My garden, of sorts!

I do have a garden this year. Last year it was a sad affair. This year it's doing much better. It's small and a combination of pots and a small area of dirt. Everything is starting to blossom and grown. Amberlin and I got to share our very first Sugar Snap Peas yesterday. SO YUMMY!! I know we won't get many, but the juicy and plump kind are my favorite for just eating raw. No cooking them please!! We have lots of green tomatoes and even more flowers too. I only have two tomato plants, but we sure can't wait to eat them. I seen a flower on the cucumbers too, they plants are still pretty small though, so i'm not sure how well they will do. We planted a few corn plants, just because the kids were really excited to. I have a bunch of seed packets that I got for Science class and they insisted on planting them ALL lol. I have more seeds to plant again and have some stuff, like lettuce and such later in the year too. I think it's about time to get planting them.

This is the first time I've ever tried the lettuce and greens, so i'm not sure when to harvest them. They are looking good though and I'm thinking it's soon!!! I'll get some pics to show you all my garden.

On another note, my sewing has been keeping me pretty busy. no complaints, i'm LOVING it. Sewing for me, is my way of relaxing, so I don't get stressed about it, now money, I get stressed, but sewing, I look forward too. I've been busy with custom made stuff lately. Had to make a few patterns and everything. It all seems to have turned out well and for that we are thankful. I even got to sew with my MIL for a few days. Something we don't get to do often enough!! Love her, and she's always a great help!

I'm off to get dressed and get some pictures.


Below: custom shirt I made. Had to make a pattern and a few samples to get it right, but it was a perfect fit in the end. www.jensews.com

Honey Whole Wheat Bread

This is my new favorite LOL. I've had several people ask me for it, so here it is. I found the recipe on the side of some Whole Wheat flour I bought. I tried it like they said the first time, and LOVED it, the next time i made a few variations. So I'll add the link to the online version and my version as well.

GoldMedalWholeWheat.com

The only change I made, is I did the water/yeast/honey mix different.

2 3/4c. hot to touch water
2 T yeast

let sit

than add to this mix
1/2 c. honey (warmed)
1/4 c. butter (melted with honey) OR oil (for allergy reasons)
3t. salt

I than added the whole wheat flour, than white flour in the same way I would for white bread.

4 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
2 to 3 c. white flour
(add first 3 cups at once, than in 1/2 c. to 1 c. increments after that)

You can find my pictorial on making white bread here.

Soccer!

Our two oldest kids are in soccer this spring. This is our first experience with organized sports. Neither of us played any as kids ourselves. So far it's been a very positive experience.


I'm really happy with their coach. He's very good about rotating the kids to different positions. By the end of the season, they will have played all the positions at least once. Last week Amberlin got to play goalie. She did pretty good. They did get one goal in, but only because she was still down from blocking a goal. They came back quick and got it in on the other side.


Marky got his turn today. Now he's not as coordinated as Amber. He looses his focus pretty easy. At least he's not having conversations with the other players during the game now lol. We don't really focus on being competitive, but rather on just having fun. They have a nice area where Abigail and David can kick some balls around while the game is going on. They enjoy going to the games too!

So Marky was goalie for the last part of the game. He blocked one ball, that kinda got close lol, but he let 3 balls go into the goal. On the way home he asked me if he did a good job as goalie. Hmm I don't want to tell him he did bad, but he didn't do to great. So what do I say??????

Well I asked him first, "did you do your best?" "YES" he says.

"Did you have fun?" "Well kind of" he says "I had fun watching when they were kicking the ball on the other end and to me"

hmm so does that mean he stopped having fun when it got to the goal? What can I say, he's still learning. But all in all, he did have fun and that really is whole point of it!

They have 2 more games to go for this season. I'm not sure if we'll be able swing it next year. We will see!!

Yummy Calzone!

I've been looking thru my cookbooks on my shelf and have come across some YUMMY recipes to add to our collection!. Here is the latest one, Calzones!

I overstuffed them a bit (OOPS!! lol), or like someone suggested, I could just make them bigger with the same amount of filling next time! I would like to try them on the grill. One of them did stay all together and I think may have worked on the grill. But I'm not sure I want to risk that mess..

I LOVE versatile recipes and this is one you can really change up pretty easy!

The dough is easy, it's bread dough.. You can use [gasp] frozen, store bought or just make some fresh!!!! Either way, all you need is bread dough.

Separate the dough into how ever many servings you need. My recipe calls for 8 per loaf of bread, but I only got 4 LOL..

The filling can be a variety of things. We made them pizza this time.
Pizza sauce
Pepperoni or chicken
Mozz cheese
Cheddar Cheese
Parm cheese
mushrooms
olive... or whatever you like on your pizza

OR

Sausage filling
cooked sausage
chopped onion
minced garlic
basil
oregano
tomato sauce
mozz cheese
parm cheese

Mix all but the cheese into the cooked sausage.

How to make the Calzones
Take your dough and roll one at a time into a circle. Be sure to get it thin, but not so thin it makes holes.
Take your filling and put it on half of the dough. Adding cheese last.
Moisten the edges of the dough with water.
Fold the dough over the filling half and press the edges to seal them.
Use a fork to crimp the edges.

I used melted butter to coat the outside, than places them on a pan.

Bake 425 for about 25 min.

