Tag: tomatoes

Recipe Roundup
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I’m sitting on the couch, watching sharks of course, with a dog who is quite certain that she needs pets on her head to help her sleep. 🙂 It makes typing quite difficult. The Husband got me a fancy keyboard for my IPad that’s bluetooth enabled, so the typing part isn’t as bad, but the constant nose nudges under my hands do make it more difficult. Dropping my IPad face down without the cover on the screen didn’t really help the other screen issues I was having. It’s kind of interesting to watch the spiderweb cracks spread across the screen. :\

We just came back from what was about a 3 mile walk on the river. That’s where the featured picture comes from. It was just sunny enough that I wore my shark shorts and a tank top, but there was a nice breeze, so it was a very pleasant, shady walk. Fancy is snoring away. We’re hoping to have her mind less that we’re in and out all weekend.

I have not made any new recipes this week! We had delicious food, but we hadn’t meal planned, so we didn’t really have new ones.

I had grilled cheese one night with chips and veggies. Probably an apple or something too, but I don’t remember.

We had Taco Salad with garden lettuce and fritos on top.

It was delicious! I used my taco meat recipe which is a pound of ground beef, half a jar of salsa, about a tsp or so of ground cumin, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder. I also used chili powder this time, but not all the time. It was a little spicy from the salsa and we had pepper jack cheese too.

We also had Shepherd’s Pie with ground lamb and garlic mashed potatoes. No recipe, just cooked up a pound of lamb, threw in some Worcestershire sauce, chicken broth, salt, and pepper. I used half a bag of frozen veggies and cooked off some of the liquid. The potatoes were smaller yellow potatoes, mashed with cream, butter, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Bake it for 20 or so minutes at 400 until the potatoes get a little brown. We had this on a cooler day that had been pretty grey and rainy. A garden lettuce salad went with it.

I made blueberry muffins too, but ate them all! I remembered to take pictures of our waffles this morning that we had with maple syrup made by our friends in their own sugar shack. It was delicious! I don’t typically like maple syrup because I find it too sweet. This is slightly thinner and has a smoky taste. It’s sweet, but not sickly sweet.

MMMMMMM! I enjoyed breakfast very much. We have bottle for my parents too, but it’s going to be hard to keep it for them until we see them. They’ll have to be very nice to us! I think we’ll get two bottles next year, if we can.

The garden is still growing very well. I was a little concerned because we’ve had some really hot days and have a soaker hose in only one of the beds. The tomatoes are so big, it will be tricky to thread the hoses in there.

Speaking of tomatoes, we have a tomato that is orange! Which means soon I can eat a garden tomato!

It might be a Roma, or an Early Girl. These four are definitely on one of the Early Girl plants. 🙂

And Mr. Stripey has a tomato started, as well as blossoms.

No stripes yet, but they will come. I’m so excited to start using the tomatoes. The hot peppers are growing well. They look about the same, so no pictures. The red peppers may be fighting a losing battle with the giant zucchini plant.

This is the view from the front of the garden. You cannot see the back, but the plant now covers the entire box… Maybe next year, I’ll see if there’s a smaller variety. 🙂

We still have some lettuce growing and the marigolds are hiding, but still there.

Well, I should probably go do some meal planning for the week. Have a good day!

 

Recipe Roundup and Gardening
Gardening · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Gardening

LSieh2 Comments

I was so mixed up on all my days this week and spent all of yesterday making cheesecakes for Battle Cheesecake. So this is a little belated recipe post and a garden update. I will post the party pics and recipes tomorrow, I think. We all had a lot of fun!

The garden is growing very well! We had the lettuce from it in a salad with meatballs after the cheesecake tonight. Everyone liked it and there’s so much left. We may deliver some to my in-laws, as they weren’t able to plant a garden this year.

These are the three buttercrunch. We had romaine as well, but I forgot a picture. It was a proud moment to share our homegrown produce. I’m looking forward to sharing more.

We have peppers of both the hot and sweet variety starting. This is the small Thai chilies.

The spicy peppers both have actual peppers on the vines and the sweets have just flowers. The sweets are getting kind of taken over by the zucchini plant, but they are fighting the good fight.

