Apple Picking

Last weekend Q and I went to the mountains for our annual apple picking trip. The friends we usually go with weren't available so we picked a lot less than usual. I think we brought home fourteen bushels last year and this year just six. Six bushels is still a lot mind you. It was hard to restrain ourselves to six bushels too, apples are so easy to pick and the orchard we went to had so many great varieties in season right now.

I have lots of apple plans for the next few weeks, but this year baking won't be the main focus since I've given up sugar. boohoo :( I have so many favorite sweet apple recipes I will only be able to make for other people.

I love knowing where my food came from and picking it myself too. It was really a wonderful weekend filled with friends and family, we love going up to the mountains.

Q totally got in on the apple action too, he ate soooo many!

luckily if my plans go accordingly he'll be able to enjoy these apples for the rest of the year!

Snack Bags

I'm finally going to post some of my recent projects. First and one of the simplest - snack bags! I loosely followed this tutorial

and I think they were a hit. Qais can't decide if he would rather carry them around to look at the 'ment mem' aka cement mixer, or if he wants the 'gookies' aka - cookies (which is any snack) that are inside.

#27

on the list was to learn to can. This summer was the perfect time to learn, so much produce at the farmers market and in our own garden.

At the beginning of the summer I used up an amazon gift card and bought these three items -canning tools, water bath canner, and one of the Ball complete book home preserving. I have loved flipping through the book at all the fun recipes, I have so many ideas for things I want to do in the future - brandied peaches, tomato sauces, juice concentrates, apple pie filling. I would love to have a pantry full of food I've put away for the year. Someday I will...

Here is a small portion of the four things I've canned this year, I just pulled out a jar or two of each to take a picture of. There's strawberry and blueberry jam (which were by far the easiest things to can) and then there's pickled peppers and canned crushed tomatoes. I haven't tried the peppers or tomatoes yet but the jams were unbelievably yummy. I also made a bunch of bread and butter pickles a few weeks ago but they were so yummy that they're just about gone already!

I'm really so glad I learned how to can. It's really easy and fun and I love looking in the pantry and amid the various things I've bought to see things I made - even picked (like the blueberries) and then preserved is so great!

Think Green

Smoothies!

One of the only reliable ways to get leafy greens into my little boy is in a smoothie.

Our favorite right now is - orange juice, frozen rasberries (and/or peaches), spinach, and a spoonful of plain greek yogurt.

Smoothies make my boy happy. and messy.

Whimsy

During these crazy last few weeks (months really) I find myself craving some relief/release. I indulged that craving yesterday with this bit of whimsy. A rainbow cake! inspired by this post I tried it out myself. I followed a recipe for white cake, even omitting the egg for egg-replacer so I didn't add the yellow of the yolk. I separated the batter into equal pieces and mixed in the food coloring

I just started pouring the batter on top of each other in rainbow order

It was so fun to see how it had baked once I pulled it out

I iced it with a very simple white frosting - butter, confectioners sugar and a little milk.

It's so much fun to cut the cake and find the rainbow inside


It wasn't particularly interested tasting, but really, everything tastes better when it's pretty like this!

and I don't think I've ever had such pretty dishes to wash

Mmmmmmmmm

This weeks Tuesdays With Dorie recipe was chosen by Carla of Chocolate Moosey and was the Chocolate Crunched-Caramel tart. Thanks for choosing this one Carla! This is my second week with the TWD group and I'm loving it. So is my husband :P

I felt like this recipe was very simple really - tart crust, caramel with peanuts and then chocolate on top - simple. But it required so many trips to the grocery store! and whats with NO one carrying bittersweet chocolate anymore? and is there really such a thing as a 9" tart pan? I think not! I ended up making individual tartlettes (which I thought came out better anyhow) and splurging on nice ghiradelli 60% dark chocolate (which I also thought was better) so all in all - mega YUM. The crust was delicious even though I didn't have a food processor to make it in - I did it in the kitchenaid and with a pastry cutter thing and by hand and with a big mess to show afterwards! and 5 cute little tart pans with a beautiful flaky, crumbly crust.

