Freezing Tomatoes

Freezing tomatoes are the EASIEST way to perserve your veggies for sauces all winter long. I'm not interested in spending all day/night canning so I found this way and have been doing it ever since.

Get out the following items:
A pot for boiling,
a strainer (mine fits inside the pot of boiling water),
a HUGE bowl w/ ice water in it. I set the ice water up 1st to get the water nice and cold.

Then do the following steps:
- Wash all tomatoes and slice a small X in the bottom (important step do not forget).
- Start the big pot of boiling water.
- Put a few of the tomatoes inside the strainer to wait for the water to boil. About 2 layers but not any higher.
- Once the water is boiling put the strainer inside the pot. Start your timer from the moment the tomatoes hit the water. It may take a few minutes for the water to start boiling again but blanche the tomatoes anywhere from 1-3 min. The time depends on how mushy or strong you want your tomatoes to be once blanched. I like mine a little bit harder so I blanch for around 2 minutes.
- When blanching time ends pour your tomatoes into the bowl of ice. This stops the cooking time and seals the tomato for freezing.
- Once the tomato cools off in ice (around 2 minutes) you can handle it and peel the skin off.
- I quarter the tomato or half it depending on size for freezing.
- Freeze tomatoes in a gallon freezer bag with 4C-6C of tomatoes in ea bag (w/ juice). Lay them flat to freeze so you can stack more in the freezer.
Note: Cherry tomatoes do not have to be blanched. To freeze wash and blend in the blender. Pour into freezable gallon bags by either 4C or 6C.

Click here for more pictures on Flickr

Baked Zucchini Chips - 5 star recipe

Ingredients
2 Medium Zucchini
2 Eggs
2 T Water
1 C Italian Breadcrumbs
2 T Grated Parmesan Cheese (we like cheese so I threw in extra)
1/8 t Cajun Seasoning (to taste)

Instructions

-Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
-Cut zucchini into thin slices
-Mix egg with water in a small bowl and set aside.
-Combine breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese and Cajun Seasoning on a plate.
-Dip zucchini into egg mixture then dredge through breadcrumb mixture and place on a baking sheet sprayed with nonstick cooking spray.
-Bake each side approx. 5-10 minutes or until brown and crispy.

Sorry about the white stuff that "floated" into the picture.

Zucchini Bread

Here's the zucchini bread recipe I use with my zukes. Hope you enjoy.

Wet ingredients
3 eggs
2C sugar
3t vanilla
1C cooking oil
2C zucchini shredded/grated


Dry ingredients
3C flour
1t salt
1t baking soda
3t cinnamon
1C nuts (optional)


Mix wet ingredients in 1 bowl. Mix dry ingredients in another bowl. Add the bowls together (I put dry into wet - makes it easier to stir). Pour into 2 greased bread/loaf pans.


Bake 350 for 50-60 minutes


Below is a picture of my zucchini from the freezer. I shred it and freeze it in 2C or 5C bags for future recipes.
2nd picture is the finished product.

Pruning Squash and Zucchini

Someone asked me about pruning squash and zucchini. This may not be correct BUT here's what I learned from someone else and tried it and had MAJOR success. As squash and zucchini ripens you need to pick it thus allowing the plant to create more. BUT if the plant becomes overgrown and too crowded then it stops producing veggies. Over crowding does not allow for air and sun to hit down at the roots where the veggies grow. Pruning allows air to circulate and sunlight to hit the roots. If you prune too much the plant is exposed. Below are some pictures after I've pruned. I'll try to explain w/ the pictures how it works.

Pictures 1 and 2 are a view of the plants showing the new growth on the LT and roots on RT. After a section produces veggies I cut back all the leaves pushing the plant energy towards new growth. Leave a few leaves around new growth to provide the shade it needs.

Pictures 3 and 4 continue on the same line. Showing the old places that produced veggies and how the new growth keeps going. Picture 4 with my hand in it shows where the root decided to produce 2 new growth sections. Zucchini plants will develop multiple new growth sections at the same time. Currently I have 1 plant that has started 5 new growth sections. Again prune off leaves that do not have veggies growing underneath.

Pictures 5-7 show new growth sections; roots are behind the new growth. Picture 5 shows a close up of new growth w/ baby zucchinis (3) and new flowers and leaves growing. Picture 6 shows new growth from previous week with a full grown zucchini. As part of pruning if you see smaller leaves that when grown will stunt the growth of a zucchini go ahead and prune it. You can see in this picture that I pruned a few things around this zucchini to let it grow. Picture 7 shows new growth of squash. New growth for both plants grows upward until it reaches a certain size then lays back down on the ground.

