Photo by Chunky Monkey Photography
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label garden. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Catch up

This is a post just to catch up on everything from the last couple of weeks so get ready for some randomness! :) 

My dear husband brought me flowers last week.  He was trying to think of something nice to do for me like send me on a pedicure but I told him hinted to him that I wanted flowers.  Awe. Aren't they pretty? 

One of our favorite meals from this months menu so far has been the pork loin roast.  I just love love love pork with cranberry sauce (thank you Pioneer Woman).  I didn't follow her recipe exactly this time.  I just cooked a preseasoned roast in the dutch oven then simmered a can of cranberry sauce (with whole cranberries) with a little garlic, onion, and rosemary and used that to top our roast.  Throw on a side of rosemary roasted potatoes and carrots and we're good.  The plate pictured is mine so the carrots are raw.  The kids like there's sliced and simmered with a little water, honey, and butter. 

I saw a neat idea on pinterest and now my two youngest think I am so cool.  All I did was cut the netting out of the long sides of the pack-n-play and put a fitted sheet over the top and now they have a book nook that can be put away when not in use . I have big plans to sew receiving blankets together to make a top for it and sides that can hang down or be tied up.  But.... for now it's just a cut up pack-n-play with a sheet.  But they love it. 


Another favorite meal.... chicken pot pie.  This was my first time to not use canned chicken, canned soup, and canned broth.  I actually boiled a chicken, simmered the bones for 18 hours to make stock, and used a little bit of the stock to make the filling for the pie.  I did buy the pillsbury refrigerated pie crust (the two pack of rolled up crusts).... it's just so easy and it tastes great.  And I've never made pie crust.  Yet.  I made it in a giant cast iron skillet and it was perfect! 


The crust cooked perfectly... yum. 


Just enough left for Daddy to take for lunch the next day.  :)


While I was making the above chicken pot pie, the boys pretended to be in time out.  Silly boys.


Henry has a new favorite place to do his math. 


On top of the shelf under his window. Whatever works! 


Oh!  You know it's our first time to have a winter garden so while it's technically not unusual to harvest broccoli while there is ice hanging from the trees, it was a first for me.  How cool to go outside in 32 degree weather and pick broccoli?!  I also got a little bit of cauliflower.


And look at the brussels sprouts!  Our chickens peck at the garden every chance they get so the leaves aren't pretty, but thankfully they haven't eaten any of the vegetables yet. 


We also have a couple of nice heads of cabbage going. 


Last but not least, my handsome 10 year old begged me to let him try out his new basketball shoes that are suppose to be for inside the gym only .....











Friday, December 28, 2012

Jack's Harvest


Jack was so happy with his harvest yesterday!  I was too... I was also happy that my dear husband not only cooked us a pancake breakfast when he got home from work, he was also on board with me redoing the little boys room, let me sneak off by myself for over 2 hours (all spent in TARGET!), and had dinner cooked when I got home.  What a treat!  Another cool thing... our dinner included a pork loin from a hog that he got while hunting (got while hunting replaced killed.... somehow that sounds "nicer"), corn from my aunts summer garden, and carrots and cauliflower from our garden! 

Friday, December 14, 2012

Our Garden: 3 Months

We have been enjoying our broccoli! Next year we will have to plant more. One harvesting is barely enough for one meal for us! We are amazed at how much better it is than store bought!
 
I believe the next thing we harvest will be cauliflower! Five of those plants have heads growing pretty good. Yum!

 
We also have one good head of cabbage going... I can't wait for some cabbage fried with bacon and garlic... mmmmm.....
 


What I'm MOST excited about are these little gems.... 
 
Can you see that?  Hold on... here's a close up...
 
 
Teeny, tiny, BRUSSELS SPROUTS!!  Yay!!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 






 

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

It's Finally December!

Well, it's 4 days in to December now. We are excited to be getting in to the official Christmas season... although I believe the Christmas spirit should be around all the time I do like to wait until December to put out the decorations.  We are a little behind because we need Dad's help (attic, cutting down tree, etc.) and he has been stuck working overtime lately.  The kids got started by going caroling with the children's ministry on December 1st.  They really enjoyed it!  Then, on Sunday, we enjoyed a beautiful Christmas musical put on by the children's choir at our church.  3 of my boys participated and I must say, I was very proud of them.  ALL the children did wonderful and you could really tell they worked hard to learn their songs and memorize their speaking parts. 

