Our garden

Our garden seems to be coming along quite nicely this year.  However, it looks like our carrots and corn will be ready for harvest while we are away in Mexico this summer, which makes us all very sad.  However, it has been a lot of fun to watch our garden come to life this year so far, so worse case scenario and we don't enjoy the majority of the fruit of our labor, it will still have been a lot of fun to do.

 This plant seems to have popped up out of nowhere.  I wonder if it was a stray seed in one of our packages.  We think it's cucumber.  It will be fun to see what it turns out to be.

And our tomatoes.

The start of 2017

In an attempt to do a better job of posting our pictures on the blog, here are the few pictures I've taken over the past two weeks.

It is true what they say that "more is caught than taught," and our THREE kiddos are well on their way to becoming avid readers.  I came home from a solo walk the other day, and when I walked in this was my sight -- daddy reading a book to the big ones, and little Naamen flipping thru his own book.

We love having Emma all to ourselves during the holidays, and one of the fun things for everyone is of course the way her and her little partner in crime play together.  One day they decided to build a train in our TV room, and they must have played a total of five hours on that make-believe world of theirs.  

On that same day they decided to have a little parade outside, with a stick as a mic and an old box and maraca as a drum.  I'm not sure why we bother ever giving our kids toys for Christmas... they always just go back to the basics -- sticks and boxes.

And then another day they discovered some sand behind Memma and Poppa's house and decided that they would build "ant houses."  How kind of them...

In an attempt to live a little more frugally and below are means, I've been trying to incorporate more meatless meals into our diet.  With avocados being 50 cents at Aldi, this beans and rice dish is hardly a sacrifice to consume.

We've been taking a lot of walks lately up our 3/4 mile driveway, and on this slightly cold day, this handsome little "bear" was so cute I couldn't resist not taking a pictures of him.

One of my latest projects has been figuring out a family sourdough bread recipe.  This was my second attempt at it, and compared to my very first attempt (a complete failure), I'd say this one went much better.  I still need to work out some details, but I'd say all in all we are well on our way to making this a family favorite.

Family fires have been a favorite thing of ours to indulge in.  On a cold Sunday night, after the kids are in bed, you may find Byron and I having a little picnic date together near it, sipping hot chocolate after dinner is cleaned up.

And back to our kiddos playing together.  Here you have "Miss Morris" teaching Byron his lesson for the day.

This picture is sideways, but if you are able to read it you'll see that Emma is quite the perfectionist... just like her daddy.  We love having our Emma Girl with us during the holidays, but we also love watching her thrive in school both socially and academically. 

Planting our first garden

Ever since we knew we were going to be moving out to the country, the idea of having our own family garden had been brewing in the back of my mind.  This Spring we finally got started on it.  Small, but started we did.

I purchased six tomato plants, and four sweet pepper plants.

When we were having dinner that eve, I was telling Byron how overwhelmed I was feeling with life.  He gave me a serious look and asked me:  "why again are we starting a garden?"  He did not like the idea of it.  Long story short, when he did his weekly Lowes run that following Saturday, he came across a book on gardening with children, purchased it, and has been the one family member who is the most excited about it.  It has been fun having Daddy on board on this new family adventure.

Here are a few pictures of the afternoon we started the garden --

Building our 3x3.

Proud builders.

Getting the garden started.

Our snoozer snoozing away.

WHY-Wednesday: Why we don't own a deep freezer.

(Update on September 20, 2014-- I got a smart phone last week, and did not realize that the pictures on it where linked to my blog's pictures.  I began deleting a whole bunch of them, including the ones that were on this post.  You can still read the post and "learn" from it, and if you are absolutely in dyer need of seeing what's in my freezer, you can come on over anytime :) )

A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago via Facebook if I had a deep freezer.  With all my chicken stock, and meat-freezing, where do I have room for everything?  

You must have a deep freezer! -- she assumed.

Well... truth be told-- I would love to have one, but don't.

We don't have room for one, they bring up the power bill, and the hubby is afraid I'll be storing 15-year old dinner casseroles, then serving him some.

So how do I do it?

How do I manage to successfully store everything in the one I have?

