Spoonless In Staunton

The past few days have been painful.  Hopefully the weather will turn around and we'll see some sunshine soon.  We tried to go peach picking yesterday but it turned out they were "between varieties"...  so we'll try again in a few weeks.  We did end up spending time with some great friends so it was a wonderful day despite the lack of spoons.

Managed to get 10 quarts of pickles and 20 quarts of beans canned this week - lack of spoons be damned.






Tomorrow is the 4th of July.  No big plans, but with any luck there will be a surprise spoon delivery and there will be much fun had by all.

The kids have started designing a new board game.  I'm really looking forward to testing this out and developing rules.  One rule that has already been offered up - parents aren't allowed to win.  At least they're still open to letting us play.

My little yogini decided to give herself a time out after having a spat with her little sister.
This is how I found her.

Trying to get them to like cabbage...

Today I was able to con the children into helping me wash the van as a way to cool off.  WIN!  And then I was stung on the top of my head by a bee.  Can't win them all I suppose.

Still looking for a way to get my favorites to enjoy cabbage.  This recipe is a small victory.  Piper cleaned her plate, Jeff said it was 'meh', and Sydney wouldn't touch it.  Better than the normal response.  I thought it was pretty tasty but then again I like cabbage pretty much any way its fixed.

Roasted Cabbage Steak:

Slice head of cabbage into "steaks" about an inch thick
Put them on a baking sheet.
I chose to put Olive Garden Italian dressing and a little bit of kosher salt on these and then bake them for 20 minutes at 400 degrees.  Then I turned them over, put a little more dressing on them and baked them for another 20 minutes.  When they were done I topped them with a zucchini and tomato sauce concoction.

Zucchini & Tomato Sauce Concoction:

1 Onion sliced
1 large zucchini chunked
Pasta sauce - all depends on how saucy you want your concoction to end up.

Saute onion in olive oil, once it starts to brown add the zucchini and cook until it is softened.  Add pasta sauce and cook until sauce is hot.

This is a terrible picture.  I really should have picked literally
 ANY other color plate.

Spaghetti Tacos

The kids have discovered thus fallen in love with iCarly.

This can only mean one thing... spaghetti tacos for dinner!

Spaghetti tacos for EVERYONE!

Lesson learned - line your taco shell with a slice of provolone cheese to lessen the soggy factor from the past a sauce.  To be perfectly honest - this is a fun and tasty way to eat spaghetti and meatballs.  

We will be doing this again.

 

Mini Vacation Pt. 2

We had a great time at Kings Dominion.  I even rode a few rides!  The one that did me in was the little tea cup type ride.  Luckily I was able to walk a semi straight line on my own afterward but had I spun around one more time I do believe the story may have ended differently.

There were very few food options for us - over priced prepackaged snack food.  The taco place we found that boasted gluten free options didn't have any practices in place to prevent cross contamination and had gluten in their taco meat.  While I am VERY glad they let us know I was of course a little disappointed to be mislead about what our options would be in the park.  Luckily we plan ahead and stayed in a hotel close enough that we could leave and come back easily for meals.  There are several hotels near by with rooms that include kitchenettes, if you are traveling with allergies I highly recommend looking into those options.

 

Soak City was the highlight
of the day as far as the kids
were concerned.

Let the canning begin!

If you're going to be stuck in a
hot kitchen you might as well
enjoy a tall glass of southern
sweet mint iced tea.

Today was the day!  Time to break out the canner and get down to business.  It was nice to be able to start with small batches rather than staring down the barrel at piles of food threatening to go bad if you look at it the wrong way.  With any luck I'll be able to stay on top of everything (yes, I realize I probably just jinxed myself).  Three quarts of beans and four quarts of pickles.  We decided to throw in a pint of zucchini pickles just to see what happens.  Looks like I'll be able to pick more beans tomorrow.


Looking forward to getting into the bees tomorrow.  It has been 9 days since I put on the honey super so it will be exciting to see their progress.

    

Kiddos are at their Mawmaw and Granddaddy's
house this evening so that means a mini vacation
for Jeff and I.  Sushi and the new cider by
Woodchuck.  I highly recommend.

Piper and the Art of French Cooking

This past winter Piper was in bed for several days with a terrible fever and achy body.  One of the things we did to pass the time together was watch episodes of Julia Child the French Chef on Amazon.  She fell in love Julia and asked for her cookbook for Christmas.  How do you say no when a 4 year old asks for Mastering the Art of French Cooking?  We have decided to start cooking our way through the book and see if we can come up with gluten free substitutes where necessary.

Eggs seemed like a pretty good place to start since she has a bit of experience working with eggs and loves to eat them.

It doesn't hurt that we have access to fresh eggs from happy chickens thanks to my grandparents.  With any luck the county we live in will get it together and we will be able to have our own chickens in the near future.

   

We had a good time with this one.  Brinner is favorite around these parts.  Next up... Omelettes? 

  

 

Quickle Update

You guys...  just go ahead and make a jar of these.  You're welcome.

http://gfreekitchens.blogspot.com/2015/06/quickle.html

Luckily we came home to these lovelies so I can replenish
the supply.