Yesterday we enjoyed going to a local Christmas tree farm.  It was unseasonably warm so some of us wore shorts!  It seems kind of strange to be doing all this in such warm weather!  I am ready for the cold.  Anyway.... we had a hay ride, picked out a tree for the boys bedroom that THEY cut down!  (I picked a pre-cut Fir for the dining room)  We got to see goats, chickens, play with the friendlist lab puppy, and had a duck race.  It was quite an experience!  I'll post more pictures of this in it's own blog post later.  Unfortunately we were all tired and cranky by the time we got home... and had a difficult time getting the trees to stand up straight in their stands... so we did not get them lit or decorated.  That will be this weeks goal! 


We also started the Christmas Angel this week.  It's similar to the cute and famous Elf on the Shelf.  There's a sweet story that you read then the kids find the angel with her message in gold of a good deed to do for the day.  Henry found ours first thing this morning in the undecorated Christmas tree with the idea to bake cookies for a new neighbor! 


Oh! And one more thing!  We got to harvest broccoli yesterday.  I am amazed at how different it is than the store bought stuff. So flavorful, smells sooo good, and much more tender.  We snacked on it raw yesterday and today I'm steaming it to go with my lunch!  Mmmmm

What have you done to prepare for Christmas?  Any special traditions you'd like to share?

Sunday, November 25, 2012

Our Garden: Almost 3 Months

I took some pics of the garden last week.  I forgot the brussels sprouts and cauliflower but here is the broccoli, the cabbage, and the carrots. 










Thursday, November 1, 2012

Our Garden: 2 Months



Our radishes are just about done... I think we have a couple more left to harvest soon.  The peas are not really growing like we excpected but we are seeing a couple of pods.  I think that row needed more water.  Or maybe it got too much?  I don't really know.  The broccoli plants are HUGE!


 I can't wait til they start showing some actual broccoli.  The cabbage is also doing really well except one plant that seems to have gotten bugs or something... it hasn't spread to the others so we're not treating them with anything for now. 


The carrots and cauliflower are doing great, too. You can actually see the carrots now!

I am most excited about the brussels sprouts though!  They are growing pretty good they have a long way to go.  I can't wait to harvest them...  my mouth is watering for some carmelized brussels sprouts with bacon and garlic.   YUM!!!

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Garden - 1 Month After Planting

We took the day off school yesterday to visit The Texas State Fair. We were worried that it might not be good weather since we had SO MUCH RAIN the last couple of days but it turned out perfect.
 
We had a great time looking at the exhibits, trying crazy fair food (FRIED frito pie - scrumptious).  We also got to see (and have a free sample) of the world's largest frito pie in honor of Frito's 80th birthday.   
Broccoli

The kids were able to each get a free bottle of chocolate milk from the dairy exhibit and we all enjoyed some nachos in the GO TEXAN building. Yeah for free snacks! :) Oh, sorry, this was suppose to be about gardening... 
Brussels Sprouts
 
So the rain that we thought would ruin our trip to the fair worked MAGIC on our garden. I was a bit worried about it at first. It was a sad sight.   
 Carrots (can you see 'em?)
 
But this morning I checked on it and it is looking great! I am hoping that the kids excitement about watching it grow will turn in to excitement about eating more veggies when it's time to harvest. 
 Cabbage
 
They all like carrots already and will eat broccoli if it's put on their plate.  (They meaning the 3 oldest).  Jack likes peas.   
Cauliflower
 
I haven't found a way to get them to eat cauliflower yet but I did find some recipes on pinterest I'm going to try.  The faux mashed potatoes recipe and some pizza bites that use cauliflower in the crust.
 Peas
 
Henry enjoys radishes in his salad but I'm pretty sure there is no amount of ranch dressing that would convince Nelson to eat one.  Kash has suddenly decided the only vegetable he'll eat is a potato.  I have tricked him in to others buy drowning them in ketchup but I'm pretty sure that voids the healthy factor.  
 Radishes