tradition

We do not celebrate holiday's like most people do therefore have very few traditions for any of them. For turkey day we have one tradition...

Happy Thanksgiving ya'll

fall veggies and a simple supper

Yesterday afternoon I needed a break from school work so headed to the gardens to walk through and enjoy them in the cool fall drizzle. While down there I decided these four heads of broccoli were done growing so I harvested them, thinned out one of the carrot beds, plucked some green onions, pulled a few peas, and ripped out some salad greens. The old saying of not going to the grocery store hungry also holds true for heading to the gardens. The only difference is you spend no money in doing so and the guilt does not come into play as it may in a store.

The only logical dinner I could think to make with the haul was pasta primavera in an alfredo sauce as it was nearly complete with my pickins. The only thing I needed to add to finish dinner was some pasta and a little bit of sauce to make it a meal. Veggies cost me nothing, pasta was about $.50, and the ingredients for the sauce were under a buck. It took me longer to chop the veggies than it did to cook and it made for a nice healthy meal. The recipe below is for 6 people as a main dish. While I used carrots, peas, and broccoli as my veggies, cauliflower, corn, mushrooms and summer squash also go nicely in the dish. Frozen veggies can be used in place of the fresh and the meal would still be a budget friendly option. Canned or fresh chicken or hams chunks also make a nice addition to the meal but are not needed to make it a more filling dinner for the meatosaurs among us.

pasta primavera alfredo
1 pound pasta (of your choosing)
5 cups of veggies sliced thin
1 onion (diced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 oz cream cheese
2 oz butter
1 cup milk
1/3 cup parmesan cheese
2 tsp flour

cook pasta as directed adding the veggies for the last 3-5 minutes of cooking. While pasta is cooking, in a sauce pan add butter, onion and garlic and saute to bring out the flavors of the onion and garlic. Add the flour and mix well. Slowly add the milk sour cream and cream cheese and heat until cheese melts and sauce thickens a bit, then add the parmesan. Drain pasta and mix the sauce with pasta, stir and serve.Add salt and pepper to taste.

harvest upside down cake

We love our sweet treats around here and those that are quick and easy to make are my favorite. Upside down or dump cakes are some of my favorites to make. I will even use a store bought mix of GMO goodness to make these cakes just to make them easier yet. However, you can make your own spice cake mix and simply omit all the liquids if you prefer. One thing I really like about these cakes is they are great for in the woods gatherings and cook very well in dutch ovens or baked conventionally.

For this cake you can either used canned apples (not pie filling) or fresh apples (with a bit of lemon and 1/2 cup simple syrup added). If using canned apples use two cans including liquid. If using fresh apples I use 6 cups of apple slices. Dump into the bottom of a 13x9 pan. Add any other fruits you want, cranberries and raisins go well. Pour one box of spice cake mix evenly over apples. Melt 3/4 cup of butter and drizzle over the cake mix. Top with either chopped pecans or walnuts and bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes. Serve warm or cold with either whip cream or ice cream.

monday's mountain musings

Sorry for the week long break between posts again! School is winding down another semester and I had my first BIG paper to be finishing the rough draft on last week. The weather has been beautiful so spare time was spent piddling about out doors and I was in one of my unsociable funks and could find nothing I felt like writing about. I did, however, scratch thoughts on paper scraps and took pictures of stuff that caught my eye for posts this week when it is supposed to rain at least 4 of the next 5 days.

The gardens are doing well and we are now eating fresh broccoli, carrots, greens of all sorts, onions, peas, turnips and very soon to be cabbage. Some of the cabbage is taking longer than expected due to low light issues. As soon as we can get the frame to the fifth wheel that we dismantled moved. There will be some major tree trimming going on in order to open that area of the garden back up. I do not know if we will be getting any cabbage from that area of the garden before the deep of winter sets in or if once it does I can keep them alive. The other end of the garden however, is doing very well so we have been eating fresh broccoli for the last week and the two rows of cabbage on that end are very near harvesting, so we will still get a decent haul from them.
The hens are starting to slow down for the winter on their egg production but we will have plenty of eggs stored back to get us through the winter months. We do not provide lighting in the coop for them this time of year for cost reasons but also because we do not believe in babying the animals much. They get warm, comfy, clean housing and fresh food and water. Beyond that they have no other amenities. We still have about half of the girls laying regularly so we get about 5 eggs a day at present. Still plenty for the two of us and the dogs eggs. The other day I went to collect eggs and found this ginormous bugger in the nest! POOR HEN! Most of our eggs are large to extra large this one was XXXL and not surprisingly it contained two yolks.