Magic meat loaf and way too much rain

It's raining again! This is really getting to be ridiculous! The plants simply can't handle anymore but here it comes. My sister who lives in Dallas lost the tomato plants we'd given her. Too much water for them, we think.

Well, we did get a few goodies from the garden today. We got two large and fat cucumbers, a very small purple bell pepper that's been this size for weeks, two stunted ears of corn and a few small tomatoes. I'm thankful for those, though I'd like more and larger fruit!


Dinner tonight was an adapted version of Magic Meatloaf, green beans, and corn. I didn't have the dry soup mix so I used some powdered chicken boullion, garlic, and chopped onion. I made it with 1 lb of ground turkey and 1 lb of ground beef and made sure it was wet enough. Rather than cook it in the slow cooker, I popped it into a 350 oven for about 45 minutes. It was tasty and there's plenty left for lunch tomorrow.

Cheese enchilada stack and ranch style beans

Dinner tonight was Cheese Enchilada Stack served with Ranch Style Beans. We're very fond of Tex Mex food and we really liked this dish and decided it's a keeper in our home. I added fresh Sweet 100 tomatoes from the garden to the top of it about 5 minutes before it was done and the tomatoes are a tasty addition. I noticed that ours didn't look quite like the picture featured with the recipe but that's just fine. It tasted great and we'll have it again.

Do you have a favorite Tex Mex recipe? If so, would you share it with me? I'm always on the lookout for new ones.

It's raining again and we're likely to get a lot of rain tonight. The poor garden is just about to float away! I really don't think it can take much more of this and we might not get much more at all from it. But we've planted more squash and we're going to try more tomatoes from seed. Here's hoping we get a good crop!

Monday's Musings & garden stuff

Today was a pretty slow day. We ran some errands, including taking the 16 year old to the high school for testing. He's been home schooled for two years after a short stint in public school and since he's going back into public school they need to know in what grade to place him. He says the test was easy but we don't know yet just how he did so we'll see.

Dinner tonight wasn't anything particularly exciting. I took a late nap and woke up at 6:30 so we had chili dogs with onions and mozzarella cheese for dinner. It wasn't fancy but it sure was tasty and thrifty. The 16 year old had never eaten a chili dog! How he's made it this far without eating one I don't know but he had his first one tonight. And his second one..then he ate what was left of the chili. Ahh, the joys of bottomless pit teen boys!

We got our second ear of corn from the garden today. It's a beautiful white sweet corn but this one ear at a time thing isn't working well. But oh well, we can share it tomorrow at lunch! And the man person ate the first homestead tomato from the garden, too. He says it had very little flavor and was kind of mealy and waxy tasting, like a store tomato. Since most of the tomato plants are just dying from too much rain we're going to start some more from seed and see how that goes. I'm just so disappointed in the tomatoes this year! I had high hopes of canning some and eating plenty of fresh ones but that just isn't going to happen unless we can get more going from seed and they do better later this summer. But then we have the heat to contend with! And unless something really bizarre happens, there won't be much rain at all so regular watering will be an absolute must.

So that's about it on the garden news for now. The rest of it seems to be plugging along, managing pretty well and trying not to drown in all this rain!

No boil meat lasagna

We got some more goodies from the garden last night and this morning. We got a zucchini, another cucumber, and another hand full of Sweet 100 tomatoes. The tops of some of the Early Girl tomatoes were mushy and since they were almost ripe, we picked them. Unfortunately, they were all mushy inside, too, so we threw them out. I'm so disappointed in the tomatoes and wish I knew what the problem was. I haven't heard back from the extension office about what might be the problem with the tomatoes but my other half was reading one of the GardenWeb.com forums and it was suggested to use fish emulsion on tomato plants such as ours. We did that a couple of days ago and then it rained so we might put a little more on them. I don't know if it will help but it's worth a try.

