Weekend Recap: Tulips, Earth Day destruction & Macarons

My kind of blah Friday was made cheery with "I love you" flowers from Adam. What a nice surprise! I was glowing all night.

Tulips are one of my favs! Beautiful AND unscented = no headache for me

Adam gave me his cold, so most of Saturday was spent lazily on the couch. I think I know the point of infection too. It was Friday night at bedtime, Adam handed me a glass of water to put on the nightstand and said, "You might not want to drink out of this because I'm sick." I drank out of it anyway. Brilliant!

I did manage to be a little productive and plant some seeds in preparation for our garden. I can't wait to watch the seedlings grow.

We celebrated Earth Day by cutting down some trees. It wasn't intentionally planned for Earth Day, just a amusing coincidence. As I've mentioned on multiple occasions, our backyard is a disaster. Prior owners (and we're guilty a bit too) allowed "weed" trees to grow wherever a lucky seed landed. It's a mess along our property line, and it was killing off my precious raspberry bushes by blocking the light. I ordered more raspberry canes to plant, but first we had to fix the cause of the problem. Enter Adam and the saw. It's still not beautiful, but it looks much better and allows a lot more light in. Even if it isn't quite as private (which is my excuse for letting it get out of control).

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Yeah, it still needs major help. The clearing of the brush made it obvious how horrible these blocks look.

The brush pile has grown significantly:

We also cleaned up more of the fence line, but I wasn't anticipating being that ambitious so didn't take any "before" photos. It's not even our stupid fence. UGH! There's still more to be done, but we're saving it for next weekend.

I still felt sick, but laying around was making me feel worse, so I decided to tackle a baking project - French Macarons. It was difficult. Stiff peaks refused to form in my first batch of egg whites + sugar + cream of tartar. So I was pretty excited when they formed quickly in my second batch. The only thing I could figure I did wrong in the first batch was not let the eggs get foamy enough before adding the sugar.

Excited for stiff peaks!

Then, I had issues with my piping bag. First it was really messy. Then, the regular tip wasn't big enough, and the only one big enough had a design. So my macarons are an odd shape. Oh well, they still tasted good. And the buttercream recipe I found wasn't the best. It was way too butter-y.

It made a big mess and was a big pain. I don't know if I'll be making them again...
Though it would be MUCH easier if I could find almond flour at the store instead of having to make my own (grind up almonds, sift, grind some more, sift, get almond chunks stuck in sifter, etc). They were really good though. I even got the elusive "foot" to form!

Yum... Macarons. Maybe next time I'll make some flavored ones.