I believe this is the Jalefuego pepper. The dragon cayenne is harder to take pictures of, as the peppers are still small.

Here’s the mutant zucchini, you can see some pepper plants coming through the leaves.

I have no idea how many squash we are going to get, if we get as many as the flowers, I may be looking for recruits to take them. After I make lots of zucchini things, of course. I’ve read that you can shred it and freeze it too, so I might do that.

The herbs are going well for the most part. I’ve accidentally murdered a few, but they seem to be hardy and coming back.

And, of course, the tomatoes continue to expand. Mr. Stripey is doing well.

Almost all the plants have tomatoes started.

They are growing a little close to each other, so it’s hard to tell sometimes which plant is which.

It will be fun when they start turning colors. I’ll know for sure then.

So now that we’ve seen the food growing, here’s what we ate!

Turkey cutlets looked good at Trader Joe’s, so I made Turkey Parmesan on Sunday. No recipe, just breaded the cutlets with seasoned panko and fried them up. Regular homemade marinara and fettuccine.

I made this after we had walked around the zoo for the photo safari for multiple hours, so didn’t use fresh herbs. They had been a little wilted too. It was good anyway though. It was fun to try something new. The Husband was very complimentary and wants to have it again.

We had sandwiches a couple of the nights. The Husband got the sandwich maker back from his parents’ house and was very excited. It’s a Betty Crocker “Stuff and Munch.” It makes little sandwich pockets and is his favorite way to eat sandwiches.

This was a pastrami provolone sandwich. It was pretty good.

We also had manicotti, but I don’t have a picture, as I was at work.

http://www.geniuskitchen.com/recipe/easy-manicotti-56784

It says that you don’t have to cook the noodles, but it’s a lie. Cook them at least halfway. The Husband left it in for over an hour after checking it and it finally got soft. It tasted okay.

The cheesecakes were my other new recipes this week, but that will be in the party post.

I hope you’re enjoying seeing the garden. I know I’m very excited that it’s going so well. Have a great night and stay tuned for my party post for Battle Cheesecake!

Monthly Review
Gardening · Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup · Sewing

Monthly Review

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello! It’s hard to believe that it’s time for a review again, but I guess it is. My garden has exploded in the past month with all sorts of new growth. I had a salad made with lettuce from the garden just yesterday!

I picked some of both, buttercrunch and romaine. It was delicious! I’ve been picking the basil for caprese salads a lot too. I can’t wait to have homegrown tomatoes and basil for it.

My zucchini plant has taken over part of the garden. (Pictures withheld as to not frighten my father…)  I have five blossoms on it. I may be giving away zucchini shortly. 🙂 I think part of the plant ended up in every picture I took of the pepper box. Except the lettuce.

The tomatoes have absolutely taken over their box. I had to find some sticks to stake up the plants. The Early Girls are huge!

Mr. Stripey is holding his own in the corner.

I have some tomatoes started on the plants, but they are hard to get pictures of, as they are small and green. It’s exciting to see them growing though. So far, no sign of blossom end rot, which was the bane of my existence the last couple of years. I think the garden soil is keeping everything much more stable, moisture wise.

The peppers plants have a few flowers on them and seem to be holding up well, despite the encroaching zucchini. The herbs are also doing well. The strawberries never flowered, but that’s alright. I’ll keep them through the winter again and get some more plants for the berry boxes next spring. A friend has some raspberry plants that we can steal cuttings from too.

I’m pretty pleased with how it’s working out. I think we’ll get a lot of yield this year.

I’m also pretty pleased with my sewing this month. I have made lots of useful wardrobe items and am considering what of my ready to wear clothes I can replace or how to fix previously made items that don’t quite work.

My favorite things this month have been my harem pants, my Harry Potter table runner, the abstract floral dress, the blue lotus Agnes, and my Cocoon Cardigan.

I haven’t blogged about the cardi or the three pairs of shorts I have made in the last couple of days yet. 🙂

I finally found a pattern for pj shorts and pants that fits the Husband. He got his minion shorts a few days ago and I can catch up on Christmas pjs too. He has flannel pants with sweater bears on them that are not yet made. Here are the minions.

