Our Little Friend
01 Aug 2011 1 Comment
in Gardening, Mommy Mondays, My Superhero, Randomness, The Juice
We discovered a new friend today. We hope he decides to stay.
Baby J’s birthday party theme this year is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. It is one of her most favorite books. Let her read it to you!
My Unconventional Creative Side
19 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Canning, Creative Space, Gardening, Threads Thursdays
Okay – usually when I post about my creative side, I tend towards to the artsy-crafty creative side. Not so today! I am so proud of this little baby that I want to let the whole world know!
Tomato Sauce meet the world – world meet my Tomato Sauce! You see, the reason this tomato sauce is so special and worthy of so much attention is that, with the exception of the lemon juice, I grew everything in the jar. I made the sauce out of tomatoes from my garden, added the herbs from my herb garden, and canned it myself! I only got one can – but that’s beside the point. This baby is going to my mother as an Empty Nester Gift. I hope she likes it. I did get a little extra on the side that I mixed with some noodles for lunch – so fresh and yummy!
If you’re looking for real crafts, make sure to stop by kootoyoo.
The Garden
17 Aug 2010 Leave a Comment
in Gardening, The Juice, Time Out Tuesdays
Remember those pictures of my garden that I promised you eons ago? They were stuck on my camera because I couldn’t find the camera cord. Camera cord located – pictures unstuck. Here is what my garden looked like when I got it all set up this year…
In this picture you can see marigolds, a little bit of spinach in the hay on the left side, strawberries in the hay in the middle and a few peas under some homemade cloches. Those were the most fantastic idea I read because they really helped to make healthy plants – at first.
Something happened in my garden this year and I am afraid it has something to do with the compost since the same thing happened on the other side of the house in my pumpkin planters. My squash is suffering to say the least.
To give you an idea of what it looks like now, the spinach on the left hand side is gone (it was yummy) and there are some corn stalks growing. All of the marigolds became HUGE bushes! On the other side of the path (which is barely visible now) from the corn there are tomato plants that are as tall as me! There were some peas on there as well, but they did not do well this year. On the second trellis there are cucumbers growing like crazy. There are some bell peppers interspersed in there as well. We also had some green beans and we got enough for one meal – I think only three plants came up total for those anyways. Across the path from the strawberries are carrots and in the tent trellises, there are zucchinis. There are onions in between the tents as well.
I also have an herb garden right next to our back door…perfect now that I’m cooking dinners again. I think Superhero is scared of fresh herbs!
Of course, neither look that nice and pristine anymore. In fact, they look so bad, I don’t think I would share those pictures with you even if I had them. Next year, I will definitely be investing in black plastic and plugs. The herb garden doesn’t have weeds – but the herbs are a little unruly. Actually – the dill is a little unruly – the rest of it is just fine! LOL
My favorite out of all of it is the peppermint – it is in the pot by the downspout on the left hand side of the picture of the herb garden. It makes wonderful tea!
Harvest
10 Aug 2010 2 Comments
in Gardening, The Juice, Time Out Tuesdays
Can you tell we’re starting to get some produce from our garden? Pretty soon we’ll have tomatoes coming out of our ears. There are several baby cucumbers growing and a couple of ears of corn too! We all can’t wait to dig up the carrots and onions too! It is a very exciting time as the summer draws to a close!
To garden or not to garden…
29 Jun 2010 1 Comment
in Gardening, The Juice, Time Out Tuesdays
I recently started a vegetable garden. By recently, I mean I started one the first summer we lived in our house (four years ago). From that garden, we got a very small eggplant, a handful of grape tomatoes, and a sprig of broccoli (don’t laugh). The next year I didn’t even try – I was discouraged.
Last year, I gave it another go – mainly because I want to have the tradition with Baby J. And I can’t afford produce anymore – we’ll pretend it’s because I want to be greener and I am decreasing my global footprint. Either way, it was a disaster. We got three very large zucchini, two pumpkins, and six ears of corn. The zucchini had seeds the size of pumpkin seeds and the pumpkins had a light yellow colored flesh and everything grew amongst weeds that were larger than I would like to admit.
So this year, I went into gardening with a little more apprehension. I mean, I want to do this right. So I spent a good portion of January and February reading gardening books. I thought I would pass on a recommendation for the books that I refer to the most.
Reader’s Digest Vegetable Gardening
You know anything with Reader’s Digest on it is going to be a reliable source. However, I really liked this book because it gives you a breakdown of individual plants in the back. Okay, a lot of books did, but this one provides you with tips from preparation of soil all the way to harvesting and everything in between for each plant.
Small Steps to Success Vegetable Gardening
I like this book mainly because it gave me the idea of cloches that have really proved a huge helper in getting seedlings to grow very well. I found the rest of the book very helpful as well.
I will let you know how it goes and upload pictures as soon as I find my camera cord (the phone just doesn’t take very good pictures of the garden). However, I will leave you with a tip and picture of why exactly I’m doing this. Thanks for visiting!
Tip: If you’re going to weed on a sunny day, make sure you sunscreen your back – because when you bend over, if your shirt doesn’t go all the way to your pants, you end up with a very red backside.
