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Blueberry Cucumber Salad

Okay.. This was a total experiment but it was rather good.

The hot peppers gave it a real kick. It was nice to have the combination of hot and then the cool cucumber and berries. The blueberries were from our picking adventure. The cucumber was from the Farmer's Market. The garlic from my mom's garden. The dill was organic that I bought at our local co op.

Blueberry Cucumber Salad

Ingredients:

2 Cucumbers, chopped into bite size pieces

1/2 - 1 cup of blueberries

1 hot pepper, minced finely

3 cloves of garlic, minced finely

1 carrot - grated

1 tsp dill

1 tsp black pepper

1/4 c olive oil (or more as needed)

2 tbsp balsamic vinegar (or more as needed)

juice of 1 lime.

Directions:

Mix all of the ingredients together in a bowl. It is best to wait to add the oil, vinegar, and lime juice just shortly before serving. Enjoy.

Garden Update! Harvesting Purple Beans.

I was poking around looking in my bean pole and I could see the beginnings of some purple beans. Then as I looked closer I found these huge ones. They blended right in with the stems of the plants so I hadn't seen them before. As you can see, a few of them measured up to 8 inches long. I steamed some last night for dinner and they taste wonderful, however the longer you cook them the more green they turn. I made a wheat pasta dish with leftover pesto and steamed yellow squash from the Farmer's Market and my beans.

Farmer's Market Trip 7/26/08!

This week was a small trip. I had to take Zach with me and it's crazy there if you have to maneuver a stroller. Plus I got there late, so they were out of alot of stuff. I did get a cherry tomato hanging plant for $5.00 on the right.

In the other picture, I got some:

Romaine lettus, radishes, peaches, green peppers, cucumbers, yellow squash and 6 ears of corn on the cob. All total, with the tomato plant, I spent ~$20.00.

Blueberry picking.

We went blueberry picking on Sunday. Same crew as before: me, Zach, my sister and my niece. We had a great time. The blueberry patch was set back from the road, up on a hill and all around you could see farmland. It was a beautiful sunny day, with blue skies and white, fluffy clouds. You could sit right down near the bush and pick the berries. Zach would sit on my lap with me. I cannot even tell you how many blueberries that little guy ate. I didn't have my camera with me, which is a shame because I missed the cutest picture of him with his hat on, carrying his little pint container with some berries. They were only $2.50/lb and all the blueberries in the pictures only cost me $7.50. I think I want to make a blueberry sauce, some muffins and a cucumber/blueberry salad. I'll post all the recipes once I do. I also have some raspberry recipes to post.

Organic dairy! The first step.

So much to say on this subject. First of all, most all cows these days are injected with growth hormones. The main purpose for this is to make the cows produce more milk. Some will argue that this is more sustainable, which is bunk. What tends to happen, is that the cows will get mastitis (Inflammation of the nipples), and various other sicknesses requiring antibiotics. So, then they are administered antibiotics. All of this is passed on through the meat and dairy that we eat. With antibiotic resistance at an all time high, do we really want to set our kids up this early to being exposed to all of these antibiotics? With kids hitting puberty at earlier ages, do we want to expose them early to all these hormones?

Sure, we use hormones and antibiotics. There are downfalls to that to, despite the good things. Take a look at the ever popular HRT (hormone replacement therapy) for postmenapausal women... It's been shown to cause cancer at alarming rates.

I just ask that you all educate yourselves on this. If you make one organic change in your diet, make it meat and dairy. I made the commitment to give my son organic milk and soon as he turned 1 year and we stopped formula. The cost wasn't that much different. I figured I was spending about @25/week on formula. A gallon of organic milk runs me $6.00 and he goes through 1 /week right now. I'm even still getting ahead.

Pesto!

Okay... I'm way behind in my posts. We are currently putting a deck on our house. I've been waiting for this since 4 years ago when we moved in. So, Mike's time has been spent on that, which gives me custody of Zach all weekend. It's exhausting but more than that, I don't get very much time to have a single thought, let alone get on the computer.


So, I finally made the pesto using the basil from last week's farmer's market purchases. It was very tasty. I made some organic wheat pasta and mixed the pesto in it. I sprinkled a little bit of low fat cheese on it too, and served it with a salad.



It was very simple to make, although you really need a food processor, or a blender might work.

Here is the recipe:

Classic Pesto: (from homecooking.about.com)

2 tbsp coarsely chopped walnuts or pine nuts. (I used half and half)
2 garlic cloves, peeled
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 cups basil leaves (about 4 ozs)
1/2c (2 ozs) grated Parmesan Cheese
1/4 tsp salt

1. With the motor running, drop the pine/walnuts and garlic into the food processor. Process until finely minced.
2. Add the olive oil and pulse 3 times.
3. Add basil, parmesan cheese and salt.
4. Process until finely minced, scraping down sides.

You can also put in ice cube tray and freeze cubes for later use.

Here are the raspberries.

Raspberry picking.

Last week my sister texted me and asked if I had plans late Friday morning, Early afternoon. She had wanted to get together before she headed out to work. I had decided that I was going to take Zach raspberry picking. I was so glad when she accepted my invitation to come along because it would be hard to pick raspberries and keep my eye on him. He definately ate my money's worth in raspberries. They had 3 different colors and many different varieties. Purple, Red, and black. It was so much fun to pick them ourselves. Zach was a huge red mess when we left. It was a good deal too. $3.50/lb. 2 pints cost me $4.50. This is much less than if I had bought them at the Farmer's Market or the store. And they tasted so good. It was the first time I'd ever had purple or black raspberries. After we were done, we took the kids over to the petting zoo. My niece started doing some cartwheels that made Zach belly laugh. I get such a kick out of the things that amuse him.

The first picture is of my sister and Zach walking through the patch.This is Zach and my niece.

The big helper! Could only get that pacifier away when he was shoving raspberries in his face.

I have some pictures of the raspberries themselves, but the picture is at home and I am work, so I will post it later. They were pretty good size berries too. They grow until the fall, so I am hopeful to make many more trips. Blueberries are officially available for Upick now, so I can't wait to get some of those too. I have a recipe idea floating around in my head for the raspberries. I'm going to try it out and if it's any good, I'll pass it along.

My first batch of beans.

Just a quick note to say that my beans are growing fast and furious.

Below is a picture of them next to a medium size banana to give perspective.

I am so excited because my peppers are taking off!! I've got quite a few of them that are medium sized already. It's so exciting because we take for granted where our food comes from and the miracle of it growing from a seed.