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“Mondays in My Garden”: Four Easy Ways to Save Money when starting your Garden
There are a few blogs that I just love. Household 6 Diva is one of them. Ann Marie is a down to earth Army spouse recently relocated from Germany to Texas and there are so many times that I think, “Wow, would we be good friends if our lives had ever crossed.” She started a series called “Mondays in My Garden”. Be sure to read her inaugural post here: Welcome to “Mondays in My Garden” Ah… my garden. Just the thought of it has my heart smiling. Yesterday it was 72 degrees out in NE Ohio. The back door was open all day. The front door was filled with sunshine. Smiles, laughs, giggles…
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Tasty Tuesday: Healthy & Yummy Chicken Nuggets
There is something about chicken nuggets that make my children’s mouth water, whether the frozen variety cooked in the toaster oven or the kind fresh out of the deep-fat fryer at our favorite fast food restaurant. Are they on the list of healthy-meals at the Kocsis household though? Not so much.However, earlier this week I made a delicious breaded and baked chicken nugget that knocked my boys’ socks right off! I know it is a good meal when there are no leftovers, when they ask for more and I have to say “Sorry, they are all gone.”, when I think ‘We are definitely doing these again’! Healthy & Yummy Chicken NuggetsINGREDIENTS:3-4 thick slices bread1/2…
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We Are Grilling to Stay Cool!
It is hot, so we decided to stay out of the kitchen as much as possible at dinner time. Avoiding use of the oven will certainly keep the house cooler and keep that electricity bill down a few cents. So, with some fresh green beans picked from the garden (1.5 cups with ends picked off), a yellow onion sliced thin, olive oil, four chicken breasts, some “Sweet Baby Rays” sauce and some herbs (basil, parsley and rosemary) mixed into the sauce I headed out the door to the grill. Deb did make some very nice garlic potatoes on the stove but it was an on and off quickly. The chicken…
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Tasty Tuesday: Smells, Sights and Tastes of Summer Potato Salad
I am a sucker for Heinen’s Potato Salad! But purchasing it from the deli can be quite a strain on the family grocery-budget. So I had a mission… make it myself. And I think I did it. It may not be “Heinen’s Signature Recipe” but it is mine now and I love it. Leanne’s Smells, Sights and Tastes of Summer Potato Salad4 to 5 Red Potatoes, scrubbed but not peeled5 slices of baconOne packet of Ranch Dressing Mix (8 oz)1/2 Cup of Sour Cream1/2 Cup of Mayonnaise1/4 Cup of fresh chives, chopped1/2 Cup of vidalia or red onion, chopped1/2 Tablespoon dried-basilCut potatoes into quarters and place in large pot. Fill your pot…
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Seasonal Light Disorder
“Seasonal Light Disorder”. Winter is tough. Winter in northeast Ohio is dark, dreary, cloudy. My mood can plumit into depths of darkness in an instant. Today at the grocery store I picked up a fresh basil plant. I came home, washed my kitchen window, put my new little ray of sunshine on a little plate. I BREATHED in the fresh spring air, the aroma of fresh gardens, sunshine and so much more all in a tiny little pot. What do you do to help with the dark dreary winter days? When we were stationed in Iceland we put lights on timers to help keep our ‘clocks’ on cycle. As those…
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Menu Monday: Italian Tortellini Soup
I am a /huge/ fan of the slow-cooker. It helps with the crazy routine of the day and allows me prepare a meal when there are a few moments of calm. If you are looking for a tasty, winter, soup filled with the aroma and comfort of Italian food give this meal a try! Put it all together when the baby is taking a morning nap, the preschooler is creating a masterpiece on paper, or the kids are off to school. If you work outside of the home put the dish together the night before and then plop it in your slow-cooker on the way out the door in the…
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Tasty Tuesday Banana Pepper Gratin
Summer is so over… so very over. Temperature dipped to the twenties; leaves are brilliant red, orange with faded yellow edges; sunshine hours have slipped to dark morning and evenings. Autumn is here.. no doubt. The gleaner in me came out this weekend when I heard of the temperature forecast. Dale and I picked anything living out there that could be touched by a freeze. Whoa, I already have packed a peck of pickled peppers into the pressure cooker. My imagination has been running overtime as to how to use plant after plant that over produced this year. Yeah for that… but I can’t let them die on the plant.…
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Comfort of Cheese Ravioli with Pesto
I love basil. Our garden if still full of the plants. It will take a hard frost to finally have the curtain call shut them down. I dry the leaves, even pick long branches with dark purple flowers for a vase full in the guest bathroom. I use pesto when ever and give it away as a hostess gift in cute jelly jars. Basil and I are friends to the end. Here is another use of pesto that wakes up a cheese ravioli and packs it with a nutty punch. Pasta is a comfort food, and with the awakening of autumn, the coming of the major busy holidays, pasta is…
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Tasty Tuesday: Basil, Basil Everywhere!
Now that the rows of plants are up, thick and fighting for room, I am thinning them. Basil is such a hardy plant and will grow well neatly stretching next to branching plants left and right. But since I want to use some now, it is a good idea to pull some plants, use them and in the mean time credit my farmer’s sense with thinning the crops! (Born and bred right by the George Washington Bridge did not lead to gardening! But a Hoosier hubs taught me this love!)A large dehydrator has 5 shelves. One plant per shelf fills the dehydrator which takes 24 to 36 hours to dry…
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Peppers, Green, Banana, Hungarian Wax A’Plenty!
The garden just didn’t appear out there over night. And to my recollection, little gnomes haven’t been out there weeding, hoeing, rotor tilling, etc…. Especially the rotor tilling part… that machine is a monster that wants to go anywhere but where I feel is straight. (Yeah for Dale on this and so many parts of the pre-harvest work.) At the sound of our behemoth, those little gnomes would have jumped straight out of their gourds and be headed so far out of Michigan as to be fictional memories. So, maybe that’s the story!The beauty of a vegetable garden is that crops sweep in at their own pace and then demand…
