Best. Dessert. Ever.

At least since the last one. So good that I had to write another post tonight.

Breyer's chocolate + banana jam + Jif All Natural PB + crumbled up pretzels. YUM!!



The Jif All Natural PB is so much more creamier than the regular!

Ok, THAT is the way to end the evening. Good night!

Mix. Chill. Eat.

We spent our day off being busy! We spent so much of the rest of the weekend being slow and lazy, we woke up this morning and decided to get our butts moving and take advantage of the free day. We took care of a bunch of errands downtown - got the oil changed on the car, went to the pharmacy, dropped some things off at mom's. We also did our very first beach sweep for the NMB Browns Backers. We, as an organization, have adopted a beach access to keep clean. Lucas, Nathan, Dorian and I went down and spent about an hour picking up trash. We got a 40 gallon bag full of stuff - off the beach and into the trash. One of the locals came up and thanked us, and we all left feeling like we made a little bit of a difference.


Lucas had never been to Natural Foods, so we decided to go check it out. We got some ideas for some foods that we'd like to pick up, and ordered a veggie burger for lunch to share. It was really good!

Back at home, we went to check on the garden. We got a pretty good harvest today, and got to pick our first eggplant!!


We had so many banana and jalapeno peppers, that we thought it would be a good day to use the last two canning jars we had and preserve some of them. We got one jar of sliced jalapenos and one jar of whole banana peppers - canned and shelved.

For dinner we had catfish, potato salad and corn on the cob. Corn was on sale this week at Bilo 5 for $1.00, and was probably the best corn we've had all season!

Lucas set up his stations for breading the catfish. We wanted to try beer as the liquid rather than milk or eggs. What a great choice! It gave the fish a little extra flavor!

Lucas did an excellent job on the fish. It was delicious!
The potato salad was a new creation. We watched a show on Food Network the other day and she made a potato salad that looked quick, easy and good. Lucas refuses to eat mustard, so we haven't had potato salad all summer, because that was the only way I knew to make it. I decided today that I was going to throw one together using no mustard, just to see how it would come out. He suggested using a little sweet potato to see what that would do. The end result is that this is my new favorite potato salad!

My Potato Salad Recipe

2 russet potatoes, peeled, cooked and cubed
1 sweet potato, peeled, cooked and cubed
2 hard bolied eggs, peeled and chopped
1/2 green pepper, diced
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1 tsp minced onion
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Mix. Chill. Eat.

Great way to end the day!
(well, until I sneak out for a snack!!)

Long, Lazy Weekends...

are the best!!!!! I tend to lose track of posting on here over the weekends and until a few minutes ago, thought I didn't really even have much to say. Going through my pictures though, I came up with a thing or two. :)


I got out of work early on Friday, so we got the grocery shopping done and the house cleaned all before 5:00. Lucas is the President of the Cleveland Browns Backers club in North Myrtle Beach, and we had a friend coming over to put together raffle prizes for the upcoming season. It looked like an NFL store exploded in my living room. This was only half of the stuff we're giving away
While we were out shopping I finally bought some much needed new measuring spoons. I think I had three random ones - the others lost somewhere along the way (one was eaten by the garbage disposal.) I picked up these cute measuring spoons for $1.50!! I'm so glad to have the whole set! Is it completely lame that I'm so excited about this?


While the guys were working on football stuff, I decided to satisfy my craving for chips and dip that I'd had all week. I wanted some onion dip, like the kind that you make with sour cream and Lipton soup mix, but decided against it after reading the ingredients list on the box. I wanted to make some from scratch, so I got creative and came up with this recipe:

1/2 cup sour cream
1/3 mayo
1 tbsp minced onion
1 tsp season salt
1/4 tsp white pepper - more if you want
1 tsp Lucas spice (dehydrated onion/garlic/jalapeno mix)

Mix together. Chill. Eat.

It was BETTER than the soup mix, very oniony with a little bit of spice. If you're wondering what the Lucas spice is, that's the onion, garlic and jalapeno we dehydrated and powdered and jarred for spicing things up. I'm not sure what you could use as a substitute - maybe just some onion powder, garlic powder and red pepper flakes for the spice of the jalapenos? Just get creative. The main part of the dip is the onion, so you can add anything else you want.

We ended football planning by hanging a flag out front. Looks great!


Saturday we sat around and watched the Ohio State vs. Navy game (Ohio State won!!!) Chuck was dragging around his last mutilated toy, so I grabbed some old socks and made him a new one. He loves it!

Saturday evening we had some friends over for some ribs and coleslaw and beers. Look how beautiful the sky was! Cotton Candy Clouds!!


Today was spent recovering from last night. We've laid around the house and watched some movies and just have been munching on leftovers from the fridge. We tried this new tea we found at Big Lots on Friday. Big Lots has a surprising variety of (cheap) organic foods and drinks and household supplies. This bottle of tea was 70 cents! It was really refreshing. I told Lucas that it was so crisp and clear that it tasted like I imagined a cold mountain stream would taste....plus some berry juice. Very good find!

