Father's Day 2015

Today, is Father's Day.  I have 2 of the best dads in the world.  My dad and my husbands dad.  They are wonderful and I love them both.  :)

My dad is in the in blue shirt and my father-in-law is in the white shirt.

I got my dad a year subscription with a local town newspaper.  My mom and I went half each.  I also got my dad some peanuts that I will drop by this week.

Yesterday afternoon, after work I picked up some cupcakes.  I got a variety.  (red velvet, double chocolate, pb, oreo, pb/choc swirl and carrot cake) 

We went to my father-in-laws.  We took him some of his favorite baby swiss, trail bologna, horseradish sauce, and some tomatoes fresh from my garden.  Nate's mom got home from work and Nate's brother came with his wife.  We ended up getting KFC for dinner.  We each had a cupcake after dinner.  So yummy.  :)

Seed Saving

I cooked my rainbow beans the other night for dinner.

I saved seeds from each color.  (Green, yellow and purple)  I plan to plant these next year.  :)

Rainbow Beans

I got some rainbow beans from the farmers market last weekend from the Ochoa Produce.  I love all the produce I get from this farm.  It's always so fresh and tasty.  The family who runs the farm is always so sweet too.  Nancy, is always there working with her mom, Lorena.

Anyways, back to the beans.  I asked one of the owners what kind of beans these were.  I'd never seen green beans with yellow and purple beans together.  Nancy called them "Rainbow beans".  She said they are sweeter than plain green beans.  She said you can eat them raw and she mentioned that the purple beans will turn green when cooked.  I thought that was pretty cool.

I prepped the beans and cooked them up for dinner.

I saw the magic happen.  The purple beans really do change color.

It's not a bright green, just kinda dull but it does change.  These were delicious.  We loved them.

I will get more of these if I see any at the market.  :)

Farmers Market 6/13

I went to the Farmers Market and got a bunch of farm fresh goodies.

I had $52 in cash.  I wasn't planning on spending all of my cash there.  Whatever was left I would use at the grocery store.

Here's my farmers market tote full of stuff.

I put everything in my farmers market box so nothing would smoosh in my tote bag.

When I got home I noticed I had a array of beautiful colors from everything I got.  :)

I got:

green bell peppers

purple bell peppers

1 huge zucchini

2 cucumbers

little baby squash and zukes

bonita squash balls

yellow toms

red grape toms

sweet cheeries

rainbow beans

I love this picture here.  Taste the rainbow.  :)

I spent:  $25.50 leaving me with $26.50 to use at grocery store.  :)  Money well spent, I'd say.

Blueberry and Raspberry Picking 2015

Last weekend, I got up super early on a Saturday.  Like 6am early.  haha  I had a ton of stuff I wanted to get done.  I got up, got dressed, grabbed my garden hat and left.

First stop:

Ole Country Store and Bakery.  I picked up several items.  I wished I'd taken a picture of everything but I did not.  (next time, I promise)

They have so many sprinkles.  These caught my eye.  They are cow shapes.  What???  How cool is that?  These might be on my list next time, if I can think of what to make with them.  Chick-fil-a should totally buy these and sprinkle on some ice dream cups or brownies.  haha  I totally would.

Nate wanted horseradish sauce.  He picked up a bottle the first time we discovered this place.  I found them and saw they were only $1.49 each.  I grabbed one for a friend, his dad and then I grabbed 4 for Nate.  I saw there was 2 left, and not knowing when we'd be able to make it out again, I grabbed them.  Why not?  Hopefully, they had plenty in the back in case someone else wanted some.

I also picked up a few Amish made handpies, swiss cheese, trail bologna, maple cream chocolates, sugar free gummi bears, and sugar free vanilla wafers.

Next stop:

Millers Farms

They had blueberries and raspberries ready for pick you own.  YAY!!!  I went here last month and picked strawberries.  I also went here last year and picked blueberries and raspberries.

I got here a little after 8am.  My plan, was to beat the crowds and beat the heat.  Which I did.  :)

When I got there I was the only one in the blueberry patch for a while until I was about done picking.

Some berries were ripe and some were not.  I just picked whatever blue ones I found.

My little basket started filling up.

I even had some bees visit my basket.  I also found a really pretty, bright blue flower.  :)

Here's my blueberries that I picked all by myself.

