Cucumber lineup

It's the whole family! :-)

A "Summery" of the Garden

Here are some updated pictures of the garden!

The beans in the new bed in front of the house (I'm not sure what possessed me to want to plant more beans!!)

The potatoes (they're really small, I know. The soil has some deficiencies, but we'll work on building it up)

Romaine lettuce, yellow zucchini, volunteer zucchini and pole beans

Swiss chard! I planted a variety called "bright lights" and it's very pretty, with yellow, red, pink, purple and green stems/veins on the various plants.

 Onions, marigolds and beets

Basil and onions

Carrots and tomatoes!

Peppers and cukes (LOTS of cukes!)

 The new bed in back (we put a row cover on it for a little while) with kale and lettuce

 I tried sun-drying some kale to make kale chips. It worked pretty well until it started getting windy and blowing the dried kale away! I had to finish them in the dehydrator.

 It's an apple. It's an alien. It's kohlrabi!

The lettuce out back

This tomato looks like three growing together!

 Spinach (I'm surprised that this spinach actually grew over the summer! I guess it was cool enough for it up here)

I'm currently harvesting cucumbers every day, and yellow zucchini every other day or so. The beans are slowing down a bit, thankfully (since we have PLENTY of them already!). We have enough lettuce for us to eat about 10 salads per day...  most of the broccoli is in and processed, along with the cauliflower... what else. Oh yeah! We made our first batch of basil pesto! It is SOOO delicious. I should pick more of that soon. Anyways... let's just say I'm almost a vegetarian these days. :-) I even brought in a head of cabbage yesterday. That is significant because I thought that the cabbages were goners due to the out-of-control cabbage worms.

I'm happy that our garden this year has been very rewarding. We are greatly blessed with lots of produce!!

Just a Peek!

It's hard to capture the summertime in photos (especially at my house! ;-). Here's an attempt at it, in any case. Enjoy the pictures!

I went for a walk one of the two dirt roads that connects my house's road to the main route. It's actually rather scenic all year round, but the summer greenery and wildflowers add a lot to it.

On the way...

One of the splendid views along the way.

The road home.

A fine specimen of a butterfly

Queen Anne's lace

The little pond by the road.

In another post I will have photos of my "exploding" garden!  Let's just say we've put away enough beans (pole beans and bush beans) for... well, maybe two or three winters? :-) And with over 40 kale plants, which are all ready to be harvested, kale chips are definitely on the menu!

Garden greens

Nothing like a fresh-picked mesclun salad...

...with garlic scapes and homemade lettuce/scape pesto!

My week in a few Words

When I don't have much time to write a full-blown post but I still want to update the blog, I may occasionally write a post that just summarizes what I've been up to lately. Stay tuned for posts expounding on the details!

Summer. Biking. Gardening. Friends. Church. Bible studies. Studying. Prayer. Birthdays. Volleyball. CYIA. CEF. Camp. Packing. Last minute. Clothes. Bonfire. Goji berries. Cocoa nibs. Sunshine. Enjoyment. Scripture.

How would you describe your week in a few words?

"No Healthy Diet" website plug

Recently I wrote a post for a blog that a friend of mine started. The blog focuses on maintaining a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free healthy diet. You can find recommendations, recipes and products, along with some tips for avoiding foods containing allergens. I hope you check it out! The blog gets updated several times a week. It's an excellent resource to be aware of, whether you can use the information yourself, or know someone who has an allergy to dairy, gluten and/or soy.

Can you spot the common allergens in this photo? :-)

 http://nohealthydiet.com/
And here's the link to the post that I wrote:
http://nohealthydiet.com/healthy-diet-plan/essentials-for-a-healthy-diet/

P.S. I am going to post photos of our family's garden as soon as I get our camera back! :-)

What's Cookin'?

A few weeks ago we got a big box of utility apples from the orchard in town. I decided I was going to make a few things with them. Here are a couple photos from the The Big Baking Day. :-)

Pie #1: 

Pre- top crust

(enlarged to show texture)

Ingredients: A boatload of apples, some honey, a dash of cloves, a pinch of allspice, a sprinkle of nutmeg, a little bit of stevia (and two whole wheat/butter crusts). Recipe? What recipe?! :-)

 An apple peeler/corer/slicer is an amazing gadget. :-)

The apples bowl. Phew, that was a lot of apples!

The crust is on and about to be baked! Unfortunately I have no other photos of this particular pie... I put it out for dessert on Sunday and it completely disappeared. :-) I'm glad my first pie was edible! 

Pie #2:

The final product

Pie #3:

I made this cake gluten free. I tried using quinoa and coconut oil for the crust.

I'll need to do a bit more experimentation in the future... it is (or was) still really good, though, as evidenced by this photo.

It went very well with homemade yogurt. :-)

A couple more experimental apple creations:

And that's how I spent my Saturday. :-) I used up the entire box of apples. Phew!