Menu Plan Monday - Sept 9 - 14

This week is my second week of working. I was exhausted last week so I'm trying to plan really easy meal this week in case I'm really tired again. I'm also trying to be really cheap because I'm saving up to place an order from Azure Standard. I've found some really great things I want to get but ordering in bulk can add up!!

Breakfasts:

• Baked oatmeal (I've had this on my menu for the last three weeks and I haven't made it yet! This week I'm doing it for sure!!)
• Cereal (we still have lots from the great sale at Safeway a few weeks ago)
• Oatmeal with berries
  
• One-Eyed Egyptians
  

Lunches:

• Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
• yogurt with granola
• Bean burritos (with leftover homemade refried beans from Friday night's Navajo Tacos)
  
• veggies with ranch
• all lunches will be supplemented with fruit and crackers or pretzels

Dinners:

• Soup and bread (whatever kind of soup strikes my fancy but probably a bean soup)
• Parmesan chicken and potatoes (we got lots of red potatoes from the garden)
• Good Ol' Beans and Rice
• Potatoes, sauerkraut, and sausage
• Homemade Mac and Cheese
• all dinners will be supplemented with salad and veggies from the garden - we have SO many tomatoes!

This week I will also be making pesto from all the basil in my garden. I'm thinking of canning pears this next weekend. We'll see if I have the energy for it!

For more menu ideas, visit Organizing Junkie.

Jill

Quinoa Caprisi Salad

I have an abundance of tomatoes in my garden right now. Most of them are cherry tomatoes - I planted yellow, orange, red, and a pear variety of cherry tomatoes. Right now the yellow and oranges are going crazy - the orange ones are my new favorite! They are very sweet and the perfect size to cut in half for a salad.

I was trying to figure out a way to use them that would have some substance to it.

You know, tomatoes that would fill us up.

I started thinking about my favorite way to use fresh garden tomatoes - a tomato and basil salad. Usually I just chop tomatoes, chop basil, toss them with some olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Sometimes I add mozzarella cheese, sometimes not. How could I add some heft to this salad but still maintain the same flavors?

Quinoa! This is my family's new favorite grain. I've been experimenting with putting it in soups and stews. It doesn't have much flavor on its own, making it perfect to add heft without changing the flavor.

I made some quinoa but all I had left was about 3/4 cup - not enough to fill us all up, so I added some couscous. When the quinoa and couscous were cooked I rinsed them cool water so it wouldn't cook the tomatoes. Then I tossed in a lot of halved cherry tomatoes. You could use chopped big tomatoes but seed them so the juice doesn't drown the salad. I also added half of a thinly sliced zucchini - I have lots of those in my garden right now, too.

Then I added a few tablespoons of chopped fresh basil - I have a lot of that in my garden, too. Then I added a tablespoon or two of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a generous sprinkle of salt and some pepper. Toss it all together and serve.

You could add mozzarella cheese to this and it would be fabulous. You could also add chickpeas or cannelli beans. I added a Boca chicken patty (a vegetarian chicken patty that we keep on hand for veggie girl) and had it for lunch today and it was fabulous. I've also wrapped it in a tortilla, added a Boca patty and hit it with a drizzle of ranch and it was to die for!

This salad would travel well in a container or in a wrap. With the quinoa, you get plenty of protein and all you would need to round out the meal was some fruit or a homemade chewy granola bar and you'd be set.

The most amazing thing about this salad is that everyone liked it - except my youngest. Kaden hates tomatoes so it wasn't even going to be tried. Well, he did try the quinoa part and was ok with that but he didn't love it.

This I could send for my 6th grader's lunch (she loves tomatoes), and Hubby and I would certainly take it for lunches. I keeps well in the fridge so I could just make extra to take the next day.

For more portable nutritious ideas, visit Nourishing Gourmet this week. She's having a Nourishing Portable Food Challenge, I hoping to get lots of great ideas.

Enjoy!

Jill

Menu Plan for August 24 -30 (A Big Bag of Potatoes!)

When I plan my menus, a lot of though goes into it. I decide what the weather will be like (ie, should we have salads and BBQ or casseroles and soup?), what my schedule will like (quick easy meals because we will be away a lot or more time intensive because I'm home and not so busy?), I factor in the budget that week (cheap meals?), and lot of other things.

Sometimes, however, my choices are made for me, at least in part. My husband brought this home from work the other day:That is 15 lbs of taters, my friends. We be having taters this week.

