was worth it and everyone at the potluck I brought these to thought they tasted awesome without.