They were from the book Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross. The failed slipper pattern was from this book, so I was glad to find a pattern that worked. 🙂

I realized that all of my recent patterns have been ones that I’ve traced! My friend slowly dragged me over to Team Trace when I wasn’t looking. She tempted me with PDF patterns that I couldn’t resist. I’m not very mad about it, for being firmly on Team Cut That Sh*t Out (terms coined by my favorite sewing group on Facebook- The Self Sewn Wardrobe by Mallory Donohue.) I will admit that it does make sense, but I still hate printing and taping PDF patterns.

I will admit, this Cocoon Cardigan by Patterns for Pirates, had a lot to do with it as well. It looked so snuggly and wonderful on everyone online who made it that I had to have it.

The shoulders look weird in this picture. I swear it doesn’t actually make me look like I’m a linebacker. 🙂  They are a dolman sleeve, so they start sloped and pick up the sleeve partway down your shoulder. It was a new technique for me and I was super nervous, but it came out so nice. I have plans to make a lighter weight black cardi with an owl appliqué on the back. It’s going to look so cool!

The stars are french terry, which is a new fabric for me too. Here’s a closeup of the stars. They are multi-colored.

There’s a grey colorway with pink stars on the website and I think I want it too. Next time I make this in a non-stretch fabric, I’ll add a tiny bit in width to the lower arms. They are a tiny bit tighter than I’d like.  I wore it to work and received several compliments.  A very stylish coworker said “I don’t even ask anymore, I figure if you’re wearing it and it’s cute, you probably made it.” 🙂 Also, it has pockets!!

The other PDF pattern I have tried and loved has been the Linen Loungers by Patterns For Pirates. I made two pairs for myself yesterday. I may have flamingo fabric ordered to make another pair…

They are both sleep shorts and have a yoga waistband. They are very comfy and didn’t make me feel fat and horrible, which most shorts do. I will be making more of these. The pattern comes with  curved hem option, pants, and bermudas as well.

I’ve done a bunch of organizing in the basement, so I’d like to keep it that way.

Foodwise, we did pretty well. We mostly planned pur meals and we used the InstantPot. We had 24 recipes, with 9 being completely new.

Hits were Korean Beef,

Chophouse Cheesy Burgers, Cinnamon Coffee Cake, and the chewy chocolate chip cookies. The Husband also tried searing pork and did an excellent job!

We only had one miss, the blueberry muffins that were very dense. I managed to make dinners even though I was horribly sick. Overall, a pretty good month.

We’re looking forward to trying to have more new recipes this month and also grilling some more.

Goals for the month:

Food Goals: 

– Try a new Instant Pot recipe

– Two canning recipes

– Battle Cheesecake

– Meal plan

– Pantry meals

 

Sewing/Craft goals:

– 1 or 2 new patterns

– 1 or 2 UFO projects

– Continue to organize

 

Garden Goals:

– Put together composter

– Keep everything alive

 

Well, I have to to get ready for a family wedding. I’m wearing a me made dress and my starry cardigan, so I will feel cute all day. 🙂 Plus, I get ice cream! Have a great weekend!

Sewing Space and Garden Update- Wordy Wednesday
Life Posts · Sewing · Wordless Wednesdays

Sewing Space and Garden Update- Wordy Wednesday

LSiehLeave a comment

Well, hello Wednesday! I thought it was Tuesday, somehow missed that I have spent two days at work already. Man…

I’ll post some pictures tomorrow for a Thoughtful Thursday post, but in the meantime, here’s an update on the garden and my sewing space.

The garden is growing like crazy! I have to get out there and weed it, but it’s currently pouring rain, so it won’t be today.

Here’s a shot of the pepper and lettuce box:

I lost once lettuce, but the rest are going strong. We’re going to have a lot of lettuce though. More salads, I guess. Next year, maybe I will split lettuce with someone, or start from seed.

Here’s the tomato box:

Holy tomatoes, Batman!