While out in the garden this evening we noticed a banana squash that we hadn't seen before. How we missed it, we don't know, as it's quite large! We also counted the Sugar Baby watermelons and there are 10 of them. Some of the corn is starting to look almost ready...but not quite. Tomorrow I'll get pictures of some of the goodies growing out there and will post them here.

Tonight's dinner was lasagna. I had other things planned to go with it but due to my other half's truck overheating and having to run water to him the other things didn't get prepared so we just ate lasagna. Fortunately we like it a lot but I change the ingredients every time so it's always just a little different. This time I added the leftover caramelized vegetables I made a few nights ago. That was a great addition and added a few more nutrients to the dish. Okay, not many but it used up some leftovers!

Here's the recipe I use, from the R&F Reduced Carb Lasagna Noodle box. I didn't use that brand of noodles but it's such an easy recipe and works with any kind of lasagna noodle so it's the only recipe I use.

No Boil Meat Lasagna

12 oz lasagna, uncooked
15 oz ricotta cheese (I used cottage cheese with liquid pressed out through a colander)
1/2 c parmesan cheese, grated
1 lb bulk sausage (I used ground beef and often use turkey)
52 oz pasta sauce
2 c mozzarella cheese, grated (I used 1 cup mozzarella and 1 cup swiss)
2 eggs
parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 350. In medium bowl, combine ricotta, parmesan and eggs and mix well. In a 9 x 13 baking dish, spread 1 cup pasta sauce. Layer with half each of the uncooked lasagna noodles, ricotta mixture, meat, pasta sauce and mozzarella. Repeat layering. Top with parsley. Cover tightly with foil and bake covered for 1 hour. Uncover and bake another 15 minutes. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.

Serves 9

Source: R&F Lasagna box

This makes a goodly amount of lasagna and we had half the 9 x 13 pan remaining. I put it in the freezer and we'll have it in a week or two on a hectic night when I really don't feel like cooking.

What's your favorite pasta dish and why? Share the recipe with me!

Okay, time for me to go sit outside and enjoy the company of the dog. Until tomorrow....

Summer Pasta Salad and today's garden pickins

I found this recipe at Anita's Tried & True Low Fat Recipes and I really like it for light summer eating. It's not only thrifty, it's very low in fat. I make it with whole wheat or soy pasta so it's easier on the blood sugar. I've made it with less chicken, too, and it's still very good. I've also made it with fajita beef and that's excellent.

Summer Pasta Salad

1/2 c fat-free mayonnaise
4 oz elbow macaroni, cooked and drained
1/4 c parmesan cheese (Asiago is wonderful)
1 c onion, chopped
3 Tbsp fat-free milk (powdered milk and a little water work fine)
1/2 tsp salt
9 oz chicken breast cubes, cooked

In a mixing bowl, combine mayonnaise, parmesan cheese, milk, chicken,
macaroni, onions, and salt. Mix well and chill several hours before serving.

If I have tomatoes and other goodies from the garden, they're quite likely to end up in this salad so it's a little different every time I make it.

Speaking of the garden, here's what we picked this morning.


We got two cabbages, a small handful of beans, a couple of tiny potatoes and a cucumber to go with the ones in the fridge! But look at that mound of tomatoes! They're so sweet and juicy! I just love 'em but my throat is still too raw to eat them. Hopefully soon I'll be able to dive into them. Until then I'll just have to admire them from afar.


And here's the most recent photo of the one butternut squash that's growing. I hope it continues to grow well since I have plans for it. I love the stuff and it's been many years since I've eaten it. I'm not sure which way to prepare it so if you know of a good recipe for it, please share it with me!

The garden isn't doing as well as we'd hoped. Every one of the 17 tomato plants has something going on. They're producing but not as well as they should be and the plants are getting sickly. I'm not sure they'll survive long enough for the fruit to ripen. I emailed pictures of the plants and the fruit to the local extension office and hopefully they'll be able to give me an idea of what's going on. I'm going to get some fish emulsion today, though, and dose them with that to see if it helps.

