Homemaking is an art..

A wild experience!

 See this plant that hubby is preparing to dig out? Do you know what it is?

Well ...we didn't know what it was when we discovered it springing up beside the pathway to our garage.


Hubby thought it was some kind of parsley and un-beknowst to me...he ate some!!!

Why do men do such dangerous things!  I've always told him "if we didn't plant it and you don't know what it is..don't touch or eat it! "

This thing grew super fast and I actually liked the look of it...so I thought I would leave it be for a while to see what it did and how big it grew.


I love free plants so was okay with the idea of it staying put and becoming part of the garden.

As it got bigger I noticed the purple blotches on the stalks and started to suspect that this might not be such a great plant to encourage after all.

Within 2 weeks it had gone from a small seedling to a vigorous plant taller than me!!

I thought the leaves looked more like carrot tops by this stage and set about Googling up "wild carrots". It sounded feasible to me because we had planted carrots nearby a couple of seasons ago...so we thought maybe an odd one had re-sprung up and gone wild or something.

And that's when we learned that this was NOT a friendly herb or healthy veggie that the birds had conveniently dropped a seed for us to harvest.

 This turned out to be POISON HEMLOCK!!!

And my husband actually ATE some when it was smaller!!
Praise God he didn't get sick..or worse!

We have no idea how it got here aside from birds dropping the seed in our yard.
Needless to say hubby immediately went and dug it out and got rid of it as soon as knew what we had.

It actually is related to wild carrots or Queen Anne's Lace...so I wasn't far off when I thought the leaves were carrot-like.

It has a deep root and runner and would have taken over that spot if we'd let it continue growing.

Well this was one freebie that we certainly don't want in our garden!!

So after that interesting experience...hubby has a new revelation of why I worry about him putting strange things in his mouth, lol!

He lived to tell the tale...thanks be to God...and we both learned something new. Not everything that looks like parsely and carrots is....and make sure you KNOW what you're eating before you try it!!

Apples for Tasha's cake..

Just before Tasha Tudor's birthday in August, Miss Polly took the girls apple-picking in anticipation of the big day. She told them about the delicious receipt from Tasha's family cookbook which she planned to use for the special day:

"Tasha collected apples in a green-ash-splint basket before they fell and stored them on the counter beside the bread box, where over the next few days she made them into applesauce or pies. She baked cookies or a cake each day to have ready for afternoon tea and visitors. If guests arrived early they helped prepare tea, carried in an armload of firewood, put new candles in the candleholders, or moved weed piles to the compost, depending on the season. Sometimes Tasha frosted the applesauce cake, other times she didn’t....

Applesauce Cake:

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

8 tablespoons butter, soft

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1 cup applesauce, unsweetened

Frosting:

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup cream

1 tablespoon butter

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 350° F. First make the cake. In large mixing bowl, beat together sugar, egg, and butter. Add flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and applesauce. Mix until just combined.

Bake in greased 8×8-inch pan 25-30 minutes or until a fork or toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

While the cake is baking, make the frosting. Bring brown sugar and cream to a simmer and cook to 235° F. Turn burner off and cool until about 100° F. Add butter and vanilla. Beat until frosting thickens and frost cake right away."

~ from The Tasha Tudor Family Cookbook by Winslow Tudor