Let's take a peek at my freezer and see if we can answer these questions.

My lovely freezer as-is.  Nothing polished, nothing added, nothing (obviously) organized.

Nuts.

Bread scraps.

Butter.

All my whole wheat bread-making ingredients.

Which reminds me... I haven't made a loaf in a while.

Cheese.

Ground coffee.

(Only if it is not in an air-tight container).

Cookie dough.

Bacon.

Old bananas.

Bell peppers.

Cooked hot dogs.

Deli meat.

Squeezed lime juice.

Meatloaf meat, ready to be thawed and cooked.

Onion and celery scraps for making chicken stock.

Lentil soup.

Fully cooked black and navy beans.

Chicken breasts.

Ham bone, and leftover ham.

Frozen fruit for my morning smoothie, and some ice cream.

Pancakes.

Artichoke hearts.

Chicken stock.

Thoughts in response to what I keep in my freezer--

*  I hardly ever use my freezer space for fully-cooked meals.  I will never put a casserole, a whole pizza, or convenient food from the store.  What I'll do instead is freeze partially prepared food.  For example, I'll freeze my bread scraps, but won't freeze the french toast casserole I'll be using them in.  I use my freezer space to make dinner prep in the afternoon go smoother, not to eliminate it completely.

*  I always keep a few "regulars" in the freezer such as my nuts, bread scrap bag, onion/celery bag, and bread-making ingredients.  Other than that, everything else rotates pretty quickly out of the freezer.  Notice how aside from my meatloaf bag, all of my other ground beef bags are gone.  I've used them all!  Now I am working through my chicken breasts.  Only one main meat will "dominate" the freezer at a time.

*  Whenever I am planning my weekly meals, I always look through my freezer to see what I have on hand.  This is what helps me rotate through my freezer quickly.

*  Notice how I only have one ice cream box.  As a matter of fact, I rarely have desserts like that (it was leftover from the kids' parties).  Desserts and ice cream like that are yummy to have, but are not the best way to maximize your freezer space.

***

My concluding thoughts:

1.  Focus more on freezing partially prepared meals opposed to fully prepared ones,
2.  Rotate through your freezer quickly,
and
3.  Freeze items that would make your life easier, not yummier.  

WHY-Wednesday: Why I make my own chicken stock?

Well, the short answer to this is because it's cheaper...

and because I know exactly what is going into it.

It's also supposed to be very good for you... like a super food or something.

And when it gets down to it, it is super easy, and FREE!

Now, remember how I told you last week how much I love Costco?

Well, something you must know about me is that I *hate* raw meat.  I've gotten sick by working with it far too many times.  So one of the things I've started doing to deal with this intense hate is buying fully-cooked rotisserie chickens from Costco-- 

This entire chicken costs $5, and if planned correctly, I can feed my family dinner for four days off of it.  It's that big (and good!).

So after I finish using the meat, what do I do with the bones?

Now people-- this is probably one of the most common-known things in the world, but for me it was groundbreaking--  You make chicken-stock with it!

(As a side note-- did you know you should not use actual chicken meat to make chicken stock?  By doing so you strip the chicken from all it's good flavor, and should ideally toss it after the stock is finished)

So anyway...

You place the chicken carcass in the crock pot, fill it up with water (or your leftover whey from when you made your last batch of yogurt), throw in all those onion peels and random veggie pieces you've been storing in your freezer for the past couple of weeks, turn the slowcooker on low, and let it sit over night.

(Another side note-- only season with a bay leaf and some pepper kernels.  Do not season with salt since you don't know what you'll be using the stock in, and you don't want your final product to be too salty or insipid).

In the morning, this is what you'll find--

Let it cool down, drain, and store in the freezer.  

I normally get about three-ish quarts of stock from one chicken.  

I like to use these plastic can containers that are made specifically for freezing.  I will also put some in ziplock bags and freeze them that way.

When ready for use, just get it out of the freezer and let it thaw on it's own.  Or just stick it into the microwave and let it melt a little.  Then just throw the "ice-stock" in the soup/rice/bean/etc. dish you are making and let it finish thawing in there.

Enjoy :)