I love these cute boys...
it was a bitter-sweet moment to send them off to school last week!
I apologize for the big gaps on my blog.
Life is really, extremely busy right now and it is hard on me.
I am a perfectionist,
I like to be on top of things,I like to have my life and days perfectly planned out and love to be able to check things off my daily lists!!
However, these past 2 weeks have had SO many unexpected things thrown at me that my life has been completely and utterly disorganized!
Some days, when I think of how much there is to do I need to be reminded that I truly can't do it all!
Thus, my happiness for having this quote to reflect on and I realize how true it really is.
"We think we can do it all. But in the reality of the twenty-four hour day it seems unlikely. It takes a tremendous amount of time just to keep up with spouses who want our attention, kids who need our love, employers who demand our souls, homes that take a lot of our energy, friendships that require nurturing and our own inner cravings that need to be met.
That’s enough for just one 24 hour day".
So with that said, here are food highlights
from 2 weeks ago...better late than never!
Everything but the grapes was grown in our garden. We thinned out our beets and had some small ones to cook up, and so we cooked those up with some new potatoes we pulled from our garden as well, served it with our Mesclun salad greens, carrots, tomatoes and chives and it was PERFECT served along with a slice of homemade French Bread!
It was a week of LOTS of baking!
Albeit, hardly any of the baked goods were enjoyed by us. Oatmeal Fudge Bars and French Bread were shared with neighbors that had let us come and enjoy their garden, Oatmeal Cookies were enjoyed by Tracy's scouts at his campout and Cherry Pie was given to my neighbor to thank her for watching our animals for us when we went on our hike.
We played a round of Egyptian Rat Slap
because Ethan has been BEGGING to teach us how to play it, since he learned it on our backpacking trip.
The kids begged me to make a batch of Ranch Popcorn to munch on. My mom had sent the kid home with a whole box of fruit snacks when they visited her over the weekend and we sprinkled a few packages on the top and enjoyed!
Monday was a hectic day
and I only had 3 pieces of French Bread left from the previous day, which wasn't enough for us all to have a slice of toast with our salad.
SO, I buttered the bread,sprinkled with garlic powder, cut them into small chunks and toasted them up and they were the PERFECT croutons to enjoy on top of our garden fresh salad.
Since we have SO much zucchini right now,
I took a large zucchini and sliced it up and lightly steamed it.
Took all of our salad greens from our garden and made a delicious salad, fried us each an egg, topped the salad with croutons and that was the most yummy meal!!
I could eat like this everyday.
Absolutely delicious and so healthy and it's amazing that other than the grapes on the salad, everything came from our garden,
I made the bread and the eggs came from our chickens!!
Sad that with the heat of the summer, our salad greens are no longer producing. It will be nice when the cool weather of fall comes around and we can plant another round of Mesclun, Radishes, Spinach and Swiss Chard.
Tracy has been commenting that he can't wait to enjoy more Radish Top Soup!
Albeit, hardly any of the baked goods were enjoyed by us. Oatmeal Fudge Bars and French Bread were shared with neighbors that had let us come and enjoy their garden, Oatmeal Cookies were enjoyed by Tracy's scouts at his campout and Cherry Pie was given to my neighbor to thank her for watching our animals for us when we went on our hike.
because Ethan has been BEGGING to teach us how to play it, since he learned it on our backpacking trip.
The kids begged me to make a batch of Ranch Popcorn to munch on. My mom had sent the kid home with a whole box of fruit snacks when they visited her over the weekend and we sprinkled a few packages on the top and enjoyed!
and I only had 3 pieces of French Bread left from the previous day, which wasn't enough for us all to have a slice of toast with our salad.
SO, I buttered the bread,sprinkled with garlic powder, cut them into small chunks and toasted them up and they were the PERFECT croutons to enjoy on top of our garden fresh salad.
I took a large zucchini and sliced it up and lightly steamed it.
Took all of our salad greens from our garden and made a delicious salad, fried us each an egg, topped the salad with croutons and that was the most yummy meal!!
I could eat like this everyday.
Absolutely delicious and so healthy and it's amazing that other than the grapes on the salad, everything came from our garden,
I made the bread and the eggs came from our chickens!!
Sad that with the heat of the summer, our salad greens are no longer producing. It will be nice when the cool weather of fall comes around and we can plant another round of Mesclun, Radishes, Spinach and Swiss Chard.
Tracy has been commenting that he can't wait to enjoy more Radish Top Soup!
Smoothies truly are the highlight
of each and every week of our summer.
As I write this post, we are now back in school and the daily smoothies are no longer happening!
Makes me sad!!
It was pack night for Scouts and Ethan was asked to bring Macaroni Salad, so my Pasta Salad came to the rescue and was very much enjoyed!
I had the HAPPIEST little boy that came home with the SPIRIT Rock!! He felt SO happy and proud and now we just need to think of something for him to add to the rock before next Pack Night.
Thank goodness for teenagers
of each and every week of our summer.
As I write this post, we are now back in school and the daily smoothies are no longer happening!
Makes me sad!!
I had the HAPPIEST little boy that came home with the SPIRIT Rock!! He felt SO happy and proud and now we just need to think of something for him to add to the rock before next Pack Night.
as they make sure we keep up on hair cuts and hair highlights!
Jade had to register for school on the 17th and it was also the day they took yearbook photos and so he BEGGED us to have a hair highlighting party as soon as we got back from Pack Night so he could look nice for photos.
So, we did what we always do to be FRUGAL with hair highlighting...
we divided our highlighting kit into thirds (here)
put on highlighting caps and I pulled Jade and Tracy's hair through and Tracy pulled my hair through,
we coated our hair well with the solution, set the time for 90 minutes and Voila...nicely highlighted hair!
