Best part of Gardening!

Can you guess what I may be up to this week?

I pulled a couple to beets to see how they were doing. I knew we were close to harvest time.

I was hoping to wait until Monday to weed the garden and pick beans but I realized they wouldn't last so I got dear hubby to help. Of course he took to the harvesting part like a pro. He said "this is the best part of gardening" while he picked the beans and peas. In the meantime, I am pulling all the weeds. That's ok. It's all good! I love company when I am working in the garden and the weeds aren't too bad to pull from our sandy soil.

This week I will be canning beats. We stopped at Cal Ranch and picked up a camp stove. Now I can go out back and cook without heating up the house. My power bill will thank us as well.

This weeks Bountiful Basket was great. We miss the apples but I suspect they are coming soon. 

This week we get to enjoy:

5 bananas

1 bag of grapes

1 lb strawberries

5 plums 

2 mangos

1 canteloup

2 red peppers

3 tomatoes

3 roma tomatoes

3 onions

6 ears of corn

and 

2 heads of romain lettuce.

All this for just $16.50! It really is the best way to get some great produce in the house. We eat so much more fresh stuff with this. Can't beat that in the store. YUMMY!

Bountiful Baskets and recipes

I was so excited to get our Bountiful Baskets this week. It is a wonderful basket. We got all this for only $16.50!

And I already have plans for nearly everything. Carrots, broccoli, romaine lettuce, spinach, mushrooms, orange peppers, oranges, lemons, apples, strawberries, canteloup. YUMMY! I really missed it this week. I will have to make sure I remember to order on the weekends I work.

We had all the ingredients to make this yummy salad from Real Mom's Kitchen. Spinach, strawberries, bananas, and nuts.

BRIGHT, VIVID COLOR!!

Top it with a special poppyseed dressing and you have a lovely spring salad!

Oh and don't these just beg to be stuffed? My dear friend shared a wonderful recipe:

Italian sausage browned, mix in cream cheese, garlic clove and parmasan cheese. I am not an exact measureing type of cook so I just mixed in "about" amounts. I usually use 1/3 of a package of sausage and cream cheese each. Maybe a bit more cream cheese. 1 clove garlic and ohhh about a 1/4 cup parmassan. Mix it all together and stuff those 'shrooms. The first time I made it I forgot to bake in the oven and just ate them raw. They were very good this way as well. Bake them for 20 minutes at 350 to blend all the juices together. Can YOU eat just one? Yeah, didn't think so!

Now the lemons are a bit more tricky. Sure I could make lemon bars or have slices in an ice cold Sprite but does anyone have any yummy main dishes using lemons? They are usually the culprit that stumps me. But look at that bright, cheery yellow! So inviting! So spring! Can't ya just smell 'em?!

Of course half of the basket will have no problem at all devouring. With four hungry boys always hanging around.... Does "hungry" ever show up at your house? Cuz I swear he is ALWAYS here.....

Here's the proof! 1/2 the carton of strawberries already gone. Yeah, Matthew's eyes lit up when he saw them. He couldn't sign strawberry fast enough. He eventually gave up and mixed the more and strawberry signs into his own version of both. Once mom turned her back he grabbed the barstool and dug in. I came back into the kitchen to find numerous strawberry stems on the floor and a little boy with a cheesey red grin!

If you haven't checked out Bountiful Baskets go there and see what's available.

Bountiful Baskets

Oh, how I have missed getting my Bountiful Basket. It is a produce co-op that started in Arizona and has spread to Utah, Idaho, Washington, and Wyoming. It is run entirely by volunteers. They have enough buying power to get the same prices as major supermarkets but the produce is sooo much fresher. I hate how my produce goes bad in a week. With BB I have had lettuce still be good 3 weeks later! Yep, 3 weeks. I get a large basket filled 50% with vegi's and 50% with fruit for only $15. They also have other stuff you can add to your baskets. This week we got some cranberry granola bars that the boys have loved. They were surprisingly good. We get lots of produce. The weeks I don't get it I still spend $15 or more for much less produce. Check it out! You will love it.

Here is a peak at what we got this week.

Bountiful Baskets

Recipe for Happy Full Bellied Boys

 

Start with picking up a Bountiful Basket. You will have more fruit than you know what to do with.

Add:

4 ravishing boys greeting you as "I'm Hungry"

1 fresh pineapple because you need practice cutting one of these up

3 mangos even though you have 6 ready to eat ASAP

2 bananas

1 cup of Blackberries for color

2 scoops coconut to add to the tropical flavor

2 cans mandarin oranges because boys down these by the case

hint of Almond Extract because that's all that is in the bottle, which turns out to be plenty

1 lone pint of heavy whipping cream you bought way too much of for that other recipe that turned out so-so.

Sugar, don't worry about measuring, you can never sweeten boys up too much

Whip cream and sugar into a thick frenzy, cool down with hint of almond extract.

Fold into diced fruit. Swiftly spoon into bowls keeping straight who had what color or risk loosing your sanity. Place before all four Mr. Hungry's who successfully devour your fruit concoction.  

Sit back and pray that will tide the feeding frenzy for a couple of hours! Oh, and don't forget to add extract to the shopping list.

Bountiful Baskets

This is what we got this last weekend for $15! We have been getting Bountiful Baskets for a couple of weeks now. It is produce coop. You get quality produce at the same price charged the large grocery stores. We have been enjoying lots of great fruit and vegi's. It is nice to try new things too. I like spinach but I don't usually buy it. This last week we got a couple of bunches in our basket of spinach. I searched for spinach recipes and found a couple of great ones from Realmomkitchen.com. We will try this one tonight...  

Strawberry, Kiwi, Spinach salad

You can get the recipe Here
Last night though we tried this one:

Summer Spinach Salad

You can get the recipe Here
We really enjoyed this salad. The onion in the dressing was too strong for us though. It was a very fresh onion. I just added the dressing on individual servings in case we didn't eat it all. I was glad I did it this was. This afternoon I made more dressing without any onion. Yep, much better. It was a great lunch for me. This would be a refreshing side to sandwiches in the summer too. Give it a try. Now I only have 1 bunch of spinach left but lots of lettuce. We are definantly eating more fresh vegis with this.
One last recipe to share was this Lemon Blueberry Zucchini Cake.....

Get the recipe HERE
It was YUUUMMMYYYY!!!! As quoted by Tyler. The boys would have devoured it if dad hadn't reigned them in a bit. Check out real mom kitchen. I like her style and love the recipes. It is a regularly visited site for me.....

Enjoy!