Freezing green beans

I have done this for the past couple of years and fell in love with this method of freezing green beans. 

Wash the beans and cut off both ends, just like you see on the picture below.  

Fill a pot with water and bring it to boil. Place the beans into the boiling water and press start on a 3 minute timer right away.

In the mean time, prepare a bowl with ice cold water where you will transfer the beans right away after the 3 minute timer beeps. Keep the water cool, you might have to add cold water or ice. You are trying to keep the beans from continuing the boiling process.

After you cooled your beans down, put them in labeled ziplock bag. I don't own food vacuum sealer so I use the straw method. you seal the ziplock bag until there is a tiny hole that you can only fit the straw thru and begin to suck air out of the bag until it looks "vacuumed".

This will assure you don't get freezer burn. Now that that's done, I can go on to do the same thing with my edamame. 

Old fashion catapult fun

Sometimes we come across the best books in our library. One of them is "How things work in the house" by Lisa Campbell Ernst. The kids are obsessed with this book. They looked thru it about million times and every time they do, they come up to me and ask to make a project they are showing on one of the pages. On the page about Spoons, there was a catapult made out of a plastic spoon and a piece of wood. Since we had all the supplies, I couldn't say no. And the fact that we used marshmallows could not have been any better for the kids. Try it! I guarantee you hours of laughter!

Enjoying some new friendships

Isn't it a blessing when you meet new friends? The other day I got finally together with a woman whom I have been seeing at several kids activities around our town and never got a chance to hang out with. My kids have been asking for play dates with her kids forever now, so finally this seemed like the best time to get together. Everyone had a great time... and you just never know what new things you can learn from new people. We bonded over some delicious muffins and home made lemonade. God bless new friendships :-)

Loving zucchini

This year I am a huge fan of this side dish - summer squash (or zucchini) with spices and parmesan cheese. I just simply cut the zucchini into cubes and put it on a pen with a little bit of olive oil. Then I sprinkle some garlic salt and oregano over it and slowly stir it while the heat is on medium. Now it's ready to be eaten! I just sprinkle some parmesan cheese on top and enjoy this delicious veggie either as a side dish or as a main meal if I am not too hungry.

Spearmint oil made easy

I am currently reading soap making books and I can't wait until I will be able to make my own soap. Playing with the ingredients and fragrance is my idea of having fun ;-) One of my favorite aromas is spearmint. I happen to have the spearmint plant growing in my garden so all I need is to turn it into oil to use it in my soap. And here is how I did that.

First I picked fresh, good looking spearmint leaves and rinsed them out. 

Next I stuffed the leaves into a dark glass bottle.

Then I poured a high grade olive oil over it. I filled up the bottle to the top.

Close the bottle with a lid and let it sit by a window for 3 days. 

After the 3 days I took gauze and poured the oil thru it into another glass dish to get rid of the leaves and then returned the finished oil back into the dark glass bottle, which helps it keep fresh and protects the oil from deteriorating in reaction to sunlight. Also you should know that essential oils should not be stored in plastic containers because the chemicals in the oils will react with and partially dissolve the plastic, which will then get into your oil.

Potato harvest

As we are coming to the end of the summer season, things are slowly disappearing from the garden. For example, my potato bed is empty by now, which makes for a really early season, considering that usually potatoes stay till at least September.

Look at these beauties I dug up couple days ago. We had 2 dinners out of this bowl and I dug up 2 more dinners couple weeks before that. 

I am pretty sure you can see that I made one huge mistake this year while I was setting these potatoes up in the garden. If not, I will give you a hint - notice their size. Many of them are too small. Apparently, you are suppose to pile a huge amount of soil around the the plants when they are just about 8-10 inches high. This will help the plant to form tubers deeper in the soil and the potatoes will have enough space to grow bigger. They like their space nice and deep, as much as possible. 

This is my potato bed with the spuds in the ground. This was the first year for this bed. I left the seed potatoes in a cool dry place for about 2 to 3 weeks and when the sprouts were about 2 inches long I planted them outside into the soil.

Here I took a picture of the plants way past their "pilling" period. I also read that you could cover them with hay, which will make it difficult for any ground traveling beetles to get to them. Something I will try next year as well.

This is how my potato bed looks today. You can start harvesting potatoes as soon as the plants start dying over. They will turn yellow brown and fall over. That is the right time to dig them up. You can dig up only few and leave the rest of them in, if you wish but don't wait too long because they might start sprouting again.

Good luck to you!

Fancy Nancy inspired

What little girl doesn't like the story of Fancy Nancy? The fabulous little girl, who loves everything French, fancy, and sparkly. My little girl sure loves her and we read Fancy nancy books often ( boy, am I glad our library has a great supply of them because otherwise my account would literally pay for it ;-)

If you are not familiar with this story, you should know that Fancy Nancy has this fabulous pink clubhouse in her backyard, made entirely from fabric. Both of my kids have been asking me whole winter to build one like that in our yard and I finally got to it the other day. It didn't take that long and the kids' reaction was worth all the sweating!

During projects like this I am glad that I am such a little hoarder and collect everything possible that has something to do with crafting. It so happens that I had lots of different kinds of fabric stashed on a shelf in my craft room and I could finally put it to good use.

Now the only issue was to find the right spot. T had an excellent idea to tie one end of the string to the tree and the tree house. And luckily I had enough fabric for that big of a stretch. And then all it took was hammering the pole into the ground, wrapping the string around that and it all created a triangle which allowed me to drape the fabric over for a small "roof". 

Clothes pins are the magic things that are holding it all together. And I should mention something that they don't show you in the book - and that is how to deal with an extremely high winds ;-) Oh yes, I had to run around a bit, try to catch the fly away fabric. But extra clothes pins was all I needed (I wonder if the neighbors were having a ball watching me run around like that).

Isn't this an awesome place to hang out?

Rain tangled with the family

I don't remember last time it was raining all day non stop. I have to say I enjoyed hanging out with the family, laying in bed, playing games, and watching Tangled in the afternoon. (Isn't Rapunzel awesome? She is my new favorite princess! And Mandy Moore gives her such a nice touch! Ok I am rambling now but really! B and I are smitten by her)

I was trying to get popcorn ready but ended up burning both batches. We don't own microwave for many years now and I found some good recipes how to pop the corn in the pot. I did this million times before and it always worked out but today just wasn't the popping luck on my side I guess. I got pretty upset about that... I din't hear the kids asking for popcorn after that - I can only assume they knew better ;-) We had peanuts instead and they enjoyed the full bowl. 

Now they are sleeping and I am sitting here with my porch door open, listening to magic sound of rain. It is very precious to me this year since there was hardly any and our grass and yard can show for that. I better stop my post right here and go work on the never ending homeschooling curriculum for this year. I set my goal to finish 3 more weeks by tomorrow night so we can send out files for printing. I can't wait to have a button from my other blog that I am sharing with my sister-in-law. Then you can see some of the work we do with the kiddos.
happy rainy Sunday!

How to freeze basil with parmesan

Basil is one of my favorite herbs. It has incredibly rich and spicy flavor and it can be used in many recipes. I grow it in my garden every year and at the end of the season I try to preserve as much of it as I can. Last year I found out that the best way to preserve it is by freezing it together with the ever flavorful parmesan cheese. This way the two absorb each other's flavor and you end up with a tasty ingredients for your culinary creation.

Pick the bigger and medium leaves that look healthy. This way the smaller leaves that are developing will have a chance to grow bigger. Wash them and prepare your parmesan - grate it if you have to. I buy my raw in Trader Joe's.

I use big yogurt cup for storage but you can use any other plastic container that will fit all your ingredients. Start with a layer of parmesan.

Then chop the basil leaves up into smaller pieces and place layer on top of the parmesan. 

Repeat the layers till you use up all your basil...or run out of space.