Jade had to register for school on the 17th and it was also the day they took yearbook photos and so he BEGGED us to have a hair highlighting party as soon as we got back from Pack Night so he could look nice for photos.
So, we did what we always do to be FRUGAL with hair highlighting...
we divided our highlighting kit into thirds (here)
put on highlighting caps and I pulled Jade and Tracy's hair through and Tracy pulled my hair through,
we coated our hair well with the solution, set the time for 90 minutes and Voila...nicely highlighted hair!
It is such a rare thing for bananas to go bad at our house...
they always get eaten the first day or two of buying them, but, my kiddos were at their grandparents for a few days, Tracy and I were off enjoying our own little adventure and so three of them got a little brown.
I've shared this HELPFUL TIP before
about what to do if you need 1 cup of oil for your sweet bread recipes
I love buying snack sized applesauce, dumping the applesauce in the mixing bowl and then taking and filling the applesauce container with oil and then dumping it in.
This saves on oil and calories and really makes your sweet bread SO moist!
Decadent, yummy and amazing...
that is what Oatmeal Fudge Bars are!!
I also love this recipe as it makes a large cookie sheet and you end up with LOTS of bars!
I always make these when I need to deliver goodies to a few different people.
they always get eaten the first day or two of buying them, but, my kiddos were at their grandparents for a few days, Tracy and I were off enjoying our own little adventure and so three of them got a little brown.
about what to do if you need 1 cup of oil for your sweet bread recipes
I love buying snack sized applesauce, dumping the applesauce in the mixing bowl and then taking and filling the applesauce container with oil and then dumping it in.
This saves on oil and calories and really makes your sweet bread SO moist!
that is what Oatmeal Fudge Bars are!!
I also love this recipe as it makes a large cookie sheet and you end up with LOTS of bars!
I always make these when I need to deliver goodies to a few different people.
Zucchini Quiche definitely makes the
TOP 5 family favorite recipes at our house!
I LOVE when zucchini is plentiful in our garden and this yummy recipe graces our table top a few times during the harvest time!
This recipe also would make a great breakfast. If you have plenty of zucchini in your garden
this is a wonderful, tasty way to use it up!
This week I was craving one of my favorite meals...
Lentil Stew over brown rice
a great use for veggies, uses legumes that are plentiful in food storage and it tastes so good, you would never know it is a meatless meal!
I was given the most delicious cantaloupe from my sweet friend Tauna
and I purchased donut peaches and cherries!
This particular weekend, we pretty much lived on fruit...it is truly better than any candy and I am always thrilled when my kids make comments like...
"Mom, when is that guy going to be back selling those doughnut peaches...
I just love them and I would really like some more...NOW"!!
I cracked eggs into a container, cut up sausage, diced potatoes (that I had baked earlier), diced onions and grated cheese, and packaged them in a cooler so he could throw together a quick and easy breakfast for them in the morning using his Dutch Oven.
Sunday
Apple, Fruit and Nut cookies,
Salad (lettuce, spinach, carrots, tomatoes from our garden) topped with grapes and homemade vinaigrette, and French Bread
Monday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy) Tuna sandwich on homemade French Bread, apples, grapes, oatmeal cookies
(Kids and I) Smoothies, Tuna patty melts
Oatmeal muffins for snack
Salad from our garden greens, topped with fried eggs, steamed zucchini, homemade croutons and Homemade Honey Mustard salad dressing
(snack of Ranch popcorn topped with fruit snacks that we enjoyed while we played Egyptian Rat Slap card game)
Tuesday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy) Oatmeal muffins, string cheese, apple, banana
(Kids and I) Green Smoothie and Quesadillas
Banana Bread for snack
Made Pasta Salad for Ethan's Scout Party
Also made banana bread
Wednesday
Steel Cut Oats
(had to do home CHATS from 7-9...made French Bread and Oatmeal Fudge Bars, before I started working)
(Tracy) Pasta Salad, Banana Bread, apple and grapes
(kids and I....took them shopping for misc. school items and we did our yearly tradition of having breakfast for LUNCH at Perkins)
(that afternoon delivered French Bread and Fudge Bars to our neighbor that let us pick raspberries and also to a lady that just recently had surgery)
Dinner...made Zucchini Quiche and Green Smoothies
Thursday
Steel Cut Oats
(Tracy) Zucchini Quiche, Fudge Bars, Grapes
(kids and I) Zucchini Quiche and Green Smoothies
Lentil Stew served over brown rice for dinner
(went and picked more Cherries from our neighbors tree)
Friday
Steel Cut Oats
(kids left at 9:00 in the morning to go and spend the day at Tracy's parents for a day)
Tracy and I had Lentil Stew for lunch AND dinner along with Fudge Bars and apples
(made Oatmeal Cookies for Tracy to take for a treat to his scouts on their campout)
(made a Cherry Pie to take to a neighbor that had helped us takie care of our animals for our yearly backpacking trip)
Saturday
I had ZOOM cereal with raisins before I headed off to work
(Tracy fixed Skillet breakfast for his scouts)
After we picked up the kids and came home we had Leftover Lentil Stew for lunch also snacked on Cherries and Donut Peaches
Melted cheese on Tortilla Chips and topped with Salsa for an evening snack
Links to recipes used this week:
Thanks for bearing with me as I try to get photos and thoughts in order from our last month of FUN and adventure...
so much to share, so little time!
I have one more week of craziness
and then it is back to "smooth sailing"
and finally getting rhyme, reason and order to my life!
I hope things are going well for all of you...
Life really is wonderful...curve balls and all!