This may seem like a lot of information or even a lot of hard work but it's not really. We ended up doubling the amount of produce we got this year. We had neighbors who's plants started producing the same week as ours and we are still going where theirs has ended.

Squash Muffins

I keep forgetting to post updates on our garden. Below are pictures our our first squash and what we did with them. Yummy. This is our kids favorite way to eat squash and I have to admit it tastes good to.
Picture 1 is cut up squash.
Picture 2 is cooked squash.
Picture 3 is muffin mixture and
Picture 4 is the finished product.
Here's the recipe:
1lb squash, cut into slices (approx 2-3)
1/2 C butter melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C sugar
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt

Boil 1 in water; add squash. Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain and mash. Stir in butter and egg.
In a bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Stir in squash mixture til moistened.
Fill greased muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake 375 for 20-25 min til toothpick is clean. Yield: 1 dozen

Judah's tree house

My husband and I believe in letting the kids have a say in how they want their room decorated because after all it's their room and they have to live in it - like it or not. When it came time for Judah to choose a new big boy room (entering K) he chose a jungle theme equipped with a tree house and a loft bed. It took some doing, but it's complete EXCEPT for the greenery at the top of the tree. Below is a list of things we did to his room.














Scrape the popcorn ceiling and put a flat ceiling in.














Tear up the carpet in a corner where the tree will go.
Build new floor to ceiling shelf unit to represent 1 side of the tree.
For the tree we used an existing bookshelf on 1 side and built shelves on the other. Shelves went from floor to ceiling and now hold all toys. The inside of the tree is big enough for the kids to sleep in.



Install hardwood floor inside the tree.
Install a double switch outlet and 1 plug outlet inside the tree. Installed a wall lamp for light.











Create a door for the tree with a hole in it.














Create a loft for the double bed.














Paint inside of tree 2 shades of brown. The dark brown representing inside of tree. The light brown represents the veins of the tree.
Hung outdoor lighted fireflies inside the top of the tree.
Paint loft.
Get new comforter, sheets, and curtain.
Paint room to match decor. Green on wall, ceiling is Carolina blue with white clouds.
Put plywood around outside of tree to make it round. Secure it so it won't pop out.
Plaster the tree to represent bark.
Prime and paint tree. This was a long process as I had to use 3 coats of paint to represent bark and its edging. The finished effect looks like real bark.



We hope you enjoy a few of our pictures but feel free to check out all pictures and videos at Flickr.com. :)

Cleared our Woods

As most of you (all handful that check this) know LAST winter we spent 4 months clearing a small, small, small portion of our land by hand which you can read about here. This year we saved our pennies and hired a sweet gentleman to do it for us. What a difference. Check it out below. If you are on facebook go to Angela's video section and see for yourself how the trees were taken out.

Now for the after pictures.

To see even more pictures click here.

2008 Year at a Glance starting with kitchen remodel

We were REALLY blessed in 2008 to accomplish so much in our lives, in our walk with Christ, in our finances and in our home. There's really no way to tell you all that we did but I can show you some of the house transformations. For those that do not know me well be warned. I do not understand that painting a room means chosing just 1 color and sticking to it. Most of my rooms have 2-6 colors in them with some sort of design just for the heck of it.

Kitchen before had just plain light brown or whatever it's called.

Afterwards there are 2 shades of green. The darker green is on top of the cabinets and the lighter green is underneath. To marry the 2 colors I put a series of stripes on the wall beside the sink. Accent color is red, of course, and various shades of green. In the pictures below you can see where the dark green stops in the dining room. The brown from the living room carries over into the dining room to meet the green. Originally I had red dining room furniture but hated it against the brown and green so I repainted it white again (well actually it was white then red and then white again). More rooms/projects to come on other posts.

Tooth be Gone!!!

For those you just having a good laugh at our crazy household my son pulled his tooth out last night. I was ignoring the fact that it was loose and coming out b/c after all going to school for the first time is enough on a mom. But no in a fashion that as Paul says "He's yours" Judah worked and worked at that tooth until he had it dangling out of his mouth. Then he comes in "Mom my tooth is out but it's stuck." Not believing that he would pull it so fast I look and yep it's out and dangling by a bloody strand. Great, first school and now a tooth what's next. Oh yeah he's gotten rid of the training wheels and learning to ride without. There should be some kind of warning that when your child goes to school they super speed their growing/learning process. How am I doing? Shell shocked. Last night I kept walking around saying "I can't believe he's lost a tooth." The tears I did not share last week I'm sure will be shed this coming week or the next [Rebekah starts preschool on Sept 2nd]. Click here for some pictures and a video.

More 1st for week

I was okay with 1st day of school but to have your 1st loose tooth and 1st permanent tooth at the same time is not cool with the mother. About 1 week ago Judah showed us a loose tooth but it was barely moving so we thought we had time. But oh no this morning what do my wondering eyes appear. A tooth barely hanging on and another one right behind it already poking through. Enough with torturing mommy. I do NOT want to see my baby grow up this fast. I tried to take a picture but can't so I have a video instead that Paul will have to upload.

First Day of School, Mother doesn’t meltdown but Daughter does

Today is Judah’s first day of school. Paul and I feel so blessed that we had these past 5 years at home with the kids. I’ve spent these years pouring out, teaching, shaping and molding our son. This past week he passed all Kindergarten assessments to which his teacher said “Mom, you’ve done a great job!” It’s so nice to hear that all of our hard work has paid off.

Now for those that really want to know…Did I cry? I did a pretty good job of containing myself. Rebekah on the other hand did not. Below are the records for the day.

Records

Time I got up this morning = 5:30am

# of times I’ve seen that time of the morning = ZERO

Time the kids got up this morning = 6:00am

# of times Paul tried to make me cry = too many to count

# of times Paul mocked me for wanting to cry = 45 minutes straight

# of times me wanting to cry in that 45 minutes = too many to count he kept trying to make me cry

# of times I prayed for safety at school = 1 really big long one

# of times I thanked God for allowing me these past 5 years at home with the kids = at least 5 on the way to school

# of pictures I took = 63 including videos

# of minutes I stayed at school = 25

# of things I kept remembering to tell his teacher so I wouldn’t have to leave = too many to count

# of times Judah wanted to leave with us = ZERO

# of times he cared we were leaving = ZERO

# of times I wanted to grab Judah and take him home with me = 1 but Rebekah’s meltdown [see below] began so I was carrying and running away with the younger child.

# of times I swallowed back tears and couldn’t speak from wanting to cry = at least 20

# of times Rebekah looked over at Judah’s empty car seat = at least 12

Finally

# of times tears actually left the eyes and ran down the cheeks = ZERO

# of meltdowns = 1 Rebekah not mommy. Rebekah wanted to stay with Judah and had to be carried out of school crying. That is probably THE only reason I did not cry.

You can click here for some more pictures of this momentous occasion.

Rebekah's prayers just keep going unanswered

Okay tonight Rebekah says another winning prayer that started with praying away the rain and asking for the sun to come out again. That one is being answered but she continues by praying for it never to be bedtime. Sorry kid that ain't happening.

Kids say or pray the funniest things

Tonight at dinner my son volunteered to pray first (rarely happens). His prayer was "Dear Jesus, thank you for my food. Help me to obey my mommy and daddy and Grandma and Grandpa. In Jesus name Amen." To which my daughter replied "Dear Jesus, help my brother eat my food. In Jesus name Amen."

For the record I did not make Judah pray this way and have no clue where he got this idea to pray for obedience but I was definitely saying a LOT of Amens. Rebekah on the other hand - her prayer was not answered. Judah didn't eat her dinner so she fed it to our neighbor's cat instead. Our cats know better than to eat our food.

Second conversation that had me in stitches.
Judah has the uncanny nack for asking me questions to which I do not know the answer to like how many houses are in the US, how long will I live, and so forth. Today on the way home from the gym Rebekah was asking Judah how many babies are in the world. To which he was responding "I don't know, how am I suppose to know that, why are you asking me something I don't know, will you please be quiet so I can think." I died laughing Rebekah was firing the questions as fast a Judah usually fires them at me. Judah was getting as frustrated as I normally get when he fires them at me.

Paint + Children = MEEESSSS

Okay I'm working on different house projects and painting Judah's treehouse so I understand that toys are everywhere and nothing is where it should be. In fact the ONLY clean room is my master bath which I refuse to let anyone use in case they mess that up. While I'm working on all these projects my darling children are all over me and hang out in whatever room I'm painting/redecorating. This day (7/25) it was Judah's treehouse. I'm priming it for paint. I am polite and share my space with my kids with 1 rule. Only 1 instruction, only 1 thing to remember. Don't touch or come near the paint or the drop cloth. It's off limits. I'm working along and next thing I see causes me to let out the loudest, shrillest blood curling scream I've ever heard. I didn't know I could do such a thing. I didn't know I'd SEE such a thing. So here it is for the world to see.



What I saw is my daughter covered in paint, the floor, the chair, the dress and THE BODY all in white paint. Everywhere. I pick her up by 1 leg and 1 arm and carry her to my tub. I tell my son to sit on the toilet so he won't get in the mess. I clean up the floor (thank you lord) and the chair. While I'm cleaning up Rebekah, Judah tells me that Rebekah got paint on him. I think that's odd since he wasn't even in the room. I look and sure enough he has paint on his arm and leg, big spots. I look at Rebekah who says with a straight face "Judah told me to do it". I look at Judah who says nothing, my jaw is on the floor. I ask Rebekah what did he say. "Rebekah, step in the paint." I look at Judah and he calmly, politely says "Yes, I said that." They were so sweet and innocent looking and calm that I ran from the room so they wouldn't see me laugh. Judah got Rebekah to step in the paint and took off out of the room before I saw it. Then when I screamed he came in and had said to me "What is it mom?"



What's even funnier is my brother (thanks Nerd) did that to me growing up. He'd come up w/ the craziest stuff and get me to do it with him but would take off before my parents saw it and leave me holding the bag. Both Rebekah and Judah look like my brother and my baby pictures so at time looking at them is like seeing us when we were kids. Man, I'm not sure how my parents held it together with us. I called Paul who's response was "Why do I have to reap what you did to your mom and dad?" Yep what goes around comes around. Read it and weep children; your day is coming.



BTW these pictures are after I spent 30 minutes scrubbing my child. I couldn't get the paint off. I didn't take any of the actual event b/c I was running to clean.

Judah's treehouse

One of our current house projects is re-doing Judah's room. He's 5 and starting school so as a way of celebrating we let him choose a theme and we do the room. He chose a jungle theme so we decided to build a tree and put his bed on stilts or in the air. This is a slow project and thus far we only have the tree constructed.

The tree is from floor to ceiling. On the inside it's has shelves from floor to ceiling to store all the lovely toys that I can't stand to see laying around. The floor is hardwood. The ceiling and part of the shelves are painted dark brown to look like the inside of the tree. We are adding some outlets and 1 lightswitch to run lights (waiting on the electrician to do it). We have lighted dragonflies to hang from the ceiling and a light for the inside. The inside walls will be painted a lighter brown and the edge of the shelves to resemble the veins of a tree. There is enough room inside for 2 kids to sleep inside which is where our kids currently choose to sleep or for adults and kids to play. You can click here for a few pictures. Outside of the tree will eventually be decorated to resemble a tree just haven't had time to do it yet.

BTW at the same time we are constructing Judah's room we are painting the rest of the house. Our 2008 goals will be done if it kills us.

Prayer Request

I'm asking for all our readers to pray for a family that we've walked with in the blogging world. Follow the link below and join us in prayer for this amazing young family. Their faith and testimony has touched millions and it's been an honor to pray for and walk with them. Thanks and God bless.

http://cfhusband.blogspot.com/

Grandparents here's the swimming lessons....

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Jenkins the kids got swimming lessons for their birthdays. This was the first week which went pretty good. Rebekah is like a fish in the water - the first night she ran into to pool and went straight under water. Judah on the other hand thinks swimming involves the behind up in the air and pushing his friends in the water. Ugghhh. Below are pictures.

First Fruits or Vegetable that is.

Here's the first vegetable we've gotten from our HUGE garden. For the record Paul was right (yes I admit it) we had WAAAAY to many plants for such a small space. I've had to prune the garden 2x already. Oh well I just hope we get lots for veggies.











This is how the garden looked 5 days ago. It's tripled the size now.

Fun, Sun, Friends and Gardening what more could a girl want?

This has been a wonderful spring day. After dropping Judah off at preschool Rebekah and I went to a MOPS playdate at a local park. The kids had a wonderful time. Once we came home the kids and I finished our garden and played outside for awhile. Even the cats got involved. My poor flowerbed; I'm just not sure it will survive the 2 cats playing hide and seek.

The garden consists of 4 tomatoe plants, 4 cauliflower, 4 yellow squash, 4 cucumber, and 8 zuchini. I'll try to take more pictures as it continues to grow. If you have any gardening tips let me know. My husband's first tip is to plant less plants next year. We'll see who's right.

Spring Fun outdoors

Our cats Ariel and Anatasia and Anastasia again. Hiding in the flowerbed. Notice how Anastasia is sitting on my lillies so much for that plant.

Here's pictures of the flowerbed - my columbine, star gazers (I think that's what they are called), lillies and a bush. Last year the bush plant (forgot the name) was no bigger than a twig so we kept it up front since it was a lowing plant. This year something made it grow into the biggest thing we've ever seen and it's taking over. It's also the thing that the cats love to hide in.

AND last but not least I need to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother. SO Happy Birthday Nerd! I'm glad it's been a good one. We love you!