Last, close up the cup and write the description. Don't forget the date, this will last in your freezer for about 6 months. I was using it longer and it was still fine.

You can use it as Pizza topping, or as an ingredient in your pasta sauce. 

Make your own fruit water

What is the best way to refresh our bodies during hot summer days? For me it is definitely water! But after drinking it all day every day, I get bored, don't you? I start craving juices and pop but I know that is not the healthy answer. Then we started occasionally going to The Standard Market for dinners and I got hooked on their fruit water. They have four different barrels full of water and fresh fruit or veggies. This way the water gets flavor from the particular fruit without being overly sweet and unhealthy. Here are the simple steps for you to enjoy this treat and also some combinations I tried:

This one is Nectarine Mint Water

I used mason glasses (you can also use jars) because you can easily close them and place them safely into your fridge without spilling the contents. On the bottom place some fresh mint leaves first.

Follow them with cut up fresh nectarines.

... and put some ice cubes on top!

Pour water over the ingredients, close up with a lid and place them in the fridge overnight. They will really absorb the right amount of flavors, so make sure you make extra for yourself! My kids loved it too and they even got to eat the nectarines after we drank the water! They were nice, cold and fresh!

Some other combinations you could try are: watermelon/sage, watermelon/mint, peaches/mint, cucumber/thyme, lemon/strawberries, strawberries/mint. Those are the ones I tried but there are endless possibilities, go ahead, try some and share with us!

Turkey update

Look at them grow! Finally they seem like they are growing. For many weeks they looked like they were stuck in one place but now I see the difference.

Turkey says hi! He is clearly waiting to attack my camera.

And give it up for Thanksgiving, who is all better!You can still see the cut on his left foot but the good news is that he is walking again and growing at the same pace as his friend.

Ok, I have to leave because now they are both clearly planning an attack on my shining lens. (Did you notice someone stealing food in the background?) :-)

Fairy garden

We finally got around to build our fairy garden! I kept thinking where in the world would we do it without the dog digging thru it, the chickens and the turkeys stomp all over it and visitor kids destroying it! The perfect site was right in front of me! This wooden planter under a tree looked like the perfect location. These plants were placed in the pot last year, completely forgotten about, and hardly ever watered. That's why they are so small. I guess things happen for reason ;-)

First get your area nice and ready, remove all the weeds and add new soil if you need to.

Then help the kids decide what fairies need in order to enjoy your garden. Their first response was swimming pool! We added a plastic container that will serve that purpose. I am hoping to find a small ceramic one to give it a better look. We decorated the area with small pebbles we found on the Lake Michigan Beach earlier this summer.

Here comes the water!

Don't you just love garage sales? You junk becomes my treasure! And that is what happened to this small bird house we found with the kids at our neighborhood garage sale. And the name sounded so perfect for a fairy garden! The solar light came from Home Depot ;-) It is used for the night so fairies find their way back to us <3

The small cage came from the same garage sale. T is worried that the fairies might think it's a trap but I keep telling him that it's their garden house ;-)

Sorry for this blurry picture, but I tried to capture the garden at night, all lit up. It looks magical. And did you notice the small chair? lol - the kids found it in Target in their dollar section (it's really a cell phone holder) and they thought it would be a perfect lounge chair for the fairies. I was hoping for something wooden but you can't say no to those begging little eyes! Now we are looking up what fairies like to eat so they really like our garden the best!!!

Treating Thanksgiving's Bumble Foot

As you know from one of my previous posts, we now own two turkeys. I still have no idea what is the breed and I hope to find out because they are extremely calm and friendly and I am all of a sudden not so sure how will we ever eat them for Thanksgiving dinner. Especially after this happened.

