His bountiful beauty

I have been neglecting the veggie garden this year :-(

I finally went out there today before it got super-hot to pull out the zucchini plant that got sick and died ... along with the butternut squash that it took along with it.  We have decided that although we love zucchini, we're not planting it anymore ... it always does well for the first month or so and then gets sick and becomes a pest to the rest of the garden,  I was looking forward to those butternuts too, at least I was able to salvage one unripened!  Anywho, in the process, I found that there were many other vegetables (or fruits, whatever!) ready for harvesting.

We have loads of sweet onions - this isn't even all of them!

Here's the one lonely butternut ... with a caterpillar on it that the kids enjoyed playing with ... before Sunshine squooshed it under her foot.  LOL.

And a few of our tomatoes, there were lots more that are finally ripe!  Woohoo!

It's so fun to watch the garden grow ... it still baffles me that all this stuff can come from itty bitty teeny tiny seeds.  Amazing what God can do with so little!

My little helper

Gorgeous weather in April means it's time to clean out the veggie garden!  We didn't get to the garden last year because we were getting ready to travel (holy moly, it's been almost a YEAR!) but I am all over the garden this year.  And apparently, so is Sunshine.  She was so very serious about her work ... so serious that I couldn't even crack a smile out of her.  But hey, I'll take all the help I can get to get rid of these weeds ... because yes, all of that "greenery" is just stuff that needs to be dug up.

Milkman

No seriously, there really was a milkman at my house today. I feel like a 1950's housewife and I kinda dig it. We got a milk delivery, along with butter and eggs from a local creamery ... right to my front door. Coolness. This creamery is not organic-certified but is using organic practices (except for when a cow needs antibiotics - that cow is then removed from the group and given antibiotics to get better). The price of the milk delivery is a little less than organic milk in a grocery store, which is what we typically buy ... the delivered eggs are local and are cheaper than organic in the store ... the butter is about the same as regular (non-organic) in the store. They also sell ice cream but we are definitely NOT setting up a regular delivery of that.

Glass bottles and all ... I am loving this!

The Best Homemade Pizza, my style

If you know me well, you'll know that one of my favorite things to bake from scratch is pizza. There is nothing like the smell of yeast rising in your house. Mmmmmm, I can just smell the aroma now :-) So for my friends who would like to venture into homemade pizza, this little (ok, extremely long) recipe/tutorial is for YOU! Once you do it, you'll be hooked, I promise!

The Best Homemade Pizza Ever

INGREDIENTS:

3 1/2 cups of flour plus extra for rolling out (all-purpose or a combo of all-purpose/whole wheat)

1 cup warm water (95-115 degrees)

1 tbsp yeast

1 tbsp sugar

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 tsp salt

1 15 oz. can of pizza sauce (I like Don Pepino)

4 cups part-skim shredded mozzarella

grated parmesan cheese to taste

dried parsley flakes for garnish

STEPS:

Ok, you'll start by proofing your yeast. Pour the 1 cup warm water into a bowl (I used a 2-cup Pampered Chef measuring cup). Stir the 1 tbsp sugar into the water until dissolved. Add the 1 tbsp yeast and stir until mixed into water. (If you are using some whole wheat flour for your dough, you'll want to add more yeast - I use a rounded 1 tbsp.) It's ok if you still have a few clumps but it should be pretty mixed in. As a total sidebar - you can pick up a ridiculously large pack of yeast at BJ's (I'm assuming Costco has this too) for a *very* low price. It is a much better price by FAR over the little packets you get in the grocery store and it lasts forever - just make sure to store it in an air-tight container in the refrigerator.

While the yeast proofs (i.e., sits there and grows), start working on the rest of your dough. Mix 3 1/2 cups of flour and salt together in a food processor. You could also add any extras at this point - garlic, Italian seasoning, etc.

If you would like to make a whole wheat dough like I do, I suggest using a combination of white/wheat flour. An all-wheat flour dough really doesn't taste that great and it's dense and very dry. I use 2 cups white flour, 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. I love whole wheat everything but trust me - making a 100% whole wheat dough doesn't taste that great.

Next, add the 1/4 extra-virgin olive oil in the food processor.

Mix until the olive oil is well blended into the flour.

The flour should look a little coarse and mealy, like this:

By the time you have finished this, your yeast should be done proofing - this took me a long time to perfect but I am now a yeast-proofing pro :-) Do you see how the yeast has grown and there is a new layer sitting on top of the water? This indicates that your yeast has proofed and you can continue. If your water/yeast/sugar combo does not look like this, something went wrong. Make sure your water was not too hot or too cold - you'll get used to the feel of the correct temperature after awhile and won't need to measure it. Also, make sure the sugar is dissolved in the water - it acts as a catalyst to help the yeast grow.

