Potluck deliciousness

As I mentioned last post, I've been playing board games with friends, and last weekend we decided to make it a potluck.  I volunteered to make desserts, and by request, here's what I made:

Brigadeiros

These are wonderful little balls made mostly of sweetened condensed milk, with some cocoa and other stuff thrown in, then rolled in sprinkles.  I found the recipe here.  Mine weren't quite as pretty, but they came pretty close:

The verdict: Pretty sweet, but even Jordan ate the ones I brought back home, and he isn't fond of sweets.  (Disclaimer: Jordan now claims he ate them because they were "in the way".  Mm-hmmmm.)  I'd make them again :)

Raspberry Whip

This is really a meringue that is frozen instead of baked.  I really know nothing about meringues, but it looked good, and easy, and was Kim's pick for the potluck.  I found the recipe at the same site, here.  It was definitely fluffy and pink!

The verdict: Consensus is that it "tastes like diabetes" but in a delicious way :)  It is definitely VERY sweet, and was even too sweet for me (and I'll eat sugar cubes just for fun).  Small servings would be perfect on a hot August day.

Our next game day is next weekend; we'll be organizing it this week.

Some other bits and bobs:

Winter still has a firm grip on Northern BC, and we're both sick of it.  Jordan has always preferred winter over summer, and even he is complaining about how long this winter has been.  The snow banks along the driveway are now 5' tall, and we continue to get snowy days between weeks with highs of +5.

The snow on the lower south roof of the barn.  We've been watching it creep down for months!

I'm battling winter by growing stuff in my window at work.  I've got one aloe vera and her babe (which will be going to my former landlord when I get around to repotting it), 4 spider plants (two adults and two young'uns), Ugly Plant, and a window box of lettuce.

Clockwise from top left: my 'work garden', complete with adorable guard bovine; the window box with one lettuce seedling emerging and another seed just planted; Ugly Plant is flowering!; Ugly Plant, the spider kids, and the wonderful pot kitten that showed up one day :)

My friend Liz is redoing her kitchen this year (now that she's retired she needs a project, you know) and she started by replacing her stove.  Being the awesome person that she is, she offered her old stove to us!  Of course, we said yes :)  It's about 15 or 17 years old, but it still works like a charm, and is a full sized stove to replace our apartment-sized one.  We'll move the old stove out to the longhouse, to join the other stove from the trailer.

Over the Easter long weekend, Kim (Doodle's Ma) is taking me down to visit her grandparents in Southern BC.  They are running a hobby farm and "have had every animal except alpacas."  They process their own meat birds, and though it's too early in the year for that, I'm excited to go down and pal around with Kim and her family.  We'll be bringing the poochies - hopefully Doodle's companionship will keep Zim from oozing sadness during the 6-hour drive :)  He only likes car rides during the day and when we're going to Doodle's house; coming back in the dark, he's restless and nervous.  Going to Edmonton in the truck is just barrels of fun - he's terrified the entire way.

I've added a link in the "More About..." box in the top right for Resources - this is a collection of my notes, links, and useful spreadsheets.  I've shared these to help other young farmers and gardeners - why should we all be reinventing the wheel?