Weekly Update – Garden, Real Estate, and Cooking

At Home in… the Kitchen

This blog is called At Home in Kansas City, so I’ve been thinking about what’s going on in my home this week. Well, I’m a typical mom so I cook. A lot. My favorite thing to make is healthy muffins. I freeze them for quick on-the-go healthy (but satisfying) snacks. Two of my favorites are these Skinnytaste peanut butter banana muffins (take my advice and add chocolate chips to them), and this cocoa zucchini bread which I make into muffins. I’m now growing zucchini because of these dream muffins. Anyways, I always tweak things to suit my preferences and dietary restrictions (GF), but these are good basic recipes to start with. I’ve also been reading this book about gluten free baking, Gluten Free Baking at Home, and I’m anxious to try the bread recipes once I gather all these ingredients. In the author’s introduction, he discusses his worry about most gluten free recipes and products being filled with non-nutritious flour substitutes. They aren’t exactly unhealthy, but they aren’t beneficial either. The recipes in his book attempt to bridge that gap and add nutritionally beneficial ingredients into the recipes. This is what I’ve been looking for! I’m always grinding or adding my own flax or buckwheat or ground oats instead of the standard gluten free baking flour.

Garden Update

Stay up to date on what to garden by subscribing to my weekly newsletter. Aside from planting my summer pots, I actually haven’t been gardening all that much this week. The summer heat is setting in, and I’m done planting for a while with the exception of my sweet potato slips. I have been harvesting and eating fresh broccoli, spinach, arugula, kale, and lettuce. My peppers and tomatoes are finally starting to show some major growth, my bouquet flowers are setting buds, and everything else is growing well. I planted a native rose vine last year, and it is flowering for the first time. Not exactly spectacular, but it’s cute and it makes me feel good to plant natives which are beneficial for our ecosystem.

Wondering what to plant this week? Well, maybe just chill! Or you can plant some annuals for your front beds or pots. If you are anything like me, what I really need to be doing is weeding. Man, it’s a nonstop chore, but I just try to enjoy the time in the sun and fresh air.

Native Plants in your Planters and Container Garden

One other thing that caught my eye this week is this Grow Native guide to planting natives in containers . I’ve been wanting to pop one of my coral bells (Heuchera americana) in a pot for my back patio. But in this guide, I’m loving the way this agave/false aloe looks in a terra cotta planter. Does anyone know where I can find one? If so, let me know. It’s drop dead gorgeous. I also want to try the rock pink and the Oak or Pennsylvania sedge in a container.

Real Estate Update

In some parts of town, the market is slightly shifting towards balance, and I’ve seen some stellar buys out there which is exciting after years of rising prices and no deals to be found. I have seen a good buy in Brookside, one in Hyde Park, and one in Kansas City, KS – all between $100,000-$295,000. Hit me up if you’d like to hear about them. In Brookside where I live, it is pretty much business as usual. Homes are selling fast and it’s a seller’s market. The inner ring state line corridor is still a hot market in both Kansas and Missouri. Mortgage rates are currently between 6-7%.

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