One day my husband found "Thanksgiving" in the coup, sitting on the ground, trying to get up but couldn't. We found out his foot was swollen to triple the usual size and started to panic a bit. We were worried it might be the disease they could get from chickens and then die from it. After some research, we figured out it was no such thing, it was "only" Bumble Foot, which is a bacterial infection and inflammatory reaction on the feet of birds. It could be caused by a cut, which happened in our case. It got inflamed and the whole foot swelled up and he couldn't step on it. Thanks to some internet videos we found out how to treat it on our own. Here is us playing vets to Thanksgiving:

First, we filled up a bucket with warm water and poured Epson Lavender Salt in it. Then we dipped Thanksgiving in. He really enjoyed this soak, can you tell?

Next I had to dry him and make him feel comfortable so we can clean his wound and treat it. (I realized I am starting to call them "him"...) This position worked.

While I was holding him, my husband cleaned the wound with hydrogen peroxide and put some Neosporin cream on it to help with the infection. Then he wrapped it up in gauze. You have to change the gauze first every day but then when it gets better, once in two days is fine.

He built him a small shady shelter because the weather was terribly hot here. We gave him water and food right next to his head and were happy to find out that he had good appetite and started eating right away. You also have to put new hay under the bird daily because he is pooping in one spot, under himself. This is Thanksgiving panting in the heat.

Hubby even installed a fan in their coup.

And here is Turkey keeping him company. He didn't stop calling his friend the whole time we had him in a garage.

The sun doesn't always shine in my garden

Yesterday I had a nervous breakdown after going into my garden in the evening. I found so many of my plants somehow damaged or destroyed by rodents or bugs that I was sure I am done with organic gardening! (ok, I wasn't serious but I did feel pretty discouraged). Take a look at some of the damage.

All of my big tomatoes that were fairly close to the ground were eaten like this (and more). I am not sure but I thought it could have been chipmunk. I don't think rabbits would enjoy tomatoes. 

Another veggie that fell a victim to a chipmunk (or I thought), was my yellow summer squash. I would see a small squash and then the next day it would be chewed off together with some other buds.

My strawberries have been terrorized by the same critter for the past two years now and so I had to say enough! I had my husband build a mouse trap that is not dangerous to kids, and I decided that the chipmunk overstayed it's welcome and took a total advantage of my hospitality. He filled a bucket with water about 3/4 full, then he drilled holes close to the top (one on each side) to put a dolly thru and finally he put some peanut butter on a regular plastic water bottle, that he pulled thru the dolly. Now when the critter comes to get the peanut butter, it will jump on the bottle and that will spin with him sending him into the bucket. I am not a huge fan of this but something must be done and this worked for us before. And to my surprise we didn't catch a chipmunk, but a mouse! Things have been untouched for 2 days now ;-)

Here is an empty corner where I planted summer squash but I had to pull it out because it got squash vine borer. It is a white worm that crawls into the steam, near the roots, and the plant dies in only few days. I learned that if I would watch my plants daily and see the first signs, I could slice the steam, find the worm and remove it from the plant. Cover the cut steam with soil and water the area. That might help the plant to recover. I will try that next time.

A rabbit ate half of my edamame plants. My husband took care of that...

Bugs or caterpillars ate my spring veggies and beans as well. 

My friend Jen (whom you can visit here) told me about jar with soapy water that she keeps in the garden at all times. Instead of using bug spray, she just picks the insect of and puts them in the water. That has been pretty effective as well!

Another crop that came under attack are my cucumbers. I had great start with bunch of crop, and all of a sudden the plants got wilted and died. After doing some research, I found out that we were attacked by Striped Cucumber Beatle, which causes them to get bacterial wilt. I saw tons of those bugs on my plants and so I knew right away that was what happened. I had to pull them all out and now I am walking around with my soapy water everyday. So far no more casualties!

Also, if you have ear wigs or ants infestation, you can simply take black pepper you use in the kitchen and  sprinkle it on the problem area. That took care of it immediately.

Slugs will go for beer that you can place into a bowl and put that in your garden bed. It worked for me too.

Things are looking up for me again. There was so much work put into my garden and now with the weather being so hot and dry, these rodents were just the thing to push me over the edge. Today was the first day I didn't have to water at all as we had a storm coming thru last night, into the morning.