So with that in mind, and keeping in mind that I start my new job this week, this is what we will be having to eat this week:

Breakfasts

• baked oatmeal (with leftovers for snacks and other breakfasts)
• leftover whole-wheat pan rolls with butter and honey
• French toast (we have tons of eggs right now so I'll make extra and freeze for first day of school breakfast next week)
• cereal (Safeway is having an AMAZING sale on cereal and I'm buying it for $1 a box so I'm stocking up!)

Lunches

• leftover dinners
• one-eyed egyptians
• Ramen noodles (one last time before school starts and they get brown-bag lunches)
• Soup
• Mashed Potato Patties, fruit
  

Dinners

• Baked potato soup with homemade whole-wheat pan rolls
  
• Vegetable Pie (no potatoes but it uses up zucchini from the garden!)
• Baked Potatoes with broccoli and cheese, tomato and basil salad (from the garden)
  
• Spanish Tortilla, stuffed tomatoes (from the garden!)
  
• Meatballs and mashed potatoes, veggies from the garden (make extra mashed potatoes for mashed potato patties)
  

Hopefully the family won't scream "NO MORE POTATOES!" at me on Thursday.


For more menu ideas, visit Organizing Junkie for Menu Plan Monday.

Jill

Life is Peachy

Guess what I'm doing today? You guessed it - canning peaches! That box has 25 lbs in it, so does the other box. So, 50 lbs of peaches to can. I've done as many as 100 lbs in a day so I'm hoping that 50 won't take too long.

Thankfully it is raining and about 69 degrees here - I hate canning in hot weather! But I love eating home-canned peaches in the dead of winter. So, I'm off - I've got my supportive shoes on, some music in the CD player and a big ol' Diet Coke in the fridge! Wish me luck.

Jill

Blackberry Cobbler!

One of my favorite things about living in the Northwest is the blackberries! And one of my favorite things about blackberries is blackberry cobbler.

I mentioned in a previous post that my grandparents house was surrounded by blackberry bushes. This meant that my sister and I went down (were driven, dragged, forcibly carried) to my grandparents every summer to pick blackberries.

We didn't love it. It was hot. The bushes are full of thorns. The blackberries stained your fingers. They stained your brand new San Francisco Riding Gear jeans! Being there meant you weren't watching Gilligan's Island. Or talking on the phone with your friends. When you are 15, anywhere is better than your grandparent's house picking blackberries.

There was one payoff, though. My grandma made the world's best blackberry cobbler! I don't know where she got the recipe (later in life I asked her and she didn't remember where she got it either), but it is unlike any blackberry cobbler I've ever had, or ever seen a recipe for. The difference is the crust. Unlike most cobbler recipes, the dough isn't dropped on top of the fruit. It is pressed on to the fruit almost like a pie crust. But the dough is tender almost like a biscuit.

My only complaint about my Grandma's recipe is that it is a little too sweet for me. My family loves it but for me it needs less sugar. Shhhh . . . don't tell but I've been surreptitiously lowering the sugar content over the years and no one has noticed. I'm posting the recipe as originally written and you can decide for yourself.

Blackberry Cobbler

Place appropriate number of berries in pan.

Yeah, ok, I know that is very vague and not very helpful. I use a 2.5 quart Pyrex oval casserole dish and I fill it approximately half full of berries. I'm guessing about 5-6 cups of berries? It would work in a 9 inch square pan also but you would probably need less berries and the crust would be slightly thicker. It would still be wonderful.

So, but the berries in the pan then sprinkle on top a mixture of:

1 cup sugar (I use less)
2 Tbs. cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt

Don't mix the sugar and berries, they will combine while they bake. In a separate bowl, mix together:

1 1/2 c. flour (I use 1 c. all purpose flour and 1/2 c. whole wheat)
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp baking powder
3 Tbs sugar

Then cut in:

1/2 c. margarine or butter

You want to cut it in like you would if you were making a pie crust. I use my KitchenAid stand mixer with the beater attachment, but you could use a pastry blender or a couple of knives. Cut it in until the mixture looks like really course cornmeal. Then sprinkle the dough on top of the berry/sugar pile. Then press the dough flat. Really use force - not so much that you crush the berries but enough that the dough is compacted. There will probably be a berry or two that don't get completely covered, that is fine.

Then bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. When it is done it will look something like this:
Doesn't that look good? The yummy, thick purple goodness bubbling up on the sides, the golden buttery top. Heaven!

Notes:

• This is wonderful served with ice cream. The warm cobbler and cold ice cream really compliment each other.
• You can supplement with other berries if you don't have enough blackberries. We often do "Black and Blue Cobbler" with blackberries and blueberries. We have even made it with the triple berrie mix you can buy at Costco. It has marionberries, blueberries, and raspberries. It was great.

