Snacky Bits

  I'm going to let you in on a secret, I'm not a big snacker.  It drives people crazy that I don't have a ton of snack foods around the house (including the ones living here!).   I don't really think to purchase or make snack foods very often because I'm more of a two square meals a day and coffee for breakfast kinda' gal.  Every once in a while though I will break down and feel like having something snacky and everyone gets happy :) 
This is a super simple Zucchini Hummus that we had after getting home from the county fair a little wind burned and definitely burned out on fried food.  If you have any zucchini hanging on in the garden try this for something to munch on.


Zucchini Hummus
1 can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans whateva')
    save the liquid when you drain them
a generous half cup of diced zucchini
juice from half a lemon
one clove of garlic (or two if you feel spicy)
1 1/2 TBSP Tahini
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP Olive Oil
a sprinkling of cumin

Place all ingredients in the food processor and blend until smooth adding the reserved liquid from the chickpeas as necessary.  Enjoy with pita/flat bread crackers or veggies!

Dried Apples

This past week we were gifted to grocery bags full of apples.  We got our dehydrator last summer and hadn't used it yet.  So we sliced up one bag of our apples and placed them in the dehydrator.  Just before bed Jeff played musical layers with them and put them in reverse order from were they started since the bottom ones were getting done much quicker than the top ones.  About 24 hours later the apples were done.  I"m not sure that we were the most efficient with how the vents were open but we don't have a manual and can't find one online (crazy right?) so we are winging this thing all the way!  What's in the jar is all that is left from what we started with mostly due to the kids eating them like candy, so much for stock piling supplies :)  Oh well at least they are going over well with everyone.

Garden deconstruction

 Over the weekend Jeff started deconstructing the garden.  The cucumbers had pretty much stopped producing and were completely out of control!  The zucchini plant was still going strong but with about 20 pounds of zucchini harvested from just one plant we felt that we don't need any more (especially since it seems to be all over the house right now).  Our poor pepper plants just didn't do well this year and I think that we only harvested about five peppers in total from six plants. 

 Last year we had tons of peppers from our plants I would like to figure out what happened because peppers are something that we use a lot of.   The jalapenos did very well and the Hungarian hot peppers are still going strong.  I have learned that licking them to see if they are hot or mild is not the best way to test peppers.  Yes I really did that but only once.  The squirrels got away with most of the watermelons, well we think it was squirrels but we don't know for sure.  We found this one under some of the freaking ground cover we can't seem to kill off.  I'm hoping it will grow to size before the frost hits.  You never know when that first frost is going to be here in Michigan tonight for instance it is supposed to get down to around 50 degrees. 
This is the one little squash thing that grew in the back garden.  We have no idea what it is but we are guessing it is an acorn squash.  The back garden was feral this year with only some seeds that Jeff threw at it out of sheer frustration at the late start to the growing season.  We haven't started any late season crops because we are hoping to get this whole area tilled up for next year before the ground gets hard.  The goal is to till it and get some good compost down for the winter.  I don't know why but it would make us feel an awful lot more ready for next spring. 

New Lawnmower

For the holiday weekend we spent a day at Jeff's family cottage with everyone.  We had a great time and the kids loved being with their cousins.  While up at the cottage we were given permission to bring home a lawnmower that had belonged to Jeff's great-grandfather.  It is still in good shape it just needs some tuning up and the blades sharpened.  It is definitely a work out to use it but should we loose power for an extended time we will have the best looking lawn in the neighborhood.  That would be a first for us!  As you may be able to tell cutting the grass is not one of our first priorities in life and if I could convince Jeff all that grass would be an edible landscape instead but he isn't buying into it just yet.  Maybe someday......