Mr. Stripey is getting very big and my smaller tomato plants, the Early Girl’s have taken off! We’re going to have so many tomatoes!

My herbs are looking good. I used some lemon thyme in shortbread cookies and they were good.

I think being in the ground has really helped the garden. It’s much easier to control the consistent watering and everything seems to be thriving.

Now for the sewing part. I wasn’t up to crawling around on the floor to get patterns cut when sick, so I didn’t do a lot of sewing. I did make a table runner for Thanksgiving.

I also made this maxi skirt. Excuse the late night, silly face.

It’s super comfy and now has a slightly shorter hem. The skirt is a cotton rayon blend and I used black double brushed poly for the waistband. It’s lovely ans swishy, but I have to wait until it stops raining to wear it. It originally had a pocket, but it looked hideous, so I took it out.

I’ve done a lot of organizing to get my space ready to sew downstairs again.

The desk still has a few things on it, but now where near as bad as it was. The new lights the Husband hing are glorious, but I think I need one in front of my machine too. It’s a little backlit at the moment. It’s much brighter though, so that’s good.

I even cleaned the little messy area on top of my storage shelves.

That’s where I lost my serger pedal. 😳 Now I can’t lose things there anymore.

In Fancy news, that darn fireplace dog is still turning up trying to stealing her toys!

Shortly after this was taken, she started pawing at the door. Silly pup!

Well, that’s all my updates for now. I hope you’re having nice weather wherever you are!

Weekend, Where Are You?
Canning and Preserving · Crafty

Weekend, Where Are You?

LSiehLeave a comment

I think someone has made time go even faster than normal. I don’t know where any of my time went. I had plans to can all Sunday, but ended up needing more than I thought and had way less time. We did go on a lovely home improvement date to get mosquito killer in the afternoon and picked up a whole box of tomatoes to can/freeze. I made spicy BBQ sauce for the freezer. The rest of the tomatoes will be turned into salsa and dried herbed tomatoes. The farm market we went to had a huge box of them for $8. I will go back to get some this next weekend if I can have the time to  can more things.

I made two new recipe last week. It was the Husband’s birthday on Friday, so I left him Hamburger stroganoff made from this recipe. http://allrecipes.com/recipe/240773/quick-and-easy-hamburger-stroganoff/

Hamburger stroganoff is one of my worst nightmares. The texture and the look… Blerg. I didn’t even ask him how it was when I got home because I was trying to avoid thinking about it. Don’t worry, he knows how I feel. No pictures, as I didn’t eat it.

I also made up a bean enchilada recipe when the Husband was doing theater things. I used canned enchilada sauce. I sautéed onions, a can of black beans, yellow and orange peppers, and garlic. Spices were cumin, garlic and onion powder, salt, pepper, and chili powder. Mexican cheese blend. They were very good. I do have a picture of them.

Fancy decided to make 7:30 AM a good time to wake up on Saturday, so I ended up making my work art. One is completely done and the second one is waiting on getting the words put on it.

I also made more tea wallets. One of these days, I am going to be sick of making them, but maybe after Christmas I can take a break. These ones are Halloween and fall themed for Hawthorne and Vine and for vending at Ooky Spooky in October.

The first set just needs threads cut and buttons.

The second set needs top stitching  and the other finishes.

There are a lot of repeats in this set, but I wanted to do three of each for Hawthorne and Vine, Ooky, and my own Etsy. I have a set that needs orange thread that will be sewn up as well.

Tonight I need to sort tomatoes and probably try to dry some of them. I have this weird block about canning being the only “right” way to preserve items. I decided to freeze the BBQ sauce last night because it was very late and I didn’t want to mess with the canner. I may have to get up very early tomorrow to get some of them taken care of as well.

This is a really short post! I guess I was busier than I thought.  I have two late nights this week and am hoping to get some new recipes up and running. The tea wallets will get finished as well. I have a bunch of work stuff to catch up on though, so my crafting time may be sacrificed for that.

Wish me luck and motivation!

 

Canning and Gardening and Crafts, Oh My!
Canning and Preserving · Crafty · Gardening

Canning and Gardening and Crafts, Oh My!