I walked back towards the shed to get my berries weighed and I saw a cross on this little building.  I feel someone is watching over me.  :)

I grabbed a new basket and headed to the raspberries.

The raspberries are easy to pick.  The ripe ones are vibrant in color, soft and will slide right off stem with ease.  If you have to tug hard then they are not ready so just leave them be.

Here's black raspberries.  These are really good.

Ripe black raspberry with unripe berries.

I got my raspberries and had them weighed.

I got about the same amount of berries in each basket.  The worker thought that was amazing.  haha  I just stopped when I felt I had enough.  Funny that it was almost the same weight for both though.

Here's both of my baskets.  It took roughly 1 hour to pick all of these.

Next Stop:

Farmers Market (More on that in the next post)

Then:

Grocery store

I saw these gardening bags for a reduced price.  I bought the tomatoes and peppers bags.  I plan to use these later this year or next.

I also got these veggie brushes.  I think it was $3 for the pack of 2.  I used to have a brush that looked like a potato.  Ever since I moved to my house from my townhouse, I have never been able to find it.  Not sure what happened to it.  These brushes are perfect b/c I can use them to scrub my veggies.  :)  Plus, if one walks away like my potato brush did many years ago then I have another.  haha

After all that I mailed a package at UPS, and then went home.  WHEW!

Toddler Lunches

When I was meal prepping, I made my husband shuck the peas for me.  I had enough to do and I didn't have time to pick peas out of  the shell.  haha  He did a great job.  :)

Anyways, I always try to bring my lunch to work.  Sometimes, I get creative like with the Zucchini ball pizza slices.  Other times, I just want options.  Like my own little smorgasborg.  I like to call them toddler lunches.  :)

Here's some of my lunches so you can get some examples of what you can make for a toddler lunch.

This day, I had a hard boiled egg, reduced fat mozzarella string cheese, turkey pepperoni slices, fresh blueberries, grape toms and cucumber slices.

Hard boiled egg, peas, cucumber slices, grape toms, reduced fat mozzarella string cheese blueberries, and strawberries.

 2 Hard boiled eggs, grape toms, cucumber slices, blueberries, reduced fat extra sharp cheddar cheese, and wheat thins.

Hard boiled egg, cucumber slices, strawberries, farm fresh sweet cherries, fresh blueberries (that I picked), and some farm fresh toms.

Get some more ideas on healthy lunches here.

Zucchini Ball Mini Pizza Slices

For lunches at work sometimes, I like to be creative.  I had 2 nice size zucchini balls I got from the farmers market.  I thought I'd slice them up and make little pizzas with them.

Here's the farm fresh zucchini balls.

You will need:

zucchini balls (Sliced)

pizza sauce

shredded cheese (I used reduced fat)

pepperoni (I used turkey...16 slices is one serving)

Put your zucchini slices on a plate.  Add sauce, cheese and pepperoni.

Then microwave.  I cooked for 30 seconds.  The microwave at work is crazy hot.

They turned out great.  Everyone commented "It smells like pizza". haha  :)

It tasted like pizza too.  Without the crust and using the zucchini as the base it makes it a little healthier.  :)

You could add your own toppings to this this.  Make it your own and put what you like on it.  :)

2015 Garden Update- #22

Wow, it's been a while since I blogged about my garden.  Sometimes, life gets busy and that's okay.

I got this cute little 'garden' sign from JoAnn Fabrics.  It was for $2.  I have it handing in my greenhouse.

I harvested some veggies.  :)

Green Beans

Some toms.....here's before I picked.

And then a few days they were ready. One split for whatever reason.  But it was still might tasty.

My yellow tomatoes I got as little baby plants from a seed swap finally has tomatoes.

It's way too warm for the peas I have in my greenhouse so those will be thrown out.  They aren't growing at all.

I do have some marigolds growing.  They are in greenhouse too.

My sunflowers that I have growing in my greenhouse are growing up so fast.

As I walked in one morning, I couldn't believe what I saw.

Look how good they are growing?

I did buy a sunflowers pot at Lowes.  I couldn't resist.  They were sooooo pretty.

So cute.  :)

I also bought a few sunflowers for my kitchen.

I have several bell peppers growing.  I love me some bell peppers.

Some squash.