The ganache was fantastic and thinner than I usually think of a ganache but delicious (which I thank ghiradelli for). I thought that since it was topped with ganache it would be served cold and need to be refridgerated but no, Dorie was very specific about only a 30 minute chill time and then being served and stored at room temp. She was very right (as usual) it was delicious at room temp with the ganache soft but not too soft. The caramel was outstanding too, and very easy to make. I didn't think I'd like putting honey roasted peanuts in it but I didn't have any of the other nuts she mentioned for variations (toasted hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts or just salted peanuts) so I went with these and it came out fantastic! All in all this was a winner. Simple and oh so elegant.

You can tell we liked it

and for all you pacman (or woman) lovers

Monday Meal Plan

Phew, It's been crazy around here! as usual. It's mostly the fact that the littlest one is keeping us on our toes with naps and nighttime sleep. I blame teething! I blame teething for everything.
We're honestly looking forward to a totally boring week.

Monday - roasted red peppers, sausage, rice, pineapple jerky skillet thing (great name huh?). Steamed broccoli
Tuesday - leftover rice and beans with veggies
Wednesday - chicken casserole (corn, peas, carrots)
Thursday - end of the summer pasta (spinach, basil, mozzarella, balsamic)
Friday - homemade pizza (spinach, artichoke, portabella mushrooms)
Saturday - grill out! woohoo!

and since we're including Q in mealtime more and more I thought I'd add this today. More for my benefit since it's just what I've got on hand and really - he's not eating any solids yet, we're just trying to offer when we're all together at the table so he gets into the ritual of it.

Monday - sweet potato and broccoli
Tuesday - sweet potato and applesauce
Wednesday - peas and sweet potato
Thursday - peaches and avocado
Friday - peaches and avocado

No better time than the present

to start working on my list (even though I technically started last Thursday). I looked at the Tuesday's With Dorie list and saw that this Tuesday's recipe was cottage cheese pufflets. Like most sane people I despise cottage cheese so I immediately thought 'I'll just join next week' but then I remembered that the point of this is to make things you wouldn't normally make and push yourself. Also, I had a package of cottage cheese in the fridge somehow, I have no idea how that got there. So I decided to make those damn pufflets and this is my very first TWD post!

This weeks recipe was chosen by Jacque at Daisy Lane Cakes and you can see her blog for the full recipe. Of course you can also pick up your copy of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home To Yours. You do own a copy don't you? You can also check out all the other amazing participating bakers on the Tuesday's With Dorie blogroll.

Dorie wrote that the recipe was originally meant to be beaten by a wooden spoon but she called for the recipe to be made in a food processor. Since I don't have a food processor I decided to do it in my trusty Kitchenaid, I figured it would be enough if a wooden spoon was enough. Check out my helpers (my mother-in-law and my son)

The mix was supposed to look like whipped cream cheese and although mine was close, it took a good 5-7 minutes and still all the curds of my small curd cottage cheese weren't completely gone but oh well. Here's the mix wrapped up tight and ready for it's stay in my fridge overnight

My first batch wasn't as thin as it should have been and I had to increase the cooking time by about 5 minutes (and even then they were still a little undercooked). I did the first batch in circle shapes like little pies with apricot preserves filling from Trader Joe's.

The second batch I did in triangles like the recipe called for, with Lingonberry preserves from Ikea. I preferred the apricot which I think was a little sweeter, but everyone else liked the Lingonberry more. I took them to a dinner party at my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house knowing they were Lingonberry fans and they liked them a lot.

I have to say that I really expected not to like these pufflets but I actually liked them a good bit. I love cookies and I love shortbread and these were sort of shortbread like. They were also not too sweet, which I really like, the cookies only had 2tbsp of sugar in them so pretty much all the sweetness came from the jam filling which was really yummy.

Monday Meal Plan

Phew, what a weekend. I just went and took stock of the fridge and threw a lot of things out :( don't tell my husband, he hates it when we do that. There was produce stuck in the back from a while ago that was forgotten and very wilted and damp and brown, ick ick. Anyhow, here's our week

Monday - Soulemama's broccoli soup + my own homemade bread
Tuesday - chicken with apricot balsamic reduction over spinach salad (sounds fancy huh? SO not)
Wednesday - veggie tofu stirfy + moroccan-y couscous
Thursday - B cooks spicy chicken and rice
Friday - homemade pizza (portabella and other yumminess)

A Personal Best...

