Archive for the ‘food’ Category
I love pesto, but have never made my own. I had a bunch of basil that needed using up, so I gave it a try. Boy was I glad I did, it tasted so much better than any other pesto I have ever had. There are tons of recipes out there, but this is the first one I came across, so this is what I tried.
I’ve never made it before as basil from the store is expensive, and boy howdy those pine nuts are ridiculous. I found them in one store in town and they were $35 a pound. That is way out of my food budget, so in future I will be substituting walnuts or almonds (as I have read that lots of people do).
The pesto made a delicious pasta supper, so let’s just hope we get a bunch more basil growing here in the next few weeks so I can make and freeze some for winter.
food, gardening • Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 • 7 Comments »
A simple summer salad made from the bounty of our garden. Well, it may not be a huge bounty, but it sure does taste good. There is something so incredibly satisfying about being able to walk out into the garden and pluck peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers right off the plants. In less than five minutes you can be sitting down to a wonderfully simple salad that is still warm from the sun.
This was the first year we grew peppers and cucumbers and they will definitely be back next year. I’m also looking forward to growing some different veg as well. Slowly but surely our garden is expanding and it is so much fun. The kids love being able to pick veg, but they are really excited about the cantaloupe. Right now it’s about the size of a softball and growing a bit every day.
What bounty are you enjoying from the garden (or the shops)?
food, gardening, green, nature • Monday, August 30th, 2010 • 4 Comments »
This is a quick, easy, yummy lunch or snack for us. Most times I make my own satay sauce, but this time I used a jar from the store. Cook up some chicken and shred it. Mix in the sauce, and put shredded cabbage, carrots and the chicken on a tortilla. Wrap it up, slice it in half and enjoy!
food • Wednesday, August 25th, 2010 • 1 Comment »
Making bread bags has been on my to do list for well, ages. Considering it only took me ten minutes, with distractions, I should have done it ages ago. I have been wanting to come up with a more natural storage solution for keeping our bread and had decided on cloth bags. Shortly after, I saw Mousy Brown’s tutorial and decided that was just the thing.
Funnily enough, I picked up these tea towels to make them when we were at the Ikea in Philly. When I went back to the tutorial, I realized that I had bought the exact same ones. I love how they turned out, they are a good weight and should be just right for keeping our bread fresher, longer. If you are looking for a new way to store your bread, give these a try, they are quick, very easy, and really nice to look at.
food, green, home, sewing • Sunday, August 22nd, 2010 • 6 Comments »
This is our first harvest of the year, a handful of green beans and a cherry tomato. The beans got as far as being rinsed off before they were eaten.
This tomato will be eaten today, just as soon as I can divide it into six. Wouldn’t want anyone feeling left out of eating our first tomato of the season.
food, gardening • Thursday, August 5th, 2010 • 6 Comments »
Just a quick pop in today as I’m trying to catch up from being gone over the weekend. If you love refried beans, and we do, then you should definitely check this recipe out. It uses canned beans to quickly whip up some delicious homemade refried beans.
food • Monday, August 2nd, 2010 • 1 Comment »
I am working on a crochet project for a dear friend of mine. I am in love with the yarn, it’s such a gorgeous colour, and I love the project itself. It is the first complicated pattern I have tried, and I seem to have not thought of the fact that most patterns are written by right-handed people, and I am a lefty. You wouldn’t think this makes much of a difference, but everything I am crocheting is backwards.
I am trying to combine reading instructions, with looking at charts, all while constantly flipping things round in my head and my hands. I’m going very slowly and triple checking everything as I do not want to get to the end and realize that something went dreadfully wrong.
I am very excited about the end result and though it may be slow going, and definitely brain taxing, I am really enjoying it. Unfortunately I can’t show you any pictures as it is to be a total surprise for my friend, even the colour. So I thought I’d show you what I ate while working on it the other night.
Chocolate raspberry truffle bars, yum. It was a recipe I ripped out of a magazine years ago, and finally got round to trying. You seriously do not want to know how much butter, and sugar or how many eggs were in this small cake. It was scrumptious though, and it made all the work my brain was doing just a little easier.
crochet, food • Thursday, July 29th, 2010 • 8 Comments »
I love homemade bread, but let’s face it, I don’t always have a couple of hours to get a loaf to the table. We just won’t mention the fact that I am often just not organized enough. So here it is, the most delicious quick, no-rise bread. When I say delicious, I do mean delicious.
I’ve made dinner rolls, roasted tomato focaccia (forgot to snap a pic before I took my pizza wheel to it), even cinnamon rolls. From start to finish I can have some sort of bread made in less than 20 minutes, I kid you not, even with little distractions I like to call kiddos. They love to help with the very small amount of kneading and shaping and they eat it up in a snap.
Today I was just too tired to bother, so instead of shaping it into individual rolls or a loaf, I just patted it out into a cookie sheet and then made one ginormous tuna sandwich to feed all six of us. I like to call it a picnic loaf, as it sounds much better than a lazy, couldn’t be bothered loaf. One of these days I am going to try using half wholemeal flour as it would be better for us, but it sure does make yummy white bread. It truly is a no work, no time, no sweat recipe that’ll knock the socks off of homemade bread lovers. Do try it, you’ll be glad you did.
food • Friday, July 23rd, 2010 • 14 Comments »
Such beautiful colours. The flower was one picked out of the garden by my daughter, and it matches perfectly with a gorgeous fresh peach.
Things are going pretty well here. Time is flying by and much is being accomplished. I am finally seeing some progress on the decluttering front. I keep gathering bags of items for the thrift store, and some more items to sell, and after many weeks of doing so, I am beginning to think there is light at the end of the tunnel. Now instead of stacks of clutter in front of more stacks of clutter, there are only small stacks to deal with. I am beginning to feel my head slowly unclutter as well.
Our littlest one is now officially potty trained. Yipee! I can’t say that I’m sad to see diapers go (she is still in diapers at night), though now none of her little pants fit her cute little tushie. Those cloth diapers sure do add some bulk. I guess it’s a good thing that it’s summer and wearing nothing but sundresses and new undies will do just fine.
Oh, and she turned two, where does the time go?
This is what that fresh peach turned into, a scrumptious peach blueberry crumble. Yum! Sometimes there is nothing you need more than digging a spoon into a bowl of steaming, fruity crumble to make you feel better. Especially when there is some yummy ice cream melting into the crevices of fruit.
Hope everyone is doing well. I will be doing my best to post several times a week and see how that works out for now. It feels good to be back.
family, food, gifts, nature • Tuesday, July 20th, 2010 • 10 Comments »
I haven’t had a crumpet in ages. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a homemade one, so last week the kids and I made some.
They were surprisingly easy to make, and after adjusting for time/heat after the first couple they came out just fine.
The recipe came from The River Cottage Bread Handbook, which I absolutely love. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and am looking forward to trying out many more of the recipes.
They were absolutely scrumptious. They went pretty quickly and the remaining couple were toasted the following day and then slathered with butter, enough to drip down our arms.
A couple of them were wrapped up as a gift for someone who loves them just as much as I do.
Now for one of my questions from the weekend. If the house were on fire, and all of my family was safe, what would I grab? Though there are many items that are precious to me, I would grab the computer as it has all of our family photos. I would be absolutely devastated to lose all of those, so that is what I would grab.
If anyone else has questions for me, just put them in the comments and I’ll try to answer them this week.
food • Monday, June 28th, 2010 • 10 Comments »