The beets we planted produced but the roots were small. Tasty but small! We've picked them all and they're in the fridge. I'm the only one who eats them so they'll last me awhile. We're going to try another variety in the Fall garden.

The cucurbits are all doing well, though, and the corn, beans, and peas are growing nicely. We pulled the onions and they did pretty well but are a bit on the smallish side.

There's always another chance to plant in the fall, though, so we'll do it again and see what happens.

Meatballs in gravy with caramelized vegetables

I still feel pretty rough so I've recruited Rachel, my 14 year old stepdaughter, to help cook dinner. She did a great job, too!

Tonight's dinner is meatballs in gravy, noodles, caramelized vegetables made with vegetables pulled this morning from the garden, and salad left from Friday night.

Honestly, other than Swedish meatballs, which we love, and one disastrous attempt at spaghetti & meatballs over 20 years ago, I haven't made the things. These turned out pretty well but were a little dry. They were served in a bowl of gravy (after all, this IS east Texas!) but still, they really needed to be more moist.

To make them I just used eight crushed saltine crackers, an egg, green onion, and some spices and mixed it all up. Then I formed it into balls, placed them on the broiler pan and baked them at 350 until they were done. Two eggs might have been better or maybe I should have added some milk.

I made some gravy and put the meatballs in the gravy and we had them over the noodles. Even though they weren't fantastic, they went over well.



The caramelized vegetables are so easy to make.

Thinly slice about 3 lbs of vegetables (we like onion, yellow squash, zucchini and mushroom) and put them in the slow cooker. Add up to 1/4 cup oil/butter/margarine (the original recipe said 1/2 cup but to me that is way too much). I add about 2 Tbsp maximum of oil but the amount of oil will depend on the vegetables you use and how much oil you want to use. Add seasoning if you want but trust me, it isn't necessary. For tonight's dish, I added garlic powder and Cook's Choice Gourmet Steak Seasoning.



Cook on low from 12 to 24 hours keeping 1/2 an eye on it after 12 hours, keeping in mind that temperature and time vary from cooker to cooker.

These come out tasting terrific. They aren't crispy but they possess a terrific flavor and texture.


And here's the finished product. I know, not as pretty but oh, they're scrumptious! Some of the family likes to put gravy over the vegetables, other members just like them plain. Either way, they're fantastic and even kids who don't like vegetables will often eat these.

All in all it was a good dinner and Rachel was a great help. I'm exhausted now, though, so it's off to bed to rest. But if you have a good meatball recipe, I'd love to know it!

Chicken and Pasta Salad

Here's another tasty pasta salad for hot days when you really don't want to heat the kitchen. This one is light and easily adaptable to your family's preferences. I vary the pasta in it and often make it with leftover plain spaghetti noodles or even broken lasagna noodles. I also vary the dressing, sometimes using honey mustard and omitting the honey from the recipe or using italian, omitting the poppy seeds, and adding celery seeds.

Chicken and Pasta Salad

1 package pasta, uncooked
1 to 1 1/2 c buttermilk dressing
1/4 c honey
1/4 to 1/2 tsp poppy seeds
2 c chicken, cooked and chopped (I use leftover chicken or turkey and canned even works and creates no extra heat)
1 c grapes, quartered
1/3 c red onions, chopped
1/2 to 1 cup raw snow peas
chopped nuts or seeds (sunflower seeds are excellent)

Cook pasta as directed on package and drain. Stir together salad dressing, honey, and poppy seeds in a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, combine pasta, chicken, grapes, onion, and snow peas. Sometimes I add in roasted red pepper at this point, also. Add the dressing from the small bowl and blend well. Salt and Pepper if desired. I also add garlic powder to mine. Cover and chill several hours. Sprinkle with nuts or seeds before serving. This is great with crusty rolls and butter.

Corn-Squash Bake

I still don't feel well but needed to make the Corn-Squash Bake I started last night so I did that. I also made stir fried garlic green beans with beans from the garden and baked new Yukon Gold potatoes, also from the garden. Rarely do I eat potatoes and even more rarely do I eat them two days in a row but since my throat feels like it's on fire and eating is very difficult, I'm happy to be able to choke anything down and soft food is all I can eat.