Next, slowly pour the yeasty water into the food processor and mix with the flour. I typically end up taking the top off the processor to help the dough along several times - sometimes it just gets stuck and needs to get moved around. Your dough should get to a point where it is moving as one big ball around the food processor. If you can't get the dough to clump together like this, add a little more warm water - do this in very small increments so you don't overdue it. (It's highly likely that you will need to add a bit more water if you are using whole wheat flour.) If you do happen to add too much water, just add more flour into the dough to compensate - again, a little at a time. Your dough should be a somewhat sticky consistency, but not so much that it's actually sticking to your hands and not coming off.

When you have the dough to a consistency that you like, pull it out of the processor and kneed it a few times to make sure everything is mixed well. Next, put the dough into a GREASED bowl that's big enough to allow for expansion. (I use extra-virgin olive oil to grease the bowl.) Now it's time for the dough to rise!

I actually have a proofing setting on my oven - all I need to do is set it to "proof" and put the bowl into the oven with a DAMP towel covering it like in the picture below (you obviously need to close the oven door when you are proofing - I left it open for this picture). If you do not have this setting on your oven, there is a simple solution. Fill a tea kettle with water and bring it to a boil on the stovetop. Take the top off of the tea kettle spout and put the tea pot into the oven along with the dough. This will create a wet warm-ish environment perfect for the yeast to grow. Let the dough proof for 45-60 minutes - set a timer and go do something else (or take a nap?)!

When it's finished, the dough should have about doubled in size:

Next comes the fun part! Punch the dough down and roll it out onto a floured surface. I use my counter and sprinkle just a tiny bit of flour onto it so the dough won't stick. Roll the dough as flat as you possibly can with your rolling pin - it will rise back up when baking, so you want to start with a flatly-rolled out dough. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of this step - I needed both hands to roll! Next, carefully place the dough onto a pizza stone. I allow a few inches of dough to hang off the pizza stone all the way around - I cut off any extra after that to make cinnamon sticks (Angel loves them!).

I create a crust by folding up the extra couple of inches all the way around the dough. You'll have to fold and pinch the dough to get it to stay put.

Now it's time for the sauce!

Angel helped here:

Spread the sauce out all the way up to the crust. I use the whole can, but do what works best for you. I personally love the Don Pepino sauce (even after growing up on Ragu Pizza Quick!).

Add the cheese next. We like extra-cheesy pizza, so I use all 4 cups of cheese. Not everyone likes this much cheese, so go with what you like best. I sprinkle a bit of parmesan cheese for the added flavor and to fill in the holes. Next sprinkle some parsley flakes over the cheese for garnish - I like adding the green color to the pizza.

It's time to bake! Baking time is variable, but start with 25 minutes at 350 degrees and keep the pizza in until the cheese is bubbly. You can see on my oven that it's an hour after I put the dough into proof - for homemade pizza from scratch, it really isn't that time consuming AND I took pictures the whole time! :-)

Once the pizza is finished, let it stand for 5-10 minutes so the cheese doesn't run when you cut it.

Last step - ENJOY! If Lovebug is willing to eat homemade whole wheat pizza, you know it's good ... he doesn't eat anything!

I hope this helps! We love homemade pizza from scratch and it's so fun to do! The yeast can get expensive but if you buy it in bulk, the price is nominal. The pizza ends up being cheaper than delivery AND it's much better for you if you go the whole wheat route. And even if you don't make it with whole wheat, it's really fun for kids to make, so just do it!

Some of these pictures aren't the best technically or artistically - I didn't realize how difficult food photography was let alone trying to take pictures in the process of cooking! :-)

The Farm field trip

Check out the diva on her field trip :-) LOL. I love seeing what she comes up with when she picks out her own clothes! This was a very cold re-re-reschedule of our farm field trip with Angel's Kindergarten class. The kids got to walk through the veggie fields and pick out lots of goodies. Unfortunately it was a bit too cold to really enjoy it for the adults, but I'm sure the kids had a good time.

For Daddy

Fridays are our CSA day. The kids went wild picking cherry tomatoes, as you can see. They know how much Daddy loves to eat them. Ironically neither one of the kids will eat them. Go figure. LOL. This is just a quick snap of them with the tomatoes, I just realized how long it's been since I blogged! We were in full sun and they were having a difficult time looking at me because it was so bright, but it works :-)

Homemade Pesto!