I spent $16.93 at the grocery store this morning and that's everything we need for the week! Granted, I had all our proteins in the fridge or freezer already (and some leftover snacks). The closeout produce section was rockin' this morning and had everything I needed marked $1.25 each, got that and some lunch stuff for B, a few things I had coupons for and that was it! That's amazing. Now, if HT starts triples this week I'll be going back to stock up on a few things but I'm very pleased with myself. A lot of this produce needs to get used today so I'm gonna be chopping and cooking and freezing quite a bit, nothing wrong with that though.

Go Bananas

In my latest attempts at frugality as a stay-at-home-mom I've been stopping by the grocery store most mornings after taking my husband to work. It's right next to the house and super convenient so we stop most mornings and check out their close-out sections. The produce is what interests me, you see - they put all the stuff that's ripe and needing to be eaten that day on that close-out shelf and mark it 'priced to sell' - and it's a ton of stuff. I usually take it home and cook with it that day, or I just pop it in the freezer. This morning I got pounds upon pounds of bananas. What to do with all these bananas? Well the obvious - baby food. Yes, but I spent some time googling (and ran across an old schoolmates blog) and found some other things I think we'll be trying with the bananas

one ingredient ice cream

chocolate and nut covered frozen bananas

Now what should I do with my 12 cans of tomatoes that cost me a total of $2 and my 10 bell peppers... freeze them? the bell peppers that is.

Join us for dinner won't you?

We're having spinach, pasta, and a chunky veggie red sauce that we like to make
The cool weather makes me want to light a candle on our dinner table.



The littlest one is having avocado for the first time.

edited to add:
I'm not sure how much he actually ate

Deal

So you know how I'm a little crazy? Well look what I did last night

I bought two tons of pasta!

OK, just 8 boxes. But seriously. that's a little crazy

But you see, it was a crazy good deal. I have found the closeout corner at my local Food Lion and I always find cool things but last night I total scored. I got some other stuff besides the pasta but this was an awesome deal.

Look! It's all organic and made in italy in stuff!

and it was .55 cents! Seriously, we have pasta for the next 6 months!

P.S. Did you spot the bottle of wine behind the pasta? Mmmmm. wine

Meal Plan Monday

Yesterday I sat down in front of the computer and went to my grocery store's website and downloaded the weekly flier. Using the flier and the coupons I had clipped out today I came up with our weekly meal plan. From the meal plan I made a grocery list and then added some staples to it that we consume throughout the day. Then we went to the grocery store and shopped methodically and with as little impulse buying as possible. We saved $35 and spent $70 (before batteries, which, even with coupons cost a lot!) and we have groceries for this week and we were able to stock up on quite a few things too. Like juice. We have big bottles of our favorite juices in our cabinet since we got a really good deal. And dishwashing detergent, we figured out that we have enough for something like 90 loads of the dishwasher for $3.50.

Anyhow, here's our meal plan for this week. We have some dinner stuff through the next week too but I'll post only the meal plan for this work week.

Monday - spicy tofu stir fry with brown rice

Tuesday - grilled chicken with roasted zucchini, summer squash, and rice pilaf

Wednesday - mexican stuffed bell peppers, or burritos, or both. something mexican.

Thursday - creamy linguini with summer veggies - peas.

Friday - birthday dinner with family. I'm turning 26 baby!

Meal Plan Monday

Last friday I did a big 'back of the cabinet' grocery shop where I stocked up on things like dry beans, pasta, rice, canned tomatoes, frozen proteins, etc.. So we're starting the month in a good place for lots of yummy meals. Yesterday we went and picked lots of veggies at my dad's house (corn, squash, tomatoes, basil, peppers, cucumbers). I just got the baby to sleep and clipped my coupons and I'm ready to make my meal plan.

Monday - Pesto pasta with spring veggies. Corn and heirloom tomato salad

Tuesday - chicken + spinach burritos

Wednesday - garbanzo bean "burgers" and whatever veggies are left from dads

Thursday - chicken bake with stuffing - corn, peas, carrots

Friday - grill night - blue cheese burgers and veggie kabobs

Monday Meal Planning

It's the last week before payday and before we go out of town so it's a 'use up the back of the cabinet/freezer' type of week. Here we go

Monday - spicy chicken sausage, squash, zucchini
Tuesday - burgers on the grill
Wednesday - baked veggie penne with chunky sauce, spinach salad
Thursday - leftover pasta & spinach
Friday - we'll be on the road to Asheville!