The most popular person at the potluck.

With all the heat lately, I have really lost my desire to bake and create in the kitchen. Who wants to stand over and oven or stove top for any length of time sweating into their food. Ever since I learned how to make it, I have wanted to know why in the world potato salad is considered a summer food. All the boiling and peeling, it feels like winter time project to me.

Still, summer is the time to get together with your friends and family and that always means bringing food to share.  If you want to be the most popular person at the potluck, I suggest you bring the vegetable tray.  This whopping huge amount of vegetables was less than 11.00$ at my local mega mart. I buy the cauliflower and broccoli in their head for because I don't mind the cutting and I really mind the price. I like to throw in something that is season and unexpected that gets people's attention in the spring asparagus is fun, and in the summer radishes and green beans, the autumn is perfect for sliced sweet potatoes or jicama.  If you add a fun dip people just can't tear themselves away. You'll be the hit of party and the only one taking home and empty dish every single time.

Farm Stand Fun!

We went to the local Farm Stand today.  Do you have a farm stand near youhttp://www.utahfarmscsa.com/local-producers.html?  Do you know the difference between a Farmer's Market and a Farm Stand? A farmer's market is a place where local growers gather to sell their goods, a farm stand is a place where goods can be sold close to their production. Near where I live there is a strip along an old highway that has farm stands set up all up and down it. You can always find fruits from the local orchards, but most sell goods from gardens too.  Farmer's Markets tend to only be open on weekends, but Farm are usually open all during the week - some even have Pick Your Own produce, which can be really fun sometimes. 

If you need more help than the Food $ense Farmer's Market guide. Here is a good place to start to find a Farm Stand near you. 

The beets were simply unique and the apricots looked like there were fake they were so beautiful.

 We even found a little spider crawling around on one of these cucumbers. How's that for fresh from the garden?!

 The corn was hauled in right while we were standing there, you could still smell the stalks and the silk was still dewy.

One last link to share, I found this reference to local growing dates and Davis county farmers. The list is Very comprehensive. and lastly, here is a link to the Utah.gov site of local produced products. How about THAT!

Green Beans

 I was just realizing today that it is getting very close to the end of the month and I have not done justice to Green Beans - the spotlight vegetable for July.  I love green beans, I love them raw on veggie trays and blanched, and frenched and cooking in Thanksgiving casserole.  They are one of the very few vegetables that I actually like to eat canned.

Last night, I got a bag of frozen ones from the freezer and put it on top of the boxed rice mix that I was making for dinner. The beans steamed a long with the rice and they were delicious and mild flavored when the rice was done cooking.  The Chicken with ginger rice and green beans sounded like a fancier dinner that it actually was, but it was gobbled right up by all the diners here at our house.

The chosen one - watermelon that is.

I haven't had much luck yet this year picking watermelons. My dad never picks a bad one, and he is contanstly trying to give me lessons on how to do it. So far, it has not sunk in. 

But a few days ago I was on the Food $ense Facebook Page and they had some tips listed on how to pick a good one.   I am going to copy them here. But You should go check out their FB page! 

1. It should feel heavy for its size.

2. Have a relatively smooth rind that is slightly dull on top.3. If the bottom of the watermelon (where it was resting on the ground) is cream yellow, not white or green.4. The top of the watermelon should be dull and not shiny.5. A deep hollow sound when you thump on the outside.

 I followed the instructions as best as I could and IT Worked! We are enjoying the best watermelon of the season right now.  I had thought that I would serve it with Feta and Basil, but it was just too perfect to add to anything so we chilled it and ate it plain. Delicious!!

Secret Raspberries

We found we have small bunch of raspberry bushes in the backyard here. I am pretty sure they are "volunteers" from over the neighbor's fence and so they aren't very many of them. 

Just enough for a small boy to pick a cup of them to enjoy at the end of a long hot summer day.

9 Menu Planning Tips

It has been a little while since I posted about Menu Planning. I have gathered some new tips and hints that I thought I would pass a long to you since planning a menu is one of the most important things you can start doing to eat healthy and stay within your budget.

1. Pick a time and day of the week to plan. Make a special time when you have some time to sit down and make your schedule. Do it when works for you, after your store local ads come out, or before your local farmer's market.

2. Get input from your family. Ask your kids to each suggest a meal for the week, or ask your husband what he would like to eat. If everyone comes up with a meal that means less that you have to think of. And with some input from the family they are more likely to eat what you are making.

3. Only plan 5-6 dinners each week. Leave a night open for delicious leftovers or just call it ToBeDetermined (TBD) and see what you are in the mood for that night. Breakfast for dinner anyone?

4. Try one new recipe a week. Some times when I menu plan I get all excited and plan all sorts of crazy new meals and some weeks it ends up being the old stand-bys all week long. Setting a goal to try just one new recipe a week can expand not just your cooking horizons, but everyone's taste buds without being overwhelming or too ambitious.

5. Take stock of your fridge, pantry and freezer. Look at what you already have and try and use it first. Do you have supplies for a meal that you didn't use last week? What are some of the things in the back of freezer that it is time to get using?

6. Plan with your weekly schedule. If you have a busy day, plan a slow cooker meal or a meal from cook one - eat twice so your dinner preparation is easy. On days when you don't have any afternoon plans make that an evening where you spend some time in the kitchen cooking.

7. Have a theme night. There is nothing wrong with narrowing the focus of your menu planning and having a soup night, taco night or chicken and rice night. It can give you enough room to try variations of family favorites, but also make the decision making process not feel so enormous.

8. Keep your shopping list next to your meal planning list. As you are menu planning write down what you will need to make the recipe. Scan the whole recipe and then if you aren't sure if you have enough of a certain spice or frozen chicken breasts then now is the time to check.

9. Post your menu plan somewhere that you can see it. Having gone to all this work won't do you bit of good if you can't remember what you planned or you don't utilize all your hard work.  Post your weekly menu on the fridge, write it on the calender or use something specific to display your weekly menu is a decorative way like a chalkboard or a restaurant menu board.

Menu planning is something that can be as simple or as complicated as you make it. For those of us new to this, now is not the time to organize all our recipes by nutritional value, neither is it the time to begin creating colorful templates and color coded by aisle shopping list. If we want those things, they can come later once we have established good habits and find what is working (and not working) for us. Start simple, get a piece of paper, write the days of the week on it, and then next to each day write your dinner plans.

Fight BAC for Summer and Kids

FightBAC.org has put out some really fun games and information for kids this summer in both English and Spanish.   They even have a fun iphone game that is available in the app store.

A New Twist on Refrigerator Pickles

One of the great things about trying recipes from Food $ense is that they take old favorites and add a different new twist to them. I love refrigerator pickles, but my sister always makes more popular ones than me. When I found this recipe when I was browsing the Farmer's Market recipes, I was very excited to try it. 

They were deliciously different with a surprising taste. The ginger for sure needs to be grated so that the flavors mingle and I wouldn't let them sit too long in your fridge before you serve them as the soy sauce turns them brown and then they don't look quite as appetizing. 

I can't wait to pick a new recipe and try it. I am considering perhaps something with beets or maybe a rhubarb or peach crumble. I will need to call the neighbor and see if he still has rhubarb.

Running with.... Dynamite

My baby isn't sleeping. With the temporary living situation that we are in, we are sharing a room and so that I means I am not sleeping either. A grumpy not sleeping baby and a sleep deprived mom pretty much equates to running around with a stick of dynamite in one hand and a lit flare in the other.

I have been trying to keep the boys extra busy so they still have a fun summer, even with the xbox packed in storage. And I have oodles of amazing family to help, but gosh darn it, I need some sleep.

Instead, I am blogging and listening to the baby to vocal exercises and practice her peanut butter chomping noises. Someday this will hopefully be a sweet memory, but for now, it is going to be the reason I am asleep on the couch while the boys are at the pool.

Caprese Salad

I was browsing through the brand new farmer's market recipes yesterday, and as recipe browsing usually goes, I ended up looking through the previous ones as well. Oh there have been some good ones. In fact, recipes I make all the time now. Probably the most popular is Caprese salad.

 It is so simple and the taste is so fresh and sophisticated. It always feels fancy when I make it and people just adore it. I usually use the pearl mozzarella and grape or cherry tomatoes. Once again, it is just a matter of being easier for me.

Brussels Sprouts Roasted and Delicious

I happened upon a lovely bag of brussels sprouts yesterday in the very back of the vegetable drawer. I happen to love these little nutty baby cabbage like vegetables and I am fortunate enough that most of my kids like them too.  We usually eat them sauteed, but last night I decided to try them roasted. 

There are lots of recipes and instructions for roasting them, but they are roasted just like any other crispy vegetable. 

 My husband was helping in the kitchen and he snipped the bottoms off and cut them in half, neither of which I usually bother with. We tossed them in olive oil and then spread them out on a large cookie sheet and then popped them into a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes or so.  You can top them with balsamic vinegar, rosemary or Parmesan cheese, but we just ate them plain.

And they were Delicious!

Experiments in Cherry Pitting

I am definitely not the Sherlock Holmes of cherry pitting. 

I don't have a cherry pitting tool, so I looked up online how to do it by hand. I read This article, because if Martha can pit cherries by hand, by golly, so can I. I even read another article for good measure, so I would be really sure how to do it.  I didn't watch any YouTube videos, because I felt pretty confident that I didn't need the extra help. 

I had dreams in my head of Cherry Bruschetta and Cherry Salsa.  I wasn't going to attempt anything so adventurous and time consuming as I pie, but I really was looking forward to eating something and not having to spit the seed out. 

I attempted my cherry pitting with a wooden toothpick, a (clean) nail orange stick, a straw, and a paper clip. 

Sadly, I ran out of steam and decided it was totally not worth it after about 6 cherries. I am considering buying a cherry pitting tool, they aren't that much money and I think I would really use it, (at least during the summer months). 

Mid July means Apricots

How can we be so far into July already. We have one, way too short, holiday weekend and then suddenly it is the middle of the month.

I am so excited about the Food $ense spotlight fruits, vegetables and grains this month. This month some of the produce that is in season are Cherries, Apricots, Green Beans and Cucumbers. They are some of my most favorite foods and I can't wait to eat my favorite dishes and also try some new recipes and tricks.

I have been stopping at my local farmers markets, I am very lucky that I have several near by. I highly recommend them, the food is amazing so fresh from the source. If you don't have one near you, put the word out that you are interested in taking garden grow-overs from your friends with gardens. It is a good friend that will take a sack full of zucchini  off a gardener's hands in the late summer months.

I found the first Apricots of the season today. I only bought 6 because I wasn't sure what to do with them once I got them home. It turns out I didn't pick out very delicious ones, they were still fuzzy and good, but not as plump and juicy as I would have wanted. The kids and I still ate them with our lunches. I am going to read up on the Food $ense fact sheet on how to pick out the best ones so when I head to the market again I will pick out the best ones. 

I also picked up some dried ones when I realized that they were the spotlight fruit in July. I was thinking of making some apricot glazed chicken or maybe even some ice cream and apricots with honey. 

4th of July ideas

Do you have any fun 4th of July plans or traditions? Are you going to be attending lunches and Bbq's where you want to amaze and wow people with your new found knowledge and healthy lifestyle? Is it too hot for you to be spending hours in the kitchen cooking too?

Source: delish.com via Snappily Ever After on Pinterest

One of my favorite things to take to family get-togethers are Whoopie Pies. My kids adore them and since I make them quite a now almost expected to bring them. I recently was browsing the web for some fun 4th of July recipes and I ran across a recipe for Whoopie Pies that has been altered to make it better for you.  Let me just say, They are amazing! No, they don't taste the same as the ones I made before, but for a health substitute they are really quite good. The website the recipe is available on has 15th Healthier 4th of July Desserts, perhaps your favorite thing to make is there too.

Source: greatist.com via Snappily Ever After on Pinterest

Here is a link to a website that has some non-traditional recipes, perhaps  you will find something new to try like Red, White and Blue Berry Semiffreddo, or The Red, White, and Blue: Coconut and Blueberry Coconut Pudding Trifles with Fresh Cherries and Buckwheat Topping - now you KNOW those sound delicious.

And since we are going to be making that potato salad and macaroni salad and bbq, Here is a website that lightens up the traditional recipes that we all love so much.

Source: eatingwell.com via Snappily Ever After on Pinterest