Remember, the inside food is all cooked, its the dough you need to cook, and the cheese needs to be melted. Don't over cook them!

To make this dairy free, egg free, soy free and oat free for Abigail, I used goat cheese instead of regular cheese in hers. I also used her soy free pizza sauce (Dei Fratelli) and in my bread recipe I always use Canola oil instead of Vegetable oil.

ENJOY!!!

Butterfly Pretzels

On Monday April 12 we went to the Fredrick Meijer Gardens to see their Butterfly Exhibit. It was AWESOME!!! We had a great day. We went with a huge group of area homeschoolers. Final count was 24 families, 120 people total with 90 of them being kids. We had a great time. If you are in the area you should check them out. They have some great outdoor activities as well as the indoor butterfly exhibit. You can see more about the Butterfly exhibit by visiting their website here!

I'm disappointed to say, I didn't get very many good pictures. I guess keeping track of 5 kids kept me busy lol.. Some of the other friends that went did get some great pictures.

As a follow up to the butterfly field trip, we did a review of sorts at our local group meeting today (Wed.) Some of the kids told us their favorite part of the trip and than we learned about the life cycle of butterflies. We made a butterfly puppet and of course we had to have a butterfly snack. I found this idea online. I LOVE having the Internet to surf lol, I get so many great ideas from it..

My pretzels didn't turn out as nice as the picture, but I didn't hear any complaints so I guess it didn't really matter.. Here is where I got the idea.

Of course, I didn't do things exactly like the recipe, what fun is that?? lol. I used the Candiquik blocks of chocolate and vanilla instead of chips. I tried adding oil to it the first time, but it was TOOOOO thin, so the second batch I left it out and it worked better. The first batch I did I also used the bag like they said, and it melted in the microwave, so after that I melted it in a glass measure cup. I decided after a few times that the bag was pointless as well. SO what worked the best for me, was melting them in a glass dish, and using a spoon to drip it onto the pretzels. It didn't harden up too fast, so I was able to go back and push the pretzels together and fix the antennae. I than went back with a different batch and put a glob on the wings and added the M&M spots.

Of course I couldn't leave Abigail out and since she can't have chocolate or M&M's, I made some a little different for her. I used her chocolate chips (Enjoy life brand), which are dairy and soy free. I just melted it the same way as the Candiquik stuff and spooned it onto her pretzels. Instead of M&M's I used some jelly beans cut in half. It worked well, except that I didn't put them on wax paper and they stuck HARD on the pan. Eventually we got them off, but it was pretty tough lol.

So yes, it was a cute, easy and very YUMMY treat!!

Is Spring really almost here??

I can't believe it's March already. We've had such a busy last few months, I'm so glad it's over!

It all began around Thanksgiving when I found out I was going to be having surgery on Dec 23. So the preparations began. I stuffed my freezer and pantry with everything I might need during recovery, because I WASN'T going out to get it lol. We made it thru all of that, with flying colors, on to the next thing... birthdays. We have 3 kids with birthdays right at the beginning of the year. Jan 30, Feb 7 and Mar 1. Phew!! So we had all of that to be prepared for, plus throw in a few sewing jobs, helping paint (her new appt) and move my SIL, my sister having surgery, WOW, I really can't believe we made it!!

So now we are into March and SO ready for warm weather. I'm ready to go sit on my patio with my coffee and relax. First of course I have to wait for the warmer weather, it's not to bad out today, thou and they are saying rain most of the week. I think I'm going to try to get the patio cleared of snow, the uncovered part is all snow and the covered part is all, well storage and trash. Time for some spring cleaning. Maybe, just maybe i can get that spot on our side porch covered so we won't have birds living there this year. They make a horrible, disgusting mess on my wall, right where people come in. I'm going to hunt down some wood or wire, or something!!!!

I've used my grill twice already this year. I know, I know many people use theirs year round, but not me. I'm NOT a fan of standing in the cold lol. Now that it's warmer though we will soon be back to using it daily YAY!!! Can't wait, I LOVE using my grill.

I'll post some pics on here, I have some of birthday parties. Amberlin LOVED her cookbook I got her. She's already busy filling it up with all the recipes she uses. I can't believe my baby is 2. :( So sad that they have to grow up, but happy I have healthy kids!

So TTFN, I will be back later..

Making Chicken Burrito's tonight

I've had a can of chicken simmering with seasonings in the crock pot all day. I'm making chicken burritos again tonight. I made them a while back, and had some in the freezer for a while, well they are gone and i'm hungry for some more.. Here's my link to when I made them last. This time i'm doing things bit different..

First off I'm using a can of chicken. Not the tasty kind either lol, the just chicken and water kind, no salt, not seasoning, nothing... it came from my MIL, who got it from her MIL, who got it from her food commoditity thing she used to get for the elderly and on SS or something like that.. anyhow it's NOT a good chicken lol. So I simmer it all day in the crock with seasoning, garlic, onion, celery, parsley, rosemary stuff like that.

So now it's time to go get the shells ready. I want to try to make some. I've only found ones Abigail can have ONCE, at Sam's club. What I plan to do is find a recipe and make a dough, roll them out and bake them with the filling in them. So the shells cook while warming the chicken. So here goes. I'll try to take some pictures and let you know what recipe I use for the shells..