fresh from the garden

YUM !!!! So far all we are getting is lettuce in our garden. But that's OK with me. It means fresh salad greens every night. And all the kids like the idea of eating something we have grown ourselves.
I am slowly branching out from the ONE DISH meal (aka casserole). I am able to get a little more time in the kitchen preparing for the family. One of my favorite casseroles is homemade mac and cheese. I hide a little butternut squash in there and always add broccoli if I have it on hand. Working my hardest to serve healthy foods to my family. I even have started making my own salad dressing.

EDAMAME !!!!

My new favorite food from the fresh farm produce. I LOVE it. I had never had it before this year and it has been fun to try something new. I wasn't sure what to do with it. I figured I could cook it up (I use either the microwave or steam or boil it). Then I let it cool a tiny bit and then I enlist the girls for their help. They race to see who can pop it out of the pods the fastest. The looser sets the table.
I have done my usual with it. Stir fry some other veggies ( squash - I have gotten TONS of that this year) and onions. Toss it with whole wheat pasta add the edamame and spinach and top with cashews. For flavor we add soy sauce.



I seriously LOVE this dish. It is yummy. It has a Chinese food taste, and the edamame adds a nutty flavor. Even the kids like it. If my goal for joining the farm produce was to get me to try new things, than it has worked. I now am a fan of edamame.

Comfrey Salve

One of the reasons I joined the crop share (HERE) this year was to force me into trying new things. I knew it would get me out of my comfort zone and help me to take more chances in cooking. Little did I know I would also learn to make my own homemade medicine too.

One week with my produce, I got comfrey. I had no idea what it was or what to do with it. Often with the produce we get a little list of ideas or recipes that might be worth trying. That week included a recipe for COMFREY SALVE. So, what the heck. I thought I would give it a try.

The recipe I had calls for:

Comfrey Salve:

1/2 cup Vaseline
1/2 cup beeswax
1/2 cup chopped comfrey leaf

Wash and cut the comfrey leaves into small pieces (use scissors to dice them up rather small).


In a double broiler melt the beeswax and the Vaseline.

Add the comfrey leaves and allow them to steep for several hours on very low heat (another option is to place the pan of leaves and wax in the sun on a very hot day and allow it to steep this way.


Strain the salve thru a piece of cheese cloth and store it back in the Vaseline jar.


This is the best salve you will ever use...it stops itching immediately even on chigger bites and heals cuts very quickly.
As for a testimonial of the comfrey salve and how well it works. It does really help with the itchy bites. I just used it on ant bite (not fire ant) and it worked great. We have been using it on mosquito bites and it is working well. It is a little waxy, I might use more Vaseline next time.

And when I was making it, I thought it smelled a little medicinal, so I added some mint, chocolate mint and lavender that I had. Now it smells better. Last little note, it is really waxy when you are making it and it is hard to get your pot clean. I should have used a pan just for crafty things like this (and it splattered up on my shirt and is hard to get it out). But all in all, it was a good experiment. Again, I LOVE learning new things. Who knew I would learn to make homemade medicine.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

So honestly, you can't really taste the zucchini in these cookies, they are moist and have more of a cake consistency than regular chocolate chip cookies. If you don't tell your kids, they may never know that you are sneaking in a healthy veggie in their cookies.



I doubled this recipe because I had a HUGE zucchini and it was enough for a double batch. I started off by shredding the zucchini to see how much I had to work with. But here is what the recipe calls for...

1/2 C sugar
1 egg
1/2 C butter
1 C grated zucchini
2 C flour (I used fresh ground soft flour)
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t cloves
1 C chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar together, combine dry ingredients, blend together and stir in zucchini and then chocolate chips. Chill dough for one hour ( I even did mine over night) and bake at 375 for 8-10 min.

I tried baking mine on a stone and then moved to parchment paper. It worked better on the paper and regular tray. And I am still getting used to my oven and it took longer than 10 min. for min. Closer to 12-14 min., but my cookies were pretty big.

Sunday Salad Spectacular (and a scooter update)

This one is a little bit of a salad stretch...but I wanted to share it anyway. And again, I am not sure what to call it. Maybe Tuna Salad Topper (maybe Chuck can help with a creative name).

I learned this from some friends that were from England. If I remember correctly, they said it was common to find a baked potato cart (like a hot dog cart) where you could put different toppings on your potato. It all sounded yummy until they mentioned tuna. That's right...TUNA SALAD on a baked potato.

Let me just say...give it a try. It is actually pretty good. Here we have a baked potato (cooked in the microwave, so it is fast and doesn't heat up the kitchen) and yummy toppings. I topped it with tuna (I like the foil package tuna flavored like herb and garlic), cheese, tomatoes and green onions.

I made this twice this week for lunch when Chuck was home. It sounds kind of odd, but it is surprisingly tasty.

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And just one quick note...the scooter that was stolen last week has been found and is home. It looks like some kids took it and joy rode it (scratches all down the side). What a blessing to have this answer to prayer. Thanks for praying for us. Someone called the police after seeing it behind a vacant building here in our town. Bummer no finger prints were found on it and we don't know who took it (nor will they get punished for it). But alas...it is home.

Sunday Salad Spectacular

Wanted to pass on a recipe (that I kind of made up) for a warm salad. Not sure quite what to call it, I should ask Chuck to come up with a good name, he is creative. This idea came from trying to mix up some of our produce from our crop share program that I mentioned earlier. One of the reasons I wanted to do this crop share, was to force me to widen my recipe repertoire.

I made some bow tie pasta to use as a main filler (to make the meal stretch).

I cooked up some red potatoes and green onions with oil (or butter) and tossed with fresh rosemary. To make this go a little faster I cooked them in the microwave for a few min. (They almost had the consistency of breakfast potatoes).
I add these to toasted pine nuts, raisins, and a diced cooked chicken breast, cooked broccoli (or asparagus). Then I added fresh greens and tossed with olive oil and grated fresh Parmesan cheese.

I have made this a few times now and everyone seems to love it. I think the pine nuts really make it taste great. Hope you are inspired.