Fall garden

garden

I am so sorry I have not updated my garden this summer.

Today we worked on cleaning it up a bit. Chris even burned the leftovers right there in the garden. Last week I finished pulling out the tomato plants and chris mowed the grass.

Some things that are left in the garden still: our kale forest, other kale forest, swiss chard, beets, spinach, horsradish, and a whole host of peppers. Chris has plans to cover them and keep getting peppers until december... see previous post about how we have peter piper beat. :-)

Enjoy the pics!

Simple soup

I love making soup for dinner in the fall. This one came together really quickly because I had frozen chicken broth and frozen cooked beans.

I really like the way tomatoes and kale pair together in a soup, and so does Sam. Just the other day he was actually asking for kale and tomato soup. We are enjoying the last of summer's bounty of tomatoes, and we have a forest of kale in the garden.

In this soup: chicken broth, two big tomatoes, eight or so stems of lactinato kale, 1/2 a zucchini, three potatoes, about 3 cups pinto beans. So far I have only seasoned with salt. I will add some garlic and onions and I'm not sure for herbs. I froze basil and parsley from my garden this year in oil and I am really happy with how it turned out!

I better go finish dinner! I still want to whip up a batch of GF biscuits. Have a favorite recipe to share?

Simple lunch

Some yummy warm stewed apples with cornbread for lunch. Simple and delicious! very nice for this fall day.

It was the first time this year it has really felt like fall. Last night there was a frost advisory and Chris and I tucked or pepper plants in safe and warm. Of course I don't think it frosted last night, but better safe than sorry! Hopefully this weekend, we will get some plastic to cover them. Chris is hoping they last into december. We shall see.

YOU should see the amount of peppers we have already picked! We've got peter piper beat, that's all I have to say.

Happy fall!

Oatmeal. Peanut butter. Banana. Chocolate.

Dinner stress

Do you ever stress over how or if a meal you planned is going to come together? Me too. Like right now; I am wondering if this will work out in the end.

Planned for tonight: rice and cabbage, lamb patties, broccoli and satay sauce to pull it all together.

Right now, rice is done, cabbage is cooking, broccoli is cut, chicken broth for sauce is thawing.

Plan is to finish the cabbage and then sautee patties, finish the sauce and cook broccoli.

Eta for dinner: 15 mins. Hope it comes together!

Spaghetti sqash weirdness

Today when I was cutting up a spaghetti sqash for dinner, I found two seeds that had sprouted inside the squash! How cool and strange is that!?!? Have you ever seen a sprouted seed inside a squash?

'Free' Wing Night!

That's right.  Free wing night.  In our (or your!) very own home.

How is it possible to have free wing night?

I can't take credit for this trick; my wing-loving husband came up with it.

Buy a whole chicken. (Buying a whole chicken is quite economical, especially if you can squeeze two or three meals out of it plus make broth with the bones.)

Cut off the wings when you use the chicken, however you use it.  But, cut off the wings. Cut them into their two separate pieces and cut off the wing tip. Save the wing tip to throw in with the carcass when you make broth. Throw the wings into the bag in your freezer that is designated for wings.

Now comes the hard part: wait until you have accumulated enough wings to throw yourself a free wing night. When the day comes, it's a party!  Chris and I look forward to eating wings after the kids go to bed. (Not every night..., although some weeks we want to!) Chris loves wings, and I craved them when I was pregnant with John. Chris loved that.  :-)

Tonight, we party!

This is the best way to eat wings!  The chickens I buy are organic, but when you order wings from a restaurant, they are far from it.  Not only are we saving ourselves the exposure to the anti-biotic GMO chicken that is served at restaurants, but we also are saving ourselves some money.  Do we still order wings from restaurants sometimes? Yes, occasionally.  But we appreciate it so much more-- the wings are tastier, the homemade blue cheese dressing is killer... when we save them up in the freezer.

So if you like wings, and you like to eat organic, or even if you just want to save yourselves some money, try this trick!  It is awesome! :-)

ps. be aware that wings off a chicken you buy at the store are smaller than the ones you get from a restaurant, so plan to make more than you would normally eat.