LSiehLeave a comment

We had a lovely weekend. We had friends over on Sunday for crafting and video games and it was lots of fun. They helped us cook and we used the grill two days in a row!

Fancy was in heaven with two other people to pet her, plus we got her the treat she likes the best from the dog bakery. She’s currently recovering with multiple naps.

My craft this weekend was canning. I made five jars of pickles. There were originally 6, but one popped in the pot. I have always been afraid of it, but it’s probably good it happened with pickles. The mess that exploding jam would cause makes me cringe just thinking about it.

I found out when I went to check the  pot and there was a floating jar. That’s not a good thing to see when canning. The bottom just popped right out with a pretty clean cut. All the pickles stayed right in the jar too, so it wasn’t too bad to clean up. There wasn’t  good way to take a picture of it while it was still hot, but the picture up top is the circle of glass from the bottom.

Here are the intact pickles:

My friend had the brilliant idea to cut the cucumbers into chips after I found out I didn’t have enough wide- mouthed jars. Sometimes my prep skills could be a little better, but I thought I had more and was trying to avoid having to smuggle more jars past the Husband. Apparently I still haven’t canned enough for him. 🙂

I have a few more pickled veggies to add to my list, but not during this week. We are way too busy! I need to outdo my Mom’s pickle trays though, now that it’s become a thing.

My craft ladies discussed the differences between pickle and relish trays for about 45 minutes after they heard the story. My Mom was so proud when I told her. 🙂 This year for our parties, we’ll have homemade pickles!

On the crafty front, I cut a bunch of tea wallets over the last few days. I pulled from the red, brown, and purple scraps this time. I got in a groove and found myself with a huge pile of tea wallets needing to be made.

I worked on the purple ones first this time.

Here are the insides. The blue one at the top right has planets on the back and on the inside!

The garden is growing pretty well. We have three zucchini on the plant and a whole bunch of tomatoes coming in. The green pepper plant has two peppers on it. I couldn’t get a good picture of the “massive” jalapeños. There are three of them starting, but they are so far not living up to their name.

I did have a problem with blossom end rot on three of my big tomatoes. We’ve had a few days with a lot of rain and I probably need to add some more special fertilizer. I had the same problem with them last year and the internet said it was probably due to inconsistent watering. I was really terrible about watering enough last year.

The lettuce will be a wash this year. It’s completely covered in spiders and is starting to go brown. It’s quite sad. I have successfully grown baby lettuces before, so I think in the future I’ll stick to that.

I brought home my personal clipboards from work to collage, as I wanted to make sure I could tell them apart from the work ones. I’m going to just do the backs, so that there is still a smooth surface to write on. It will also let me go through some of my art supplies, as I need to have a bit more of it in the office right now.

Have a good night!

Craftiness and Garden Update
Crafty · Gardening

Craftiness and Garden Update

LSiehLeave a comment

How did it get to be Monday again? It seems like it was just Tuesday and now I need a weekend to recover from the weekend. We had friends over for a Driveway Movie Night, where we projected “Moana” on the garage door and watched it from lawn chairs in the driveway. Fancy got to see a dog friend again and did really well when the other dog was in the house. We were happy with that, as she can be territorial.

It’s pouring rain and thundering this morning; the perfect kind of day to stay home and do nothing. I don’t have that luxury, sadly, but do have French Onion soup in the crockpot for later which will be comforting.

Fancy had the right idea this morning. She hid under the bed and refused to come out. I was making chocolate ice cream, so bribed myself with that, otherwise, I would have been under there with her.

I was pretty crafty last week. Having to be in the basement with Fancy helped me get some more fabric cut up and organized. I had to start a new box for purple fat quarters, as I kept finding more of them. I also almost completely cleaned out a box with random fabric and crafty things in it. I also made 12 new tea wallets for Twinflower Fancies, or Hawthorne and Vine, a flower shop where they are also currently being sold.

When I sew these, I organize them in color groups based on what color thread they will be sewn with. I chain sew them as well. It doesn’t make sense to do them one at a time, as I would have to switch thread colors constantly. Normally, I wait until I have three or more in each color before I start sewing them up. I tried to expand my color range this time. I know I tend to stick to colors and patterns that I like by accident, but need to remember that it may not appeal to others as well.

Here are the green ones:

These three buttons were my favorites, I think, from the whole stack.

Here are the two black ones:

And the blue ones:

The octopus one might have to be my work tea wallet. I just love it and don’t know if I can give it up, despite already having a Red Riding Hood one in my purse. It’s just too cute.

It ws fun to go through the fabrics and remember what they were from as I was sewing them. This batch had a lot of familiar prints.

The owls are from a baby quilt for my cousin’s little girl. The dark green and vine print one is from a purse that I had tried to hand sew when I first started out. It was not a good idea and I finally got up the nerve to just rip it and reuse the fabric.

The geranium one and the holiday recipe one are both made from scraps of aprons that have been made for my Mom. When I bought the geranium fabric, the lady at the cutting table asked if I could adopt her too, she was jealous. 🙂

The gold treble clefs are from pillows I finally made the Husband this year after buying the fabric when we were dating. The blue and white waves with the boat is from one of the first skirts that I made.

All the other fabrics are from the stash. It’s nice to think if those special fabrics being used for something else too. That’s why I love scrap quilts so much too, there are a lot of memories in each of them.

Now for the gardening update:

I keep accidentally almost killing my lettuces. Plus, there are spiders living in them. Gross, hairy spiders, who have made a home in the lettuces themselves and in the pots. The Husband is going to have to cut them when, or if, they survive. I am not having spiders crawl on me. I think I’ll stick to farmer’s market lettuce next year. Any tips would be appreciated.

We have been getting some strawberries before the squirrel does!

These were all from yesterday and I found another one today. There are still a bunch of green ones on the plants too.

My peppers are looking good. The Mammoth Jalapeño has a pepper started. We’ll see how big it gets and if it lives up to its name. 🙂

The tomatoes all have some started. This one is the Roma, I believe and it had the most on it. I need to get some more stakes.

Here is the cucumber. This sucker is huge! It has a lot of flowers, but no starts yet. It keeps trying to escape into the yard.

My herbs are doing alright. The basil doesn’t look good. There has been a beetle that keeps eating it and it got very leggy and scraggly looking. It has yellow bottom leaves too, which I’m sure isn’t good. The oregano seems to have bolted. It keeps sending up flowers. I’m going to prune them off and see if I can get more out of it. Everything else seems to be growing well.

This week I have a few late nights, but most of my other days have a little more flex in them than usual. The weeks that my biweekly clients all come can get a little crazy, but it evens out with a few slower days occasionally. I’m hoping to get the fabric washed for the Rainbow Quilt and get it ties this weekend. Our friends are coming over this weekend for another sewing/video game day, so I can get some sewing done then too.

I also have a goal of canning three recipes, blackberry cinnamon tequila jam, nectarine orange marmalade, and dill pickles. I have some time tomorrow and a few other times this week.

I’m considering starting a “Simple Sunday” post which would be a quote or two, either funny or inspiring. I found my quote book from a while ago and was sad that the quotes I liked were just sitting in a book and not getting shared. It would be a good way to find out other quotes too, so I think that will start this Sunday.

Have a great Monday!

International Women’s Day/Almost Wordless Wednesday
Wordless Wednesdays

International Women’s Day/Almost Wordless Wednesday

LSiehLeave a comment

I’m not terribly outgoing about politics and will probably not discuss it outright on this blog, but I will admit that the current political climate has given me much food for thought both personally and professionally. Although I do feel strongly for fighting for women’s rights and am grateful for those who fought to give me the rights I have today, I am not striking in protest (at least not intentionally, the weather is scary enough that I couldn’t get to my office and had to cancel).

As a counselor, it’s my job to help people, especially women and girls heal from the traumas they have been through. Skipping a day deprives them of a chance to receive help and that is against my personal and professional code of ethics. I am wearing red (as is the Husband) in solidarity; however, and this Wednesday post will feature red as well.

Last summer’s tomatoes

Summer berries

Wonky Log Cabin Wedding Quilt