In Like A Lion

Spring is in full bloom over here (thank you, Global Warming)!

Our two bee hives that lasted the winter have spent most of March booming.  The bees have come back to their hives every day looking like they're sporting bad, 1980's shoulder pads.

Look at the pollen baskets on HER!

I spent about half an hour one day last week inches from the entrance to the hive, watching as those amazing girls flew around, loaded down with the most uniquely-colored pollen I've ever seen:

(bottom right corner)

Forget the neon yellow or the juicy orange; where in the world did they find such bright red pollen?

What was even more surprising was when I noticed that the occasional bee was coming back with pollen that was blue:

(see to the left of the yellow spots?)

I took 86 pictures.  I shall now share each one with you.

Or not.

As much as the bees fascinated me, I couldn't spend ALL month watching them.  Queen Martha and I had work to do.

Martha's slice-and-bake crackers

Simply prepare the dough, roll it into a log, and either slice then and bake or freeze up to three months for fresh-baking-on-demand!  I have been looking for a whole-wheat (but delicious) cracker recipe; oh, Martha, you mind reader!

My version was only slightly-less photo-worthy than Martha's:

Something tells me I skipped a stepped.  The crumbles were delicious, though.

I had more luck with the Bruleed Winter Bean Soup:

The only problem with it is that Martha, apparently, likes kale A LOT more than do I; Bee and I were practically chocking on the stuff (or perhaps I ought to have chopped it smaller, as Martha suggested, and not have used a freezer-burned chunk from last summer?).

Bee and I only got in one argument while I was preparing this dish: I thought it would be ready in about 30 minutes and he insisted it would be over an hour.  Martha did say is would be 60 minutes, but Martha, apparently, doesn't own the Vidalia Chop Wizard . . .

. . . I was done in 45.

Since my crackers did not turn out so well, I did a bonus recipe two days ago - Sauteed Mushrooms With Toasted Flatbread and Baked Eggs:

If you like mushrooms, like I do, it was really quite good. And the bonus was that, despite not liking mushrooms, Bee stayed out of the kitchen and let me do my thing, and didn't trash the end result after trying a bite and retiring with his bowl of spaghetti.

I tried a few non-Martha-sanctioned recipes, too.  Some were flops:

"Eggs Mimosa" - filled with avocado mix (hmm; they looked better in the cookbook's picture)

Some were triumphs:

Deep and Dark Ganache Cake (but it's hard to screw up chocolate)

I'm behind on my Living magazines, so I don't know yet what April's culinary experiments will be.  But I've been busy in other ways, such as trying to transplant-without-killing some of my flowers . . .

obsessing over Cub Scout activities . . .

at the zoo

. . . and making "welcome" signs for our front gate:

(Bee, who detests glitter, is absolutely horrified by this last turn of events.)