Tomatoes

Last night, I used some of my canned tomato sauce, to create a pasta dinner.  I boiled up some whole wheat pasta, and added to it, browned ground beef, onion, garlic, green and red peppers, and 6-7 fresh tomatoes.  I added home grown oregano, salt and pepper and a bit of crushed red pepper flakes.  

Some of the kids topped their dinner with grated parmesan cheese also.  This would be good with a bit of mozzarella cheese mixed in too.  After I mixed it all together, it was heated in the oven for about  30 minutes.  The only thing we lacked in this recipe, was my homemade noodles.

With all these tomatoes coming in right now, I have not had a day free enough to get my noodles made.  Hopefully, I can get them made this week.

These are just some of the tomatoes my husband and I picked last night.  I have enough roma tomatoes to make another batch of tomato sauce, and can more tomatoes.  I borrowed a book from the library and hope to get a recipe using more tomatoes in our dinner tonight.

Last year, I had red cherry tomatoes.  I used a recipe from the same book to make a bread with them.  This year I have orange cherry size tomatoes.  


I have also found a Vegetable Lasagna recipe in another cookbook.

It's an old book that I've had for years, but has good recipes in it.  I borrowed a photo of a similar one, from Amazon to show you.  The recipe for the Lasagna will utilize my garden zucchini, carrots, onions, and canned tomato sauce.  I can also utilize my farm fresh eggs and possible homemade noodles.  


Although, I have enough tomatoes today, I need to go pick whatever is ripe today also.  Rain is in the forecast, and it's already very wet in that portion of the garden.  If it rains too much, I may be at the end of my tomatoes this season.

Picture Post

Got newspaper?

Frog Pin Cushion

My 9 year-old daughter made this cute frog (felt) pin cushion last night.  Of all days, she picks a busy day, to ask for help.  I had just come home from the dentist, and was madly working away on laundry, dinner, and other things I got behind on.


This time, I told her she needed to trace the pattern, make her templates and complete the project 100% by herself.  She came to me often to ask questions, but did the entire project herself, aside from sewing on the eyes.  She had a bit of trouble and I had to help her with that.


I would not let her use my good sewing scissors, as they are extremely sharp.  She was very careful with my next best pair of scissors, and did pretty well cutting the patterns out.  She's so proud of herself, she now wants to make these (and needle holders) to sell in my handicraft store. 

Ragweed, Wild Flowers and The Mower

I've been chatting with a park district expert, in regards to the wild flowers, weeds and invasive plants on our property.  At first I thought it was fun to press some of them, but it's been more that just that.

I've not only found out we have some very interesting flowers, but some weeds that are the cause of our bad allergies.  In fact, the dork that I am, went out and pulled Common Ragweed from the goat's pen area.  I had gloves on, but after pulling two armfuls, I had to stop.  My neck broke out in welts and it had the appearance of poison ivy or oak.  My neck was read and very itchy.  However, after wiping it with a cold, wet washcloth, it disappeared.  Phew!  I woke up congested and could not smell my clothesline fresh bed sheets.  

In this one picture I took, you can see three wild flowers, and they surround one giant weed.  The Tall Ironweed in the picture is taller than me, and I'm tall.  I am pressing some of the Wingstem, and Tall Ironweed.  I have yet to pick some of the Goldenrod.  I found out that the Goldenrod we have can be invasive.  We have a ton of it.

This wild flower grows low to the ground, and I just discovered it this year, as we mowed a good portion of the back acres.  There are still many plants I need to identify.  If we are going to have cattle and a horse out there, we need to know exactly what's growing and what needs to be removed.

My husband had to replace the mower blades recently, and repaired the mower several times.  Finally, we go it working again.  The other day we were in the house, and heard a loud "POP!"  

"Uh, Mom?  Your flower vase just exploded," said one of my daughters.

It didn't take long to discover that my husband ran over a rock, that was slivered by the new mower blades, and shot it right through the screen of the window.  It hit my plant pot and broke it.  Luckily, no one was sitting in the reading chair by the window.  That's scary.  We blame the dog.  One of our dogs picks up rocks in her mouth like a stick and drops them everywhere.  We are trying to break her from this, as her teeth may get damaged too.

Those very sharp mower blades, or maybe it was his bad mower driving (he he) that destroyed one of my garden stakes.  Grrr!  He got a little too close to the garden.


Speaking of garden, I went out there last night to pick tomatoes.  I discovered my Rote Von Paris, heirloom bush bean plants had disappeared.  I stood there, looking at the last 1 inch of plant stems.  After we went through, and could not find deer tracks, we decided we have our first rabbit problem.  Ugh.  Good thing I pulled the dry beans of last week.  At least I have a few dozen for planting next year.  Bad bunnies!


And I knew that I would get the e-bee jeebies scared out of me again.  Last year it happened when I was walking through the yard in flip-flops and a black water snake slithered under me.  Last night, it happened in the garden.  With all this year's rain, we've had a lot of frogs in the tomato and pepper area of the garden.  I was picking tomatoes and reached down low on one plant.  Out slithered a snake.  I almost threw my basket of tomatoes straight into the air!  Luckily, it was a Garter snake, so I let him live.  I just told him he better leave my frogs alone and scare those rabbits off.

Wild Flowers and Weeds

Over the years I have collected odd books from used book sales.  In the beginning they were placed on a shelf for homeschooling, and for my public school kids.  So far, every book has been helpful with school reports and other needs.

One book I am using a lot lately, is a book on our state wild flowers.  I've had a flower press for many years, but have not used it recently.  I got it back out after finding these wild flowers on our property.

The other day I was flipping through the pages of the book, and said, "Hey!  I know this weed.  I've seen it before."

My husband responded with, "What your mother really means to say, is that she probably fed it to you."

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Cauliflower and Cabbage

I pulled 2 nice sized heads of cauliflower and 2 head of home grown cabbage.  For the first time, I canned a slaw recipe, using every vegetable ingredient from the garden.  The boiled syrup was the only thing I had to buy ingredients for.  This was a simple recipe we can't wait to taste it.  Here is the recipe:  Canned Slaw

The cauliflower was used for dinner.  We tried a pizza crust recipe I found on-line. 

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

It was soooooooooooo good, that my hubby took a small slice and drove it 5 miles or so to his nephew's house to share.  It's a wonderfully tasting, healthier, and low carb pizza.  Yum!  I topped ours with garden veggies and cooked organic chicken pieces.  We will be growing more cauliflower next year.  This is one vegetable that we have not been eating enough of.  Again, you have to try this recipe.  The person who created this recipe should be on Food Network. 

The recipe calls for frozen cauliflower, but I slightly cooked my home grown cauliflower, then pulsed it in my food processor vs. ricing it.  It worked out well.  

We used eggs from our own chickens, and oregano from my herb garden.  I need to plant more parsley to dry next year.

Learning to Shoot

I shot a hand gun and shot gun today, for the first time in my life.  The first gun I shot with was the shotgun.  I hit my target on the first shot (a small baking pumpkin).  I love the shot gun.  It's not as bad to shoot with as I thought it would be.  

I learned gun safety, and learn to load both types of guns myself.  They only thing I need to learn now, is how to clean both of them, and learn hunting safety.

I am so excited that I hit my target on the first shot, that I kept the shot gun shells to make into a craft.  I am working on a new craft for them, but until then, visit my S.C.R.A.P. blog to see other ideas that are already on the Internet.



Shot Gun Shell Crafts (click here to visit my other blog) 

I also kept these:

I may make earrings or another project with them.  I haven't decided.  I'm just proud of myself for asking someone to teach me about guns and gun safety.