Trying to Surface

    Oh My Goodness!!!  I always forget how insane fall gets around here.  We've had so much going on as a family I'm not sure which end is up some days.  This hat is a project that I've been working on for Jeff for a few weeks Jack is modeling it for me.  I don't have a pattern for it but it is just a basic beanie style.  One thing I do love about this is the way that the increases create this awesome spiral effect.  It's pretty neat. 

   I'm also working on another hat for Molly for her birthday.  The whole family loves the Harry Potter books and movies, she decided she needed a house scarf and we found a pattern for one of the knitted hats that Hermione wears in one of the movies to go with it.  I'll show you that later as it actually starts to look like a hat.

   We have 30 quarts of tomatoes put up and a ton of other stuff to.  30 quarts is not going to last us through the year but we have not been able to harvest as much from our own garden as we had hoped.  The weather turned really cold and most of our tomatoes have simply stayed green.  This last week we've had some gorgeous days in the high 70's so maybe we will get a few more jars but I'm not going to hold my breath.  What have you guys been doing?  Any good canning recipes I should try with all those green tomatoes?

Easy Tomato Sauce

We have tomatoes coming in fresh every day but it never seems like we have enough to can any of them. We are going to need way more plants next year. To use the tomatoes we did have sitting on our kitchen counter we decided to make up some basic tomato sauce to freeze for later use.
This is a deep sided roasting pan with an assortment of tomatoes including one of the super sweet yellows we grew. The instructions for this came from the Old School blog where you can get some of the best tips and old school learnin' you crave. Anyway just clean up the fruits of your garden or local market and spread down some yummy olive oil with a few cloves of garlic and throw that pan in the oven at 450 until the skins crack and blacken. When you are done you have a hot mess like this. Most of my tomatoes were not super meaty ones so I have a lot of juice in the bottom of the pan. But I like my sauce to be thick so I scooped the tomatoes into a largish sauce pan to cook down some. Using the magic potato masher I came up with a very nice sauce. If you let the tomatoes cool even young children could help with the mashing. The white stuff in the pan is the garlic. That I did pull out separately dice up (along with an extra clove or two) and sauteed in a little more olive oil. Then just let this all simmer down stirring it once in a while so it doesn't burn. You can also add more herbs to your pot as it simmers. Since I wanted this to be a plain base sauce for future projects I just added a little bit of parsley. This is a photo of my finished sauce all nice and thick. If you don't like the idea of the tomato skins you could pull them off before mashing but I like the rustic-ness and you can't really tell they are in the sauce.




Hello yummy!

Fun Food Friday: Eggplant

My sincerest apologies! Last week I was without my camera and was unable to make my Friday post! So the lovely Erin posted in my place with her watermelon ice recipe. I hope you all voted!

This week I bring you eggplant. That wonderful dark purple veggie that is either large or small and sometimes looks like a purple and white zebra haha. But like most people, we are tempted to try this delicious looking oddity, but are unable to think of anything to do with it. Most recipes are long and difficult and make the eggplant come out tough and chewy and very unpleasant! I bring you today a very simple yet tasty eggplant parmesan.

I found this recipe in The Vegetarian Times, but I changed it up a bit to make it to my liking.

this recipe is for one to two servings

1/2c spaghetti sauce, divided
1/4c (or more) Panko Bread Crumbs
1tsp italian seasoning blend
3tsp parmasan cheese (not the kind in the green can...YUCK)
1 1/2tsp canola oil (I used Olive Oil and just coated the bottom of the pan, though I had to do this a lot as the oil dried up to keep the pan from burning)
1-2 Japanese (or any small) eggplant, cut into round slices
1 egg beaten
1/4 low fat mozerella cheese (I used an italian seasoned blend but any of cheese you use to top your lasagna with will work)
2tsp parm. cheese or more. (i like cheese and I am very very generous with it)
1/4 tsp dried basil (I didn't add this but I didn't see it listed and it still turned out just fine.)
op. I added mushrooms to this, but this is totally optional

1. preheat oven to 350F coat a small baking dish with nonstick cooking spray and spread with 2 tbs of the spaghetti sauce.

2. combine bread crumbs, parm cheese, and italian seasoning in a shallow bowl for dredging.

3. Heat oil in the pan.

4. dip the sliced eggplant into the egg then coat well on both sides with breadcrumb mix then immediately place into fry pan. only put a single layer in the pan and cook about 2-3 mins on each side or until they are brown and crispy.

5. Make a single layer on the bottom of the baking dish with the eggplant straight from the pan. top with the mozzeralla cheese (or cheese of your choice) and Parm. top with second layer of eggplant and cheese.

6. pour sauce over all and top with remaining cheese.

7. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown, the cheese should be good and melted and a fork or knife should easily go through the eggplant.

(I added too much sauce to mine haha)

But it was still VERY tasty :) please enjoy!!