Summer Challenge

For the past week or more, it has been over 80 degrees here every day. And of course, there's humidity to go with that too. It's been tolerable with our (really nice) ceiling fans and breaking out the shorts after our long winter but I still don't like having to do things that warm up the house such as laundry or cooking. As you may have guessed, we don't have air conditioning.

With laundry, you have the simple option of drying your clothes outside. I try to do this as often as I can (although it can be pretty miserable just hanging them up out there with the sun beating down and the humidity making you sweat). I have noticed that with a baby, it is a LOT harder than just throwing them in the dryer since it's hard to get her and a basket of laundry outside. Plus, I have to be careful about her sun exposure and everything too. Basically, you should do it but I understand it's not always feasible. (I will mention for those of you without yards, they do make retractable clotheslines [we even have one] that you can put indoors, in front of a sunny window is best but not necessary).

For cooking, I have a previous blog post (in June of 2013. Sorry I don't have the link back) that talks about meal ideas without the oven. Of course, a couple of them use the stove top but that is usually more bearable than the oven. This year, I have started a new summer challenge. Any day (basically every day in summer) that it's just too hot to think about turning on the oven, I won't. So far we have gone since Saturday without turning the oven on. We have grilled things (turns out, you can grill just about anything! We've done frozen tater tots, steaks, brats, and we're even considering making brownies on the grill!), used the microwave, and once we used the stove top.

If I had thought about this in advance, I would've made and frozen more meals (like I did before our baby) so we would just heat them up in the microwave and not have to warm up the house. Since I didn't do that, here are your options:

• grilling (basically anything you can make in the oven, you can make on the grill. However, someone has to be willing to stand outside to cook)
• microwave (meals made back in winter and then frozen, if using prepackaged foods most of them give microwave directions even if it's not the method of choice, etc)
• stove top (like grilling, this is still warm but for much shorter periods of time than the oven)
• moist heat (this is how we cook our shrimp)
• slow cooker (put in the garage or on the front porch)
• making things that don't require any cooking

So I will see how long my challenge lasts but I think it would be awesome if we could go the whole summer without turning on the oven once (unless we suddenly have a weird weather day and it's actually cool enough to consider it). I think 75 degrees is my general line. 

Our Official Garden!

So back in March, we started some of our plants indoors. We had tomatoes and broccoli (leftover seeds from the year before) and then we bought these pod things from Target with spinach, lettuce, sweet peppers, and a different kind of tomato.

On Saturday, David and I started weeding the garden area (it was a big mess) since we didn't really end up using it last year (hence the leftover seeds). Today, we got a little farther but decided that with the heat, we better start planting in the area we had cleared or we might not finish. Turns out, everything (but the beans and cucumbers, which we aren't sure about planting) fit in our area!

We used shims as markers (with the vegetable names written on in Sharpie) so we know where the plants are for future weeding. Our rhubarb (came with the house) is thriving, even after mowing it over a couple times. Those sure are hearty plants! Our strawberries came back from last year, although we do have fewer of them. Sadly, we think our blueberries and raspberries died. I've been watering them anyway but David thinks it's too late for them.

So this year we have planted two different kinds of tomatoes (heirloom and cherry), broccoli, peas, onions, sweet peppers, lettuce, spