Gone Fishin'

My parents came to visit over the weekend and they bought the boys fishing gear and took them fishing. It was a lot of fun even though the fish weren't biting.

Nature Study - Cicada

Just beginning to emerge from its shell.

Drying its wings - its standing on top of the shell it just crawled out.

Independence Days Challenge

Last week I stumbled upon the website SharonAstyk.com and found that she is hosting Independence Days Challenge this summer. So, although its started in April, I decided to jump in and at least try it starting now. You are supposed to try to work in 8 areas at least once each week. Here are the areas and what we did last week:

1. Plant something: Its really too hot here to plant, but I decided to try anyway. We planted something five days last week including 2 squares of sweet peas, 2 squares of purple peppers and an indoor greens garden.

2. Harvest something: We harvested at least one thing every day last week. We harvested one pound of roma tomatoes, 14 purple hull pea pods, 1 carrot, 6 cucumbers and a bunch of basil.

3. Preserve something: Made one pint of fig preserves

4. Prep something (emergency preps): bought and stored 2 pounds of white beans.

5. Cook something/ learn to cook something new: Made yogurt.

6. Manage reserves (basically rotate your stockpile): Opened one jar of peanut butter and replaced it.

7. Work on local food system: Put out the word on Freecycle that we were looking for figs. Connected with two people there. Also mentioned to a friend that we wanted figs and she arranged for us to get figs in exchange for teaching the tree owner and my friend how to make yogurt. Made connections with farmers at the market.

8. Compost something: composted grass clippings, leaves, carrot top, cuke peel, tomato cores, potato peelings, coffee grounds and egg shells from hard boiled eggs.

I was really surprised how easy it was to do a little something in each category. Some categories were worked on daily and others only once a week. Its been fun and I'm excited about working on more this week and the weeks to come.

Pumpkin Bread Recipe

3 eggs
3 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, melted
2 cups cooked pumpkin (or 1 16 oz can)
5 cups flour (I use 3 cups white flour, 1 cup whole wheat and 1 cup of mixture of oat flour, wheat germ and flax meal)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt (celtic sea salt)
1 1/2 Tblsp Cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
2 tsp cloves
1 cup applesauce
Optional: Nuts and raisins or dates

Cream eggs and sugar. Add butter and pumpkin. Combine dry ingredients then add to the moist ingredients. Mix in the applesauce, and optional ingredients if using them.

Grease and flour 2 loaf pans. Divide batter between two pans. Bake at 350 deg for approximately 1 hour.

Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup

Approx 1 lb tomatoes (Roma work really well in this recipe)
1 Red Pepper
1 Med Onion
1 head garlic
olive oil
salt
pepper
fresh basil (to taste)
approximately 2 cups (or one can) chicken (or veggie) broth or stock

Cut tomatoes in half and lay face up on a baking sheet (choose a pan with a rim, otherwise the juices drip all over the floor of your oven). Quarter and seed the red pepper and put on baking sheet with tomato. Slice onion thick and put on baking sheet. Peel garlic and put whole cloves on baking sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and toss to coat. Put this in a 400 deg oven, turning everything after about 20 minutes. Continue to roast until you start to get some color on the tomatoes and peppers and your kitchen smells heavenly.

Once the veggies are done, remove to a blender. Pour the pan juices into the blender, too. Add stock and basil and cover with a folded towel (be very sure you do not run the blender with hot items in it and the lid sealed - that will cause the items in your blender to build up a lot of pressure and possibly explode - not kidding! Place a large folded towel over the blender opening instead) and blend until smooth. Taste and add any additional seasoning. Place in bowls and garnish with sour cream and a sprig of basil.

Tuna Burger Recipe

1/2 small onion
1-2 cloves garlic diced
1 tablespoon butter
2 cups white beans (or one can)
6 oz Tuna (or one can)
1 cup bread crumbs divided
1/4 cup mayo
1 egg
Salt and Pepper to taste

Sweat the onion (like saute but the onion doesn't brown - low heat) in the butter for about 10 minutes, until translucent. Add the garlic for the last minute or so - watch closely as this burns easily.

In a separate bowl, smash the white beans. Add the sauted veggies to the beans, then stir in the tuna, 1/2 cup bread crumbs, the mayo, egg, salt and pepper. Mix well.

Spoon about 1/4 cup of mixture into your hand and flatten into a patty. Coat both sides in the remaining bread crumbs (I put the bread crumbs in a plate to coat the patties) then pan fry in a little olive oil until brown on both sides and cooked through. This recipe usually makes 6-8 patties depending upon how big I make them.

Menu Plan Monday - July 14, 2008

We found these amazing tomatoes at the farmer's market this weekend. They are heirloom (so of course the boys and I saved the seeds). Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of them before we ate them all (did I mention they were amazing?) so I found a picture that looked like them online and I'm borrowing it until we can get more that I can photograph. Here's what they look like:
I sure hope he has more this week! He also had 3 other varieties of heirloom tomatoes including one that looked like a Roma, but was bright yellow. I'm hoping to try that one this week as well.

Our menu for this week (remember, the bold items are locally grown/ raised):

Breakfast :
Blueberry muffins and yogurt
Ham and cheese biscuit and blackberries
Scrambled Eggs and grits
Baked Oatmeal with peaches
Whole grain pancakes with blueberry syrup

Lunch:
The usual:
PB & honey
BLT (with lettuce sprouts)
Grilled Cheese


Snacks:
Watermelon slices
Peaches
Cucumbers and carrots dipped in ranch dressing
Berry Smoothie (with homemade yogurt)
Pumpkin bread
Blueberry Scones
Yummy Eggs (my 5 year old calls deviled eggs yummy eggs)
Biscuits with honey butter
Blueberry popsicles


Supper:
Tuna Burgers on dressed rolls (tomatoes, red and purple peppers, onion), new potato "salad" (dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar, salt and pepper) and asparagus (from freezer)

Hamburger Steak (its a burger browned then braised in beef stock) over garlic mashed new potatoes with zuke/ squash medley and we're going to have some sort of fruit desert, maybe fig cobbler (if we have any fig preserves left by then)

Baked Chicken, tomato and cucumber salad, black beans and brown rice.

Make-your-own Pizza (dh has a meeting one night this week so the kids and I will have pizza that night) with veggie tray and watermelon

Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Soup (also features local garlic and onion), Chicken quesadillas with sour cream and guacamole and cantaloupe

Pan Fried Tilapia with pesto, homemade bread, spaghetti squash (the farmer suggested we cut it in half, sprinkle with salt and olive oil then roast in the oven until fork tender - we've never had spaghetti squash before, so this will hopefully be a fun experiment, even if it turns out to be inedible),

Leftover buffet

Check out I'm An Organizing Junkie for more Menu Plan Monday