We bought this "brownie" at Lowes Foods on Friday since it was on sale. Being made of dates, it wasn't completely like a brownie, and had a fruity hint to it, but I could have been fooled if I didn't know what it was.

We just watched a great movie about the introduction of Napa Valley wines to the world during a blind Parisian taste test in 1976. It's not one we would have picked to watch, but it was on tv so we did. I'm glad we did, it was very interesting, and an entertaining movie. Check it out!



Tonight we're planning on more movies, dinner and bed. So glad I've got one more day before I go back to work!

Lotsa veggies

I wasn't going to post tonight, mostly because I'm lazy, but tonight's dinner was so good I had to write about it! It was a completely vegetarian meal (would have been vegan if I hadn't added milk to the mashed potatoes!) I stole this recipe for Skillet Gardener's Pie from here.

It's basically a huge pile of veggies, with a vegetable stock/cornstarch gravy and mashed taters piled on top. I changed the veggie list a bit - no celery in the fridge, and I added some zucchini and the rest of the corn we've been trying to eat up.


We served ours with some grilled zucchini and the last of the grilled leeks. The three leeks we bought seemed expensive at $4 for three of them, but we've gotten at least 4 meals out of them...not too shabby!





That's it! I assure you it tastes 100 times better than it looks. If I'm going to continue this blog thing, I really need to take a class in food staging and food photography - if there is such a thing!

Oh, I also want to mention my delicious breakfast today. I left the camera at home, so no pics, but it was Stonyfield Organic Yogurt - Vanilla with Chocolate on the bottom, mixed with Kashi GoLean Crunch. Try it out - it's wonderful, and surprisingly filling! I'm trying it again tomorrow with the blueberry flavor of the yogurt...my last one :(

Ok, that's all I've got for tonight! Looking forward to HOPEFULLY a half day of work tomorrow and then another three days off!

Good night!

Eating Up All the Berries!

As I mentioned, we got a great deal on blackberries and raspberries the other day at Lowes Foods. They had 6 oz packages on sale 5 for $5. We had to pick them up after the sale, on a rain check, because it was such a great deal and they couldn't keep them in stock. We had lots, and have been picking at them all week, but today was about the last day we were going to be able to eat them before they all went bad. So this morning, for breakfast, I took a handful and ate it with my Stonyfield Organic Yogurt, which was also on sale at Lowes this week - 49 cents each!!


My mid-morning snack was some delicious banana jam and peanut butter on crackers. I brought it in to share with the office, and couldn't stay out of it!


After work we all headed out to the garden and got quite the harvest today! Lots of jalapenos, green bell peppers and some tomatoes. One of the tomatoes may be too green to have brought in, but when I grabbed it to look at it, it came right off in my hand!


Dinner was some stuffed zuchinni, and stuffed pepper for Nathan, since I can't get him to eat zucchini yet. While that was making, I decided to use up the berries in a cobbler. I had about 1/2 a cup of buttermilk left in the fridge that I had intended to make buttermilk biscuits with, and decided to make a biscuit topping for the cobbler with it instead. I surfed around online for a bit to try to find a recipe to use, but couldn't find one that I liked - one that didn't have sugar. So...I made one up!! I love that I'm getting confident enough with the cooking and the way things go together that I can make my own recipes!!

First I picked through all the berries, put them in the dish I was baking in, and mixed them with some honey and lemon. They looked like this:

So juicy and gooey, already!! I mixed the biscuit topping, put it on the fruit, and tossed it in the oven. After a little bit I checked the oven to see how it was coming, and was so excited to see the juicy berries oozing out over the biscuit!!

And here's the finished product!


We put it on some Breyer's All Natural Vanilla while it was still warm. I made Lucas try it first, since I was nervous about it being good. He's my guinea pig around the house!! He loved it, and we shared this bowl full, though I will admit I ate most of it!


Here's the recipe! ENJOY!!!

Fresh Berry Cobbler

For the biscuit topping:

1 1/3 c. sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
3/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/3 c. shortening
1/2 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. milk

1 egg, beaten

Combine all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender until ingredients resemble coarse crumbs. Add egg, buttermilk and milk all at once. Stir quickly with fork only until dough follows fork around bowl.

For the fruit:

3 – 6 oz. Packages of fresh berries – blackberries, raspberries, blueberries or strawberries

½ cup honey

3 tbsp lemon juice

Mix berries, honey and lemon juice in a small casserole dish. Drop biscuit mix by spoonfuls on top of the berry mixture to cover. Bake in a 400° oven for 35 minutes.

Banana Jam

I tried a new experiment on Sunday. I came across a blog that talked about banana jam, as in something to spread on your peanut butter sandwich. It sounded great, but was loaded with sugar, which Lucas can't eat, so I wasn't sure if I'd make it. I saved the blog page, and couldn't get the idea out of my mind. Finally I decided to do it, but do it my way.