Enjoy!

Jill

I Love Living Here

It is blackberry season in the Northwest. Oh, I'm in heaven! When I was growing up, my grandmother lived in a house which was surrounded by blackberry bushes. In fact two whole sides of her house didn't have fences - just really big, giant blackberry bushes. I'm positive that those blackberry hedges kept out far more people than any fence in the world. Maybe they should plant blackberry bushes along the border in Texas?

Unless you live here in the Northwest, you really don't understand the magnitude of the blackberry "problem." They are everywhere! Along roads, along bike paths, in abandoned lots, in parking lots, in everyone's backyard, in everyone's front yards - seriously, they are everywhere!! We don't plant them, they just grow. And grow. And grow. Cities have a budget to deal with the blackberry growth. We live next to a green space and the city comes and mows the blackberries back every year. If they didn't we wouldn't have a yard, we would just have blackberries.

Now, while this is a problem in the sense that they are prickly and invasive and will take over, the upside is that they produce blackberries! For free! Everywhere! Happy day, happy day!

The city doesn't completely mow down the bushes in back of us, they just trim them back severely. The blackberry bushes don't mind, they still produce tons of beautiful shiny blackberries.

Then, they call to us. "Come and pick us! We are yummy! We would taste good in cobbler! We make great jam! Eat us with crepes! Put us in milkshakes! Come. Come. Come to me!"

So, we come. We pick and pick and pick. This year we have picked lots and we still have a month of blackberry season left. I've made jam, I've frozen some, we've had milkshakes, we had them with crepes, we've had them in smoothies, we ate them on cereal. And we still aren't sick of them.

You need lots of pickers, and I have the best right here in my family. Hubby is the best 'cause he's tall. The others are wily, though and have come up with strategies. The best and most useful is the "reaching stick" strategy. You find a stick with a crook at the end and you hook it on the bunches that are just out of reach and pull them down to where you can get them. Didn't I raise smart kids?

Oh, wait! I think I hear something. Is it . . ? Yes, it is! I'm sorry, I'm going to have to go. The blackberries are calling me!

Jill

Meal Plan Monday!

I sat down and planned my meals for this week and realized I'm in a decidedly ethnic mood. For dinners this week we are having one Thai and two Greek inspired ideas. Hmmm . . . wonder what got into me. Well, three meals this week are new to me so I will post how they went. Here they are:

Breakfasts:

• granola, fruit
• toast with jam, applesauce
• pancakes

Lunches:

• Easy Cheese and Bean Rounds (recipe with pictures posted Tuesday)
• bagels, lunch meat, cream cheese, fruit
• Campbell's soup (we have a lot in our Crazyville Food Shoppe)
• leftovers

Dinners:

• Crockpot Chicken and Quinoa from the Nourishing Gourmet blog, salad
• Thai Spaghetti Toss (from Cheap Fast Good), salad
• Mary's Greek Inspired Pasta (from Cheap Fast Good), french bread
• Gyros, home fries, fruit
• Easy lentil stew, homemade breadsticks, salad
• Tuna salad, bread
  

Snacks:

applesauce with graham crackers
popcorn
fruit
bagels

You will notice that there is a lot of salad on my menu - that is because my garden is FULL of lettuce! No tomatoes yet (well, there are loads of tomatoes, they are all just still green!), but we have lots of lettuce to use up.

Visit Organizing Junkie for lots more Menu Plan Monday ideas!

Jill

Freezer Jam

I love the idea of feeding my kids homemade bread with homemade jam for snacks. But I really don't like making jam the old fashioned way - cook it until it doesn't actually taste like fruit anymore, ladle it into sterilized jars, boil the canning lids, attach the lids and screw bands, boil it in the water bath canner. Ugh! A lot of work and cooked jam doesn't taste as fresh as I would like it to.

Then I discovered freezer jam. Not only is the preparation quick and easy, but the final product tastes like fresh berries, yum! It does take up space in your freezer, but it is absolutely worth it. It is so easy to make that I recently made four batches of strawberry freezer jam in about two hours. Let take you through it step by step.

Here is my big secret recipe for freezer jam:
Yes, you can see that correctly, it is the instructions from a package of Sure-Jell pectin! Really what I do is buy the pectin and follow the instructions inside. Pretty much all pectin will include a recipe for freezer jam in addition to instructions for cooked jam. Be sure to follow the instructions because each kind has you do it differently. In fact, this time I did two batches of regular Sure-Jell and two batches of low sugar Sure-Jell. Same brand, two different ways of making it. In general, though, the steps are pretty similar. First you mash your berries. Oh, be sure to wash and hull them first, duh. Then you mash them, I use my food processor but you have to be careful because you don't want a puree, you just want them mashed up (the instructions tell you that "jam has bits of fruit in it" as opposed to jelly which doesn't). Then you add the pectin and sugar. Sometimes you add the sugar to the berries and let it macerate (which is just a fancy way of saying the sugar will draw the liquid out of the berries causing it to break down which is good for the whole jam-making thing). Sometimes you add the sugar to the pectin with some water and boil it for a minute or so. After you have added to dissolved pectin and sugar to the berries you usually have to stir for a bit to make everything (especially the sugar) dissolve - you don't want grainy jam!

At some point it will look like this - a big bowl of very sweet strawberry soup! You ladle this into containers that are suitable for the freezer - I use margarine containers, they are cheap and it is recycling. You let the containers sit out on the counter for 24 hrs then put them in the freezer. Freezer jam is not as "solid" as cooked jam so it spreads easier but it also falls out of sandwiches easier so be careful. But the flavor is worth it. I usually do strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry every year, but the instructions have recipes for peach, blueberry/raspberry, and more. Experiment until you find your favorite. Enjoy!

Jill

Lazy Summer Weekends, Gotta Love 'Em

What did we do this weekend? Pretty much nothing. Actually we did a lot of little things around the house and yard. Hubby has almost finished the shed, we planted a few things in the garden, moved the baby chickens to the backyard, and read books, enjoyed the sun, and lots of other little things that weren't too strenuous.

I did go to the library and pickup some new cookbooks to read. All about cheap, easy to prepare, good-for-you recipes that your family will actually eat. I'm excited to review these books in the next few weeks. I love me some new recipes!

I'm going back to read the Sunday paper and do more . . . .nothing.

Jill

The Case of the Missing Chicken

The day started out like any other day. Any other day that was incredibly busy and included things like my husband going to Urgency Care for a nail stuck in his foot, my family coming over for a family birthday party, and getting ready for Father's Day. We had worked hard in the backyard getting ready for the family barbeque and the yard looked great. So picturesque with the green grass and the three chickens grazing amongst the flowerbeds. You see, we have pet chickens. Three of them (and three baby chicks that are in a box in the garage currently). We call them "pets with a purpose," the purpose being fresh eggs. We love our chickens (and their eggs) and treat them truly as pets. They are spoiled rotten and we dote on them. We have lost several over the years to raccoons and are very protective of the ones who are left. They are only allowed out during the day and are locked up tight at night.

We had let them out this day because the cousins who were coming over enjoy the whole "farm feel" of Auntie Jill's house. I say farm feel because we live in a suburban neighborhood and have a larger than average yard, but not a farm by a long shot! But we have chickens, bunnies, a little red barn chicken coop, grapes, blueberries, raspberries, gardens like crazy, and it feels like a farm to someone who doesn't have that.

The cousins had fun playing in the backyard and the weather was beautiful for the barbeque. At the end of the day I was going to show my sister (who lives far away and doesn't see my yard often) all my pets. But we couldn't find Jellybean, my black Austrolorpe chicken. We searched everywhere - the bushes, the coop, the green space behind our house, everywhere we could think of, but she was gone. When dusk came and the other two chickens went back to the coop for the night, she still wasn't there. She just . . . . vanished! (cue scary music!)

We went to sleep thinking the worst, she had been grabbed by a raccoon or a hawk and we had seen the last of her. But the detective in me wouldn't give it up; how could she have disappeared in a yard full of kids with adults watching from the deck? Wouldn't we have heard or seen something? It bugged me and when I woke up this morning it still bugged me! I wanted to go search the yard again but I had a Father's Day breakfast to make, kids to get ready for church, things to do!

After church, and after the Father's Day dinner (we go all out on holidays here), I went to take my baby chicks to the backyard for some "sunshine time." While they frolicked and pecked and flapped, I watered my garden and did some tidying up. When I came to the hay storage area I noticed the lid of one of the boxes had gotten knocked part-way off, when I lifted it to straighten it - out flew Jellybean! She had somehow gotten herself trapped under the lid and couldn't get out. She was very thirsty, very hungry and is walking with a limp right now, but otherwise seems ok. It is still a mystery - how did she get under there? Why didn't she make noise? Did she and we didn't hear her because of the kids? Whatever the case, I'm glad she's back and the mystery is solved!

Jill

Crashed Potatoes!

Happy Friday the Thirteenth!

I love to search the internet for recipes. Recipes with pictures are even better. Much like how I read cookbooks, I love to just read the recipes and the comments. I often try these recipes; some have become family favorites. When I find a good one, I love to share. So, here is my new find - Crashed Potatoes!

I found this recipe on a fabulous cooking site called Pioneer Woman. She has fabulous recipes and she is a crackup to read - so funny! This recipe looked especially fabulous. I am a potato girl. Should have been born in Idaho, sigh. I like potatoes anyway you can think of - fried, baked, boiled, in salad, potato chips, mashed, anyway but raw! So whenever I find a new way of making potatoes my little heart goes pitter-pat. I decided to try this one right away. So we had it Tuesday night. Every single member of my family loved them. That rates six stars in Crazyville! So here is the recipe, if you go to Pioneer Woman she has photo illustrations for the whole recipe (and some really witty commentary). But here is my version:

Crashed Potatoes

Take some small red or new potatoes (I used small yukon gold potatoes which is why they look so golden-y in the picture). They should be relatively small, single serving size. You want enough for each person to have at least one, but if they are really small two each (or if you just really like potatoes, three or four each!!). Boil the potatoes in a big pot of salted water until they are fork tender (you know, cooked until they are tender enough to be easily poked with a fork). Drain in a colander. Now place these boiled potatoes on a greased cookie sheet (or a silpat, silicone baking sheet). Grease well because we all know how potatoes like to stick!

Now take a potato masher (or the bottom of a cup, or a fork) and gently smash those potatoes. You don't want mush! You just want to open the potatoes up and expose the insides. This is the "crashed" part of the recipe, but we just want a rear-ender not a wipe-out! Now liberally brush the tops of the potatoes with olive oil, sprinkle with salt (lots, potatoes need salt!), add some pepper and some fresh herbs - I had chives and parsley in my garden so that's what I used but you could use whatever you want. Next put them on the top rack of a really hot oven (425-450) and bake for 20-25 minutes. Then eat - don't moan when you taste them even though you will really want to!

This recipe is definitely a keeper in my home. Next time I will try brushing them with melted butter instead of olive oil (or get some really good olive oil, you can really taste it and my tasted just slightly off. Time for a trip to Costco!). I would like to try different herbs, also. Rosemary? Thyme? No matter what I am sure they will be delicious and they are cheap too. Can't beat it! Try these, I promise they are worth it!

See you all on Monday when we talk spicy!

Jill

Gary the Gecko

Last night Jim undertook some major yard renovations. It entailed removing some half buried railroad ties and hacking away lots of blackberry vines. Carina and Kaden (my youngest two kids) enthusiastically offered to help (the older two looked at Jim like he asked them if they wanted to amputate their right arms - "uh, no, I don't think so, Dad"). During the excavating the kids made two discoveries: first, that excavating is really hard work and they didn't enjoy it as much as they thought they would. Second, they discovered a gecko. Actually, it is probably a salamander or some such creature but they thought it was a gecko and named him Gary the Gecko.

They quickly lost interest in the excavating (after all it is really hard), and worked on building Gary a habitat instead. They filled a toy dump truck with water for his swimming pool, got him leaves to eat, sticks to crawl on and gave him a grand tour of our back yard. "Look, Gary, this is the mud pit you can play in! This is the garden you can eat!" Kaden told everyone that this was the "best evening of my life."

They really wanted to keep him but after much coaxing by their mother, they agreed to return Gary to his rightful home - the blackberry patch on the butte. After they said their goodbyes, Carina walked him up and placed him on the ground, with two leaves as a parting gift. "This is the worst night of my life." said Kaden. "I miss Gary."

Now the pressure is on to find a gecko in a pet store and adopt him. "Can you Google 'gecko' and see what they eat?" "Can you find a pet store that sells geckos?" Anyone know of a cute gecko looking for a home?

Jill

Lazy Sunday

Yesterday was a wonderful day! The weather was warm and beautiful and we got so much accomplished. The only bad point was that Jim hurt his back and is hobbling like a really old man today! Hopefully, it is a temporary tweak that will work itself out with time and TLC.

I got my whole garden planted yesterday afternoon. I'm doing a really scaled back version this year because we don't even know if we will be here to harvest it all. The raised beds, however, look much better when they are filled than when they are not. I wanted them to look like gardens and not boxes of dirt! I planted flowers (marigolds, petunias and snapdragons) and veggies. I did veggie starts of basil and tomatoes and did seeds for chives, green beans, peas, lettuce, spinach and carrots. I'm very hopeful that I won't get to taste any of these!

Today is Sunday and I'm taking the rest of the day off. I taught Sunday School this morning and I'm tired and cranky! I'm going to curl up and read a good book and maybe bake something this afternoon - brownies anyone?

Jill