Day 2: dietary limitations

Ok well to start off this is my oldest son's 17th birthday. A tradition we have in our house is that the birthday person gets to pick out their cake & design and what we have for supper. Yep - we were screwed for today before it even started LOL!

I think I will recreate this challenge sometime when the 7 day challenge is up -- like the day after! I really wanted to do this one, it would of been kinda easy for us. But on to what we could do =)



I'm going to copy straight from their site so I get things straight =)

Today’s Tasks: Cook breakfast from scratch - NO! Cook lunch from scratch - NO! Cook dinner from scratch - NO! Bake a loaf of homemade bread - NO! Print out some of your favorite recipes to use in case the internet is down during an emergency - YES! Today’s Limitations: For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants. - YES! Do not use ANY pre-packaged or convenience-type foods. No mixes, boxed cereals, canned soups or sauces etc. If you can’t pronounce all the ingredients and say where it came from, it’s probalby a NO go. - NO! Do not buy or borrow ingredients. Use only what you have stored. - YES! Advanced Tasks: Make a delicious dessert from scratch. - NO! Plan an entire week worth of meals you could make out of your current food supplies. - YES! Do some research on the health benefits of eating less preservatives. - YES!

 Here's our report card, surprisingly we got a half decent score (I guess?) -

And can ya tell I figured out a way to print out the report card better? I selected the option as if I was printing a fax - worked like a charm! =)

later...

little blue house yard ideas

The little blue house actually has a teeny yard but the lot to the east which is owned by the same landlord is empty and he includes it with the rental of the little blue house. Due to the size of the house and parking arrangements, this lot is very seldom used by the occupants of the little blue house. And since the landlord has lots of problems with tenants mowing when they are supposed to I think I have a shot. I'm hoping to trade mowing in the coming season for use of the land.

One of the main things I need to do is call and have things like utilities marked off. This is necessary to see what area can even be used. It's not a large lot so where the old house and it's underground utilities may make it unusable for anything but raised bed gardening. (which may be better anyway - less weeds!)

I'm not sure what I want to use it for I've had a few ideas. The cheapest option is to use it for staples like tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, pumpkins, etc. I can buy seeds for these types of things easily out at Walmart cheap. Also then if kids tear it up then I'm only out a minor amount. But staple type garden items are usually easier to grow and preserve.

One other option is to buy some fruit trees and plant them there for future use. This is WAY more of an investment and a much longer term pay off. But boy would it be nice! And unless someone cut them down, they could be enjoyed by many for years. I think something that has fruits that when on the ground would be easily run over by a typical lawn mower would go over with the landlord better. The tree would then have more of a chance to live longer. Because let's face it, we may not be here to harvest the fruits every year and who wants to run over an apple or a peach? So I'm thinking more along the lines of cherry or crab apple. Plus with something that stays small/short then it won't be hacked on by the utility company either. I know that there is no way a couple of kids are going to pick all the little fruits off 4-6 trees like those. Heck it's hard to do when you want to and your an adult!

Another thing I am slightly worried about is adults or kids stealing the food. I'm only slightly worried about it because I'm sure I would give willingly if asked but I'm not sure they will ask. Plus, I thought about using the produce grown here for the local food pantry or to give away free in some way. So would it matter if someone who needed it took without permission? I guess that's not my worry. I'm more worried someone taking more than their able to use and letting it go to waste.

I'm really wanting to help out the community with some gardening. I'm hoping it will inspire more people to do their own gardening and eat healthier. Not that I'm all that concerned with the eating healthier LOL! But I do know that MANY people who are on food stamps can't afford large amounts of fresh produce no matter what the season is and the local farmers market does NOT take the food stamp card here. So alot of people who want to eat more healthy aren't able to. From what I can tell not many in the area even TRY to garden and so many of them could. I think showing by example along with telling everyone I can is the best I can do for now.

These are all some ideas I've had lately. If life stays calm I'm going to put them into use =)  If life doesn't then who knows?

later...

new recipe!

Ok, Thursday night I decided that I was going to do an "end of the month" supper. You know it's the end of the month and you don't really have enough of any one recipe item -- oh and you have a half hour before supper time LOL!

Here's what I did.

Anne's Alfredo
¾ box spaghetti (hint bottom)
1 stick margarine
1 small onion
2 Tbsp. minced garlic
¾ c. Parmesan cheese
1 can cream of potato/any
1 can evaporated milk

Cook the spaghetti - try to time it so you don't need to wait to add the sauce. Melt butter. Then add the onions and garlic, cook till tender. Add the Parmesan, cream of ...., and evaporated milk. Cook till it kinda comes together - then dump and mix with the spaghetti. Done!

Ok now to some hints for this.

Spaghetti noodles first. I've been taking the boxes of spaghetti I've been buying breaking them in half then putting them into wide mouth quart jars. I just kinda eyeball it till it's plum full. I used one quart jar for this.

You can use cream of anything for this. I just thought cream of potatoes would be nice. Just like any other ingredient on this list - completely possible to switch them any which way you want =)

We thought this could of used MORE sauce. Don't cook the spaghetti too soon and then add oil to it so the noodles won't stick -- makes it too oily. Might of also been the butter? Darkside thought it could use come cooked chicken. I think this would be a great recipe to put some breaded chicken strips on top of it and wal-la! a meal =)

this could be all done with food storage which is great!

later...

carrots

These are carrots that I had pulled up tonight to use for preparing egg rolls (supper tomorrow night). Our carrots!! Isn't that cool?! To give a size comparison/idea this bowl is a salad bowl - it's large enough to hold 1 whole head of lettuce (ripped) and various other salad type things. (This is such a cute salad bowl, btw!)

See the little deformed one on top? No clue what happened to that!

We planted 2 different types of carrots, a short type and a "regular" type. Also we used a mix of bagged soil that was lighter and airy so the carrots would do a little better. We still have MANY more out there to pull up!

later...

stuff

Been awhile since I've posted, it has been to hectic here! That and I've been too sick!

I was sick the past 2 weeks - you name it, I had it! I thought I was better this past week but nope. In fact this morning I woke up coughing - UGH!

I also had the GREAT fortune of stepping on a rusty nail last Monday. So I had to go get a tetanus booster =( Good thing about that is it didn't hurt like it did back in junior high LOL!

One by one everyone else in the house has been sick too except SR. It is truly a sad sight to see your little 5 year old girl hold her head and say - my head's hurting. =(

Well the Kaos King didn't get sick per say but did suffer a massive out break from something. He was swelled up really bad. We still don't know for sure what it was. We took him to the hospital but the quack out there spent a total of 50 seconds in the room with him so I don't think it's possible she got the diagnosis correct. She said poison sumac. But his brother was with him and didn't get it? Oh well they gave him a steriod shot and some steriod pills and that cleared him up. And once he stopped itching it has all went away.

This all happened with the Kaos King because he was hired to do some yard work for a neighbor. They even paid him $6 an hour, which he loved! I told him to let #3 go down there with him and help out. He made $20 which he put with the money he made from them earlier this year so he can buy a new mp3 player. It took me about a week to pick out the best one for his money but I finally did and it's on it's way here!

On the garden front --
Our fall garden is all planted and mostly sprouted now. I made sure and left LOTS of room between things in it LOL! Thats because I crowded so much in to the other garden and it was a pain to harvest things. I've had hardly no luck at all with the onions I planted which really sucks! The other stuff seems ok so far.

We have been pulling out all kinds of plants because they are done. So far here's the list of what we've pulled -- cucumbers (thankfully!!), zucchini, spagetti squash, corn, onions, garlic, a couple extra cabbages, some of the pumpkins (both kinds), and slowly pulling beans here and there. For some reason even though we counted the days for proper pumpkin and winter squash planting they all finished WAY early! Darkside was very upset since his pumpkins are ready now and it's not October yet!

We FINALLY are getting tons of ripe tomatoes!! And peppers too! And a couple big eggplants, too. I've made 2 batches of salsa so far =) It's so nice to have ripe tomatoes that we grew!

I also made some dilly beans -- we don't like them LOL! But we tried =) I've been pickling almost everything in sight lately. There were just too many cucumbers!

Oh then a neighbor brought down some more cause she said they couldn't use -- SURE! LOL!

Tried to be nice and give some of our abundance to a friend but he don't want it =(

We've also been trying to remodel the bathroom, which hasn't been working out the best. I've also been trying to talk SR into building another addition onto the house. The addition that I'm proposing is only 10' x 20' which don't seem like much but I think it would make so much more room here. I really need more room so I can get all my food here and not at the storage place. Everyday we think of something else that is in storage that we need to go get. There is only 2 very small food cabinets here. They are like 2' x 2' !! I have all the rest of the food stored in various spots through the house, in the van, and in the trunk of my car!

Oh and.... We are attempting to incubate some eggs!! We had 12 in there but we candled them last night and there are only 5 that might be ok. Well actually SR thinks that those 5 might be ok. Personally I think that they are duds too. I believe that the rooster is still too young or not "manly" enough! But we are going to keep trying! It would be so cool if we could hatch our own babies!

Also on the chicken front - we have decided that the broiler/fryer/whatever they are definitely HAVE to go! And I say that we are SO not ready to do our own slaughtering! I don't think SR is really wanting to do any slaughtering anyway. Plus I'm thinking that his way of slaughtering - old school - is not the way I'd like to eat my chicken. Not exactly the cleanest method of preparing, know what I mean? =)

And the nearest meat processing place that will accept chickens that I could find online is about 100 miles east of here =( So we are going to do things the easy way -- take them to the auction! LOL! We found a once a month auction that isn't too far away that does small livestock. We was wanting to go to it anyway might as well make some money too! But really even if we have to give the stupid things away it'll be better than nothing! They eat tooo much!

Ok I'll stop now - this is WAY long as it is! That's the update so far though =)

later...

How Does Your Garden Grow

I'm going to start participating with How Does Your Garden Grow from AHighAndNobleCalling.com every Thursday.

Yes, I know that today is Friday -- I'm late! But I had a very busy Thursday and just now getting around to doing a post. =)

Our garden has been doing really good compared to others in the area. I really though more things would have been done by now, but this area has been cooler than normal this year. (I'm not complaining!!)







For instance our tomatoes, we've only got 2 yellow and 3 red all medium sized. And only about a dozen cherry. This is one of the yellow ones -- we ate it later that night.











But on the other hand our spaghetti squash is doing great! Spaghetti squash is a winter squash but seeing how mature some of these are already I wonder if they will be ready quicker than the "book" says. dunno yet.






This part of the garden I'm not so sure about (this is the end that the tomatoes are on too). First of all towards this end all the plants seem to be stunted. Plus some of these things I've never grown or seen growing. Starting from outside to inside of the garden -- red cabbage (seems ok), eggplant (3 kinds, not sure), seedings of basil (ok), garlic (mmm?), hot peppers (got 3 so far - not good), leeks (no clue?), and then sweet peppers (not doing good at all). Beans are to the left on this picture and the first planting are doing great! (2nd planting to fill in where 1st ones didn't take - doing good)







This is our biggest watermelon. We have them trellised and they seem to be doing pretty good.














Here's the mini pumpkins, which DO NOT have small leaves (although they are mini to regular pumpkins leaves).









Here's the largest jack-o-lantern pumpkin. We have about 4 that we've found so far. We are trellising these guys too. This working pretty well, I do know that they take up way less space this way.




And here is my corn =)

I'll do the potted stuff some other time soon! This post is already too long!
Oh and I just got some more seeds in the mail today so I'll have even more garden stuff to talk about real soon =)

later...

picked free cherries

Image via Wikipedia

We was offered an opportunity to pick the neighbor pie cherries because they will be out of town for the next week and the cherries are ready. We did this last year through a lady of freecycle too.

Just last year realized I like Bing cherries, for the longest time I hated ALL cherries. That is because I don't like maraschino cherries. For some reason I thought all cherries tasted the same -- they don't! And now I have a deep love affair with Bing cherries

But pie cherries - I can't eat them plain! They are just too sour/tart/whatever it is. LOL! They sure do make good pies though.

We got a good icing bucket full and still have more to pick off one branch that was too high up. With these cherries we are going to make canned pie filling, freeze some, and cherry cordial liqueur.

It sure is good to get something for free (well except all the ways to preserve them!).



oh and a side note everything is fruiting like crazy! We've picked 6 zucchinis, 3 hot peppers, and a handful of tomatoes. We have fruits on everything else - YEA!

later...

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