Ok, I am SO excited about this homemade pesto! Our crop share farm let us pick unlimited basil, so I went to town! My mom gave me the best tip of keeping the cut ends of the basil in water to preserve them and keep the leaves from going black. You should also put them in the refrigerator to keep them longer.

So the first step is the most tedious - pulling all of the leaves off the stems. In some cases, I discarded the yucky ones but I kept almost all of them. Once they're mixed in, it won't matter :-) I am fortunately a pro at picking basil leaves from my work experience at Carrabba's :-) Next, they all need to be washed. I used a salad spinner to cut down on time. After that, all of the leaves go into a food processor - I pulsed a few time to get them mixed up and then just let the processor go to town.

Once the leaves were really good and minced, I added in the goodies: lots of parmesan, extra-virgin olive oil, pine nuts and fresh garlic. I didn't measure any of these, just made up the amounts as I went along. I learned to cut back on the pine nuts a bit - the flavor of the first batch was just too nutty. I will also probably use a Romano/parmesan mix next time for a little more flavor.

I then processed the rest of the ingredients together to get a really wonderful-smelling yummy pasty pesto :-) The whole kitchen smelled divine!

Next, because I knew we wouldn't be eating this much basil anytime soon, I pulled out my old ice cube makers and divided the pesto into the ice cube trays to make very small portions to freeze. Once they were frozen separately, I removed the pesto cubes from the trays and put them all in a freezer bag. In the future, I only need to go into the freezer, pull out as many pesto cubes as needed and then microwave. I usually add a bit of EVOO each time. This is perfect because I am the only one that eats pesto with any regularity - now I will have it for the whole winter and there are no preservatives - just yummy natural ingredients that I put together myself! Voila!

Mommy, take picture?

Lovebug helped me pick from the garden tonight while DH was putting Angel to bed (she didn't take a nap today = earlier bedtime). We were sitting on the rockers just hanging out and Lovebug asked me to "take picture?" I think he was taking off from Angel's shots last night with the veggies. I was super happy to oblige him obviously!

I just bought a new action that I used to process this shot. I figured I'd just give it a try ... but I think I'm in love. Doesn't it rock?! I love the vintage feel but it also pops the color at the same time ... coolness!

Beans!

Washed, cut and ready to freeze - straight from the CSA that we picked ourselves! I'll admit, it was more work than I thought it would be, but I feel so good about it!

Ripe!

A few veggies from our garden that are ripe enough to pick, yay! Angel got a little overzealous for the first picture - can you tell she's excited?

More tomatoes - romas above and grape below.

An annoying pest - beetle traps are going up today!

This is the first time I've grown broccoli - I'm excited to see how they turn out. There's a lot - more than should be here, so we'll see what happens.

Below is the beginning of a pepper - the plant kept moving on me so it's not completely in focus.

Here's the whole garden! Or most of it anyway - I had the 100mm macro on my camera for obvious reasons, but because it's a fixed focal length, I couldn't back up far enough to get the whole thing in the frame. We have 6 tomato plants (4 romas, 1 big boy, 1 grape), lots of broccoli, red & green pepper, sweet potatoes (the vine-y stuff on the front left), a few carrots (that are getting buried by the sweet potatoes) and a huge zucchini plant!

This last shot is kohlrabi (not from our garden - it came from the crop share). I have never had kohlrabi (actually to be honest, I had never heard of it until a month ago, LOL). DH grilled it up last night but it was just too tough/hard to eat. It tastes like white potato and has a similar consistency, but it really needs to be cooked waaaay more to be edible. Lesson learned at least - we like it but it needs to be cooked ... a lot.

So far so good with the garden (and with the crop share!). I spent several hours this morning cleaning, chopping and freezing veggies. I have 3 dinners worth of green/yellow beans, 1 dinner of zucchini, 2 cups of minced/chopped zucchini for zucchini bread (or maybe zucchini pancakes?) and 1 dinner of chopped carrots.

My mom and I also picked 2 more dinners' worth of green/yellow beans and I have more carrots to work on as well. I'm loving all of this fresh stuff!

Fresh from the farm!

Grilled yellow squash & zucchini straight from our CSA. DH added a little salt, pepper and butter - unbelievably delicious! It was also beautiful outside, so we enjoyed our dinner on the patio. I love eating outside - our backyard is amazing in the evening because the house shades it from the sun. I just adore these summer evenings!