We're not big on casseroles, in general, but this one is very easy, tasty and frugal, especially if you have a garden with squash, corn and onion. The recipe is from the More With Less Cookbook by Doris Janzen Longacre.

Corn-Squash Bake

Preheat oven to 350.

Cut in 1 inch rounds:
3-4 medium zucchini squash or other summer squash, unpeeled.


Cook in small amount of water until tender. (This time I
cooked the onion with the zucchini)



Drain and mash with a fork.

Saute:
1 T butter
1 small onion, chopped



Combine:
mashed squash
sauteed onion
2 cups corn (Tonight I used canned, though I normally use fresh or frozen)
1 cup shredded Swiss Cheese (I used Colby Jack cheese tonight)
1/2 t. salt
2 beaten eggs

Turn into 1 qt greased casserole.

Combine and sprinkle on top:
1/4 c dry bread crumbs (I used cracker crumbs tonight)
2 T grated Parmesan cheese
1 T melted butter

Place casserole on baking sheet and bake for 40 minutes.



When cooked, let stand 5-10 minutes before serving. Normally, it comes out a little prettier, but one of the kids checked it while it was cooking and stirred it around then patted it back down, thinking I wouldn't be able to tell. Kids! ;)

There's just enough of it left for one or two of us to have it for lunch tomorrow. And this dish freezes very well, so if your family likes it, make a double or triple batch and freeze the remainder for a future meal or two.

Greens with Parmesan Cheese...

Our garden fresh dinner tonight turned out to be scrumptious! We had corn on the cob (bought on sale at the local grocery), salad made with leaf lettuce and carrot from the grocery and tomatoes, cucumber, green pepper and onion from the garden, boiled new Yukon Gold potatoes from the garden with butter, garlic, pepper and parsley, and kale and beet leaves from the garden. Rather than eat the salad I just had some cucumber and green pepper and a leftover beet from the garden. It was a frugal and healthy meat-free dinner and we all enjoyed it.

For those of you who haven't grown kale because you weren't sure what to do with it or for those who have seen it at the market but didn't buy it because you weren't sure what to do with it, we eat it as a salad green and cooked. We like it both ways but my favorite is cooked. I found a hand full of beet leaves in the fridge tonight and cooked those with the kale-don't be afraid to mix greens!

To cook kale or beet greens or swiss chard, I just wash and trim the leaves, leaving the stems but cutting the excess off from the bottom of the leaves. I put it into a skillet with a little bit of water, some onion, garlic or garlic powder, salt, pepper, whatever seasoning I'm in the mood for, and cook it lightly until it's not crunchy but not totally limp either, about 10 minutes.


Then I drain the liquid and add some Parmesan cheese, fresh if I have it, dried if I don't. I've also used other cheeses with it and they're all good!



I let it sit just a few minutes until the cheese is good and melted and then serve. It's a very tasty dish and beet leaves, chard, and other greens are excellent cooked this way, too.

If you haven't tried greens cooked this way, give it a shot! Even those who don't like greens might enjoy this dish.

This morning's garden goodies

This morning we got a nice little haul from the garden. We got several new Yukon Gold potatoes, some zucchini, some cucumbers, a few Sweet 100 tomatoes, two Homestead tomatoes, one Roma tomato, and a hand full of green beans.

Since I'm not feeling well (strep and all that) dinner tonight is something simple and easy;salad, corn on the cob, boiled new potatoes with butter and parsley, and green beans. Hopefully I'll be able to enjoy it, thanks to Vicodin from the physician!

Summer and pasta salads - they go together

With summer upon us, it's time for meals that require minimal cooking and are light and easy. Although I don't eat a lot of pasta, I really like it and enjoy it now and then. I've found that whole wheat and soy pastas spike my blood sugar less so that's what I generally use.