Banana Jam Recipe

Ingredients

• juice of one lime
  
• 3 1/2 very ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup of honey
  
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon

Lightly mash the bananas in a bowl and mix in the lime juice.

Pour the water and honey in a pot and bring to a boil, while stirring.

Add banana mixture and cinnamon and boil over low heat for about 30 minutes or until thick, stirring constantly. The mixture will thicken as it cooks.

The jam is done when a spoon scraped across bottom of pan leaves a track that closes slowly.

Once you’re done, spoon the jam into hot sterilized jars and seal.

So I made it, and sealed it, and put it in the fridge.

Tonight after dinner we decided to try it out, hoping for the best. When I jarred the jam, it was still a bit runny, so I wasn't sure what we were going to get. What we got was such sweet, banana-y goodness, I couldn't believe it! If you've ever had banana baby food - which is AWESOME - this is alot like it, but with more texture.


We made some sandwiches out of whole wheat bread, Jif All Natural Peanut Butter, and banana jam. YUM!!!!








I imagine that this would be great on pancakes, or in oatmeal, or on top of chocolate ice cream. Hmmmm, we have some - maybe I'll go try it now!

Good night!!
If you're interested in the sugar recipe, you can find it here.

The Week in Review

This may not be the most exciting post, but I let myself get so far behind, that I feel like I really need to just do a recap of the last few days, just so I'm caught up!

Starting off with last Wednesday - I had to post this picture of the Side-by-Side Quiche that we made. It looks so yummy! We made half of it with just bacon, for Nathan, and the other half was bacon, broccoli and baby bella mushrooms, for us!


Served up with some watermelon and sauteed zucchini sticks...YUM!

The next couple of days were boring food days. We had Subway on the beach Thursday night, and Friday night was an AWFUL tuna casserole. You don't want to see that....

Saturday we went grocery shopping, and for once, only went to one store! I had my rain check for berries (5 packages for 5 bucks!!) for Lowes Foods, so that's where we headed. We had to buy a loaf of french bread, to make the pizzas we planned for Saturday. I've always wanted to have a big loaf of bread sticking out of my paper bag. Doesn't it seem like in movies that EVERY time someone goes grocery shopping, they have french bread sticking out of the bag?? So here it is - french bread, wine and some leafy greens - just like the movies! (I'm adding this after the original post...apparently I'm not the only one who likes the look of this, though I should have taken it out of the plastic bag. Here's a related funny little story!)


Saturday afternoon we headed to Freestyle Music Park with the kids. SO MUCH FUN - and plenty of stuff for a separate post! We got home pretty late, but didn't eat at the park, so I got to work on the french bread pizzas.

Chuck was just waiting for me to drop something!!



I totally meant to take a picture when they came out of the oven, but there were only about two bites left of my pizza when I realized I hadn't done it! We were HUNGRY!

The next morning I woke up early and decided to invite my whole family over for breakfast. I had bought a quart of buttermilk last week to make Lucas's birthday cake. I had more than 3/4 of it left, so I had to find things to make with it! I started out with a big batch of buttermilk pancakes. My sister was the only one to come over from my mom's, since she had to work, and everyone else was still in bed. More for us!! We topped the pancakes with some of my Lowes blackberries and raspberries, leftover blueberries and mashed bananas. YUM YUM YUM!

I spent all morning in the kitchen, and did a spring (late summer) cleaning. I scrubbed every single surface! Then I messed it all up again! I made a buttermilk pie to send back to mom's. I'm not sure how it turned out and didn't take a picture. No one has called to say it's wonderful, so I may have been a big FAIL, but who knows...at least the buttermilk got used! I have about 1/2 a cup left, just enough to make some buttermilk biscuits to bake and freeze tomorrow night.

Before breakfast I had gone out to the garden and done a mini-harvest. We had grown some garlic chives, but gave up on finding them early on. I went two weeks without weeding, and once I went out, I couldn't tell which were the chives and which were the weeds. Sunday morning I went out and grabbed a handful and could easily tell which were the chives. The smell was SO strong! I decided to bring them in, chop them up, and dry them in the dehydrator. Nathan has already eaten them on his potatoes twice, so that was a success!

A little more of the recent harvest - tomatoes, jalapenos, banana peppers

Lunch was a salad of boiled eggs, mixed greens, blackberries, feta and Full Circle Organic Tuscan Italian dressing. YUM!


We had some company while cooking dinner on the grill. This little guy hung out on the cooler for a bit.

Dinner was completely done by Lucas - grilled salmon with dill, griled potatoe with monterey jack and chives, and grilled mixed veggies....sooo good!


That brings us to tonight, when I tried to make some chicken empanadas. Lots of work, and I wasn't impressed. Chicken, cheese, peppers, spices inside little pockets of pie crust, baked. The stuffing was good, the crust I could do without. Lucas liked it though, so it was still a success!!


That catches us up on the food front! Off to bed!! Good night!