Sweet Heat

I'm back on Blogger!  My laptop is pretty much done with.  I got a new camera a few months ago and took tons of beautiful pictures.  I'm pretty good about saving my pictures religiously to my computer and getting them off my camera's memory card.  Well, a sorry-ass computer is NOT cool for keeping those pictures on!  I quickly filled it's capacity with RAW files over and over and over again!  I decided to go to an online backup saving system, and chose Carbonite.  It backs up all the files you want so you can restore your computer or access them when you're away from home.

Here we are, almost 3 months later, and Carbonite is finished uploading!  Yes, it took over 2 months to backup my 60 gigs of crap from my old computer.

Not sure if I mentioned or not before, but this past Summer began my debut of home canning.  At a local farmers market shop, I saw a beautiful display of blackberries, at their peak, and swarming with fruit flies. "Eat Me!" came to mind, and so did "Jam me, baby!"  Two for one on sale, I picked up several baskets, along with some fragrant peaches and colorful tomatoes.

And so it began.

I bought the Ball Canning book, one of the best things ever created for people who thought canning was a thing of the past, or something that you'd have to slave over.   Sure, it isn't something that you can whip up in a few minutes, but, as with most things in life, it takes time and patience and you'll be rewarded ten fold.

I began with a couple of standard jams, and moved onto a few sauces.  My absolute favorite item so far is the Tomato Jam, from the Food in Jars website.  Sweet and spicy, this jam gets slathered onto cream-cheese'd homemade bread, crackers or bagels, as a spread for veggie burgers, and mixed with mayo and balsamic for a mock-thousand island dressing in my Seitan Rueben Sandwiches, and so much more.  It's first bite is creamy sweetness, then a bit of warmth surrounds your taste buds, leaving them yearning for another bite.

This used up some of my own tomatoes (even green ones!), in my late Summer garden, along with some beautiful heirlooms from the local farmers market.  In my second batch, I used up some not-so-good-looking tomatoes from another stand (which I question the "local-ness" of), and it was equally as good.  My second batch was kicked up with some garlic, onion powder and a bit of cumin.

You'll have a large pot filled with stuff, which you'll cook the shit out of.  Mine took me about 1 1/2-2 hours, but it might take less cooking time if you use more pastey tomatoes, like Romas.  I just used what I could find.

Click here for the recipe.

Hope to be back soon!  

Fun Fair Friday

Be sure and make it out to your local fair for an interesting time!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Breaded Zucchini

Drop your zucchini "sticks" into seasoned flour, then seasoned beaten egg (with a bit of milk), then into a seasoned mixture of panko and italian breadcrumbs.

Fry at 350 for about 3-5 minutes, or until deep golden brown.

We used a yellow zucchini, bought at our local Farmer's Market.  Serve with your favorite (homemade, of course!) marinara as a side, or appetizer.  Tonight, we had meatball subs.

DIY Furniture Polish

WE ARE NOW MOBILE! CHECK US OUT ON YOUR MOBILE PHONE FOR EASIER NAVIGATING!!

Back to the blog post. . .
I just recently ran out of my furniture polish; a bottle we've had for probably about 8-9 years.  Seriously.  Either I didn't do enough dusting up until now, or maybe it really was "a dab will do" type of product.  It smelled weird.  But my whole philosophy about going green includes not throwing away perfectly good products, just to go out and buy new ones, albeit eco-friendly ones.

I knew coconut oil was so fabulous for so many things, I thought, well, there's got to  be a way to shine this table up!  After searching very briefly, I was able to find a great collection of recipes from Joys of Lavender and make my own recipe up from there.

Lavender Furniture Polish

2 oz olive oil

2 oz coconut oil

2 oz beeswax

1/2 cup distilled water

8 drops lavender essential oil

Melt the olive oil, coconut oil and beeswax in a large glass bowl and microwave on medium for 30 second intervals.  Remove from oven and stir, until all the wax is melted.  Mine took about 90 seconds, but I also let it sit out on the counter for a bit.  The remaining heat in the bowl continues to melt the wax as it sits.  Stir in the lavender oil.  Using a hand mixer, gradually add in the water, a few drops at a time.  I was not able to incorporate all of the water before it chilled up on me and wouldn't take any more.  You'll end up with a creamy consistency.

Store in a sealable container and it's good for about 6 months.  I didn't use distilled water, so mine probably won't last as long.    To use, scoop a small amount onto a soft cloth and rub in.  Keep working vigorously until you cannot see any more of the white creamy texture.  Continue along the entire surface.  Follow up with a clean soft cloth and buff out.

Roasted Root Veggie Bites

Here we have this cute baby, who just LOVED to eat everything he was given. Peaches, broccoli, avocado, sweet potato, spinach--he would just tear into it! Then, all of a sudden, he's dropping vegetables off the side of his food tray as if they were dead bugs.

Enter the hiding-vegetables-in-cheese maneuver. Yeah, I didn't want to be one of those moms who had to freaking HIDE things to get my kid to eat them! But what are you going to do? He can't live on Pirates Booty!

I'm kicking myself in the ass right now for not taking pics while preparing these fun little patties. The beautiful pile of finely diced crimson red, sunflower yellow and ivory white beets, succulent carrots and striking blue baby potatoes was just brilliant! Ah well, there's always next time!

The great thing about these is that they are portable, great hot or cold, and packed full of goodness! You know how they like to run away from the table

You'll need to start with cooked vegetables. We often use chopped broccoli, but last night I used about 1 1/2-2 cups worth of aforementioned vegetables and a nice handful of raw chopped Swiss Chard. Stir in about 3 beaten eggs, 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese and 1 cup bread crumbs. I added some garlic and onion powder, but you can skip this if you really want to keep it mild. Season with salt and pepper.

Carefully shape into patties and bake on a greased cookie sheet for about 15 minutes. Turn them over, then cook for another 8-10 minutes.

We like ours with plain old ketchup, but a sour cream sauce might work great, too!