Over the next few days I'll post some of my favorite pasta recipes for Spring and Summer, starting with my all time favorite pasta salad, Perpetual Pasta.

The key to this being a great pasta salad is to keep the sauce refrigerated in a container with a lid and just add more cooked pasta. I use the same sauce for my garden vegetables, adding zucchini, bell peppers, cucumber, onions and tomatoes as they come from the garden. Now and then I add to the salad or to the marinated vegetable container some sliced black olives, artichoke hearts, hearts of palm, or whatever else I can get at a good price. This is such a versatile recipe..make it your own!

Perpetual Pasta

Sauce:
3/4 c. vinegar
1/2 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 c. sugar or other sweetener (I use Splenda and use much less than what's listed)
1 tbsp. salt
1 tbsp. celery seed

Boil pasta to your liking, drain it, rinse it if you like and add the sauce to it. Mix well and eat warm or cold. Store in closed container in fridge.

Pick Texas

Speaking of fresh fruit and vegetables, Pick Texas is the only site you need to help you know what produce to buy, when to buy it, and how to find the freshest of it. If you live in Texas, that is...

Brought to you by the Texas Department of Agriculture, this is one handy reference list!

Friday morning garden pickins..

We're leaving in awhile for a family reunion in Marthaville, Louisiana and won't be back until Sunday so I leave you all with this photo of what came from our garden this morning;one cucumber, quite a few onions, a few Sweet 100 tomatoes, and a few beets. Hopefully when we return Sunday there will be a lot more to pick.




My vegetables usually come from my own garden but sometimes they come from the local farmer's market, too. Support your local farmer's market!

Fresh from the garden!

We got a few things from the garden today; a hand full of green beans, an onion, two zucchini, two cucumbers, some kale and chard leaves and a hand full of Sweet 100 tomatoes. The green beans and greens have been washed, cut and put in bags in the fridge and most of the tomatoes have been eaten. Here's a picture of the rest of it:



Things are finally starting to ripen, get large enough, and just generally be ready to be picked. We have so many tomatoes and cucumbers coming and there's even another yellow squash growing and so far it isn't mushy. I just love fresh produce from my own garden!

Garden today - oh, so close!

We're so close to having vegetables just flooding us! Unfortunately, it looks as though just as some plants are about to really come in well, others aren't going to make it. The squash plants that have been producing the bad squash don't appear to be improving at all and the plant that produced the almost ripe Sweet 100s I blogged about a few days ago doesn't look like it's going to survive, either. In fact, most of the container vegetables on that side of the yard look bad but the container vegetables on the other side look fine. Hmmmmm

Anyway, here are a few pictures of what I see today in our planting tables...


Tiny zucchini on the vine


Sweet 100 tomatoes and corn in a planting table


Onions and peas, looking so good!


Close up of a green bean


A longer shot of the beds


Fat Mean Beans!!


Very tiny cucumbers - look close and you can see them!


A nice cucumber, soon to be headed to our dinner table


Very tiny butternut squash

As a side note, tonight's dinner wasn't too exciting. We had fried chicken from the local grocery deli. I hate to admit it, but they have the best fried chicken in this one horse town.

Garden pickins are comin' in! And what's for dinner

I had my first ripe Sweet 100 cherry of the season this morning. It was so warm and sweet and delicious! More are ripening so soon we'll have plenty of tomatoes for our salads.

My other half picked a small cucumber and a small zucchini for me this morning and I'll have them tomorrow for lunch. Every day now we get a few green beans. Today we got enough to put a meal's worth in the freezer. We don't bother to blanch them because they won't be in there long at all!

Yep, it's all starting to come in. Before long I might be too busy canning and freezing to post here. ;) Naw, that won't happen!

Tonight's dinner was a beef roast with carrots and mashed potatoes. It was a very good roast because I used the Cook's Choice Brisket Seasoning on it. Yummy and there's just enough left for my lunch tomorrow.

