Franzbrötchen; the German Croissant

You know the Germans always make good stuff.

Here's something fresh out of the oven. German laminated dough, Franzbrötchen. I got inspired to bake this bread thanks to this great recipe.

Although this recipe starts from making the dough from scratch, I had some frozen bread dough in my freezer, so I thawed one of those loaves to use for this baking experiment of mine. Even without using fresh dough, these came out great. This is a recipe I'd use again.

Planting the cuttings: Basil Cloning -- Part 2

Two weeks ago I took some cuttings from my only basil plant I had. Now the cuttings have sprouted roots and are ready to plant. I filled up the reservoir and added some new nutrients to one of my hydroponic growing containers.

So far I only have 4 of the cuttings planted, but I'll be expanding more as the new plants grow and give new cuttings. I plan to fill the entire system up with basil by the end of summer.

Reviving Hydroponic Garden: Basil Cloning -- Part 1

The hydroponic garden has been out of commission for a few weeks as all the lettuce in it was either harvested or died due to the hot weather. Since I learned I will be staying in the apartment over the summer, I can plant some new stuff in my system. I'm opting to plant basil because

1) I have a plant already, despite it being small
2) It's super easy to propagate from cuttings, similar to tomatoes
3) You can never have enough basil

My only basil plant so far

With that said, here's how I'm doing it.

Harvesting beans -- Garden Update June 1

The garden has been doing alright. Excessive heat has caused the rest of my lettuce to die off upstairs and downstairs. So at the moment a lot of things are vacant or dead. That being said, since I will be at my place a few more months, I can replant some things.

Yay beans!

At the moment, my bean plants in the middle bin upstairs are in harvest mode. I've picked 10 beans so far, with several more on the way. I'll plant some more beans in some of the vacant bins I have because they like the heat and grow fast.

Recycled Notebook

As the end of the school year as you know it approaches (for those still in school), you likely accumulated a lot of papers from the semester.  Instead of trashing or burning them all, why not make the most out of what's there.
Here are two piles of papers I cleaned out.  The difference here is one of the piles is of paper not printed on both sides.

Look at all this potentially wasted writing space, let's build a notebook out of it.