My Little Garden Angel
How do you take a break at work?
22 Jun 2010 3 Comments
in Fabulous Food Fridays, The Juice, Time Out Tuesdays
Okay, so I know it’s in the eighties outside and it is officially summer as of yesterday, but I thought I would share my little time out at work.
First, you need the perfect mug…one that happens to fit just right in your hands so you can get the most out of the warm chocolatey goodness. Mine is a nice round mug I got at the Grand Canyon when I went a few years ago with my mother. It is earthy brown with Kokopellis on it. It has a handle that is big enough for me to slide my whole hand through and I just curl my fingers around it. For a moment I am far away from the phone calls and the people who can’t pay their water bills because their cable is more important
How do I make my hot cocoa perfect? Are you riveted? First, a packet of hot cocoa is just not enough for a mug worth getting up to go fill, so I add some non-dairy creamer (remember, I’m at work with limited access to anything better). I add about enough to double the amount of powder in the bottom of the cup, sometimes more. Then I add enough water to be able to stir the powder into a syruppy state – no more than half a mug. This is the secret to success right here – once fully mixed together add two-three times the amount of marshmallows you want on the top of your mug. Then fill the rest of the cup with hot water. The water will melt a majority of the marshmallows infusing your hot cocoa with a creamy texture and creating a wonderful marshmallow-ey layer on the top.
Wrap your hands around that mug, curl into your broken, uncomfortable office chair and slip out of reality for a moment. Enjoy!
I have decided to join in with the Tuesday Tag-A-Long. What a great way to find some new blogs to peruse, follow, and become addicted too! Join me won’t you!
Don’t forget to check out my giveaway! Thank you for stopping by!
Go Cutter Giveaway
08 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
Who doesn’t take a time-out to keep up on their blogs?
I did this morning … shhh! Don’t tell my boss!
However, I am glad I did, because look at what I found:
Fantastic! I would LOVE one of these machines. I love to do applique and I so want to do a polka dot quilt! I just can’t imagine cutting all those circles! How great would it be to have a machine that will cut all those circles for me? While you’re at Amy’s take a look at all the wonderful quilts from the quilt festival!
Blueberry Pie The Redux
04 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in Fabulous Food Fridays, Mommy Mondays, Threads Thursdays, Time Out Tuesdays, What I Believe in Wednesdays
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I was truly inspired by the amount of visitors and responses I received when I entered the Blogger’s Quilt Festival. So much so, that I have worked very hard to figure out how to re-orientate myself into blogging (yet again – I know). I realized in my attempt to figure out how to get myself to blog more often that I didn’t blog because I didn’t know what to write about.
So here is my idea – I am going to theme my days to give me a direction to write in. I have come up with cute themes too. I am very proud of them! Here goes nothing:
Now that I have bored you to the limits and used “etc” a few too many times, don’t think that I’ll leave you without our theme for the day. I did take pictures for this, but realized I cannot find my camera cord. So you’ll just have to picture it in your mind. Since it is Friday, following with the theme, I thought I would post a great recipe for you!
HEALTHY CHEESE SAUCE (FLOURLESS CHEESE SAUCE) for Macaroni and CheeseBaby J is currently wheat free. We’re hoping this will change soon; it’s a precautionary measure at this point and she did have a slight reaction the one time she got wheat. Once her awful diaper rash clears up, we will be trying wheat again and we’ll see what happens. However, even if wheat does become okay, I think I may still keep this recipe around for the sheer fact that it’s much healthier than your normal cheese sauce. Since the base is beans, which happen to be the perfect food (with the exception of the musical fruit connotation they have picked up), it’s packed with protein and costs very little to make. Did I mention it’s ridiculously easy to make and takes all of five minutes to prepare?
1 can chick peas
1/2 cup milk 1 cup shredded cheese Drain and rinse chick peas. Place in blender with 1/2 cup milk and puree until the consistency of pudding – you want this to be as smooth as possible because it is your base (think the roux and milk stage of macaroni and cheese). Place the puree in a small sauce pan and add shredded cheese. Heat over medium heat stirring constantly until the cheese is melted. This doesn’t take long, so don’t walk away. The beans will dry out quickly, so you have to keep stirring until the cheese is melted in.
You may consider adding more cheese depending on your cheesy preferences. I added less last time and it was very beany. Fortunately, the beans do have a rich flavor of their own, so if you wanted to avoid a lot of cheese for cholesterol reasons, you could definitely get away with that.
From this point on, you are free to use as you wish. The last batch I made, I froze in ice cubes. This way I can pull an ice cube or two out at a time for Baby J’s lunches or nights when we’re eating something with wheat in it and she can’t have that. Just defrost, cook up a small amount of pasta and mix in. I also added burger to part of the mixture for cheeseburger macaroni – the original reason I sat down and measured it for this post (that’s right – I measured my ingredients just for you). Baby J’s preschool serves lunch and I replace what she can’t have with as equal a replacement as I possibly can.
Well, I hope you stick around to see how the themes turn out! I appreciate you stopping by to read – say hi in the comments to let me know you were here. Stick around too – I’m going to be announcing a small giveaway two weeks from yesterday!
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