Sittin' Chicken and roasted vegetables

is one of my favorite dishes, chicken roasted on the Sittin' Chicken. I still have the older version of the Sittin' Chicken, the one without the holes. I've heard that the new one is much better and I'll get one but until I do, my old one is sufficient.

I have to tell you that cooking a chicken this way produces the juiciest, most tender and flavorful chicken I've ever eaten, bar none. And vegetables cooked with the chicken are incredible! Even veggie haters often like them when cooked this way. I did something a little different tonight, though. Instead of putting the vegetables in at the beginning of the cooking as I usually do, I steamed the carrots and green beans for a few minutes and added them about 20 minutes before the chicken was done. The result was better than usual! The vegetables weren't at all dry and there was zero shriveling. They still looked garden fresh and had the great flavor of the seasoning I used on the chicken.

Here are a few pictures of the process to make a Sittin' Chicken:


I rinse and pat dry the chicken


Then I season it. The seasoning used varies but today I used Cook's Choice Brisket Seasoning. We love the stuff on poultry!


I spray the Sittin' Chicken well with vegetable spray. That makes the chicken oh so easy to remove and makes the Sittin' Chicken oh so easy to clean. Into the Sittin' Chicken I put about a cup and a half of water, some Knorr brand chicken bouillon, garlic powder, crushed red pepper and black pepper. After making sure it's well mixed, I plopped the bird onto the Sittin' Chicken and stuffed the end with a small onion fresh from the garden. I put it in 13 x9 baking pan, put some potatoes (canned since the bag of Yukon Golds we bought at the grocery store Friday apparently didn't make it home with us), carrots, and green beans in with it, seasoned those lightly with the Brisket Rub and put it all in a 350 degree oven.


And here's the finished product - what a bird!

Things are poppin'!

Oh boy, things are lookin' great! Here's most of our garden as of yesterday afternoon and this morning. How is your garden growing?



Almost ripe Sweet 100 tomatoes - just a couple but more are right behind!


Upside down Sweet 100 plant - this one has no ripe ones yet


A sweet little zucchini!


Three bell peppers growing here


Romas growing on the vine. Sweet!


Here are some beets and beans in one of the planting tables


And here we have corn, beets, and more in another planting table


A mess of beans and peas!


Onions and peas in a planting table


Tomatoes and corn, growing beautifully


And for something a little different, some Black Magic Elephant Ears

Something's wrong with my squash plants

Two of them, anyway. The squash fruit are mushy and almost moldy looking on the end. Here's a picture of a 2 inch long squash I picked just a few minutes ago.



Although I found Squash Bugs on another plant across the yard, I see no evidence of them on the plant that produced this thing. The leaves aren't the best looking, though. They're kind of brownish. Maybe it's Squash Vine Borer. Whatever it is, I need it to go away and fast.

I posted a message about it at gardenweb.com and included a photo. Maybe someone there can help me identify the issue and I can figure out what to do about it.

How disappointing! I love squash and was looking forward to a nice big harvest of it.

Okay, I just read up on this and it looks as though the squash might not have been pollinated well. I'm going to see what else I can learn about that.

I ate the two beets from the garden

last night and they were the best I've ever eaten. I say that every time I eat a new beet from my garden and every time I say it, I mean it. There's something so fresh, so savory, so... healing about eating something you've grown yourself. It's a remarkable experience each and every time.

I had boiled the beets earlier in the day and put them in a bowl on top of the stove. Last night I stood on the porch with a salt shaker and ate them like one would eat a fresh tomato. I didn't peel them (I never do) and I didn't use a fork. I simply took a bite, added a little salt, took another bite, added a dash of salt until both beets were gone.

This morning I watered the garden and marveled at the increase in size of the green beans, bell peppers and corn in just two days. Unfortunately, the fire ants have discovered the plants, also, so it's time to put out diatomaceous earth and that should tend to the little plant killers. Tonight I'll cut some of the stems from the onions and put that in our beet green, kale, and chard salad. Soon we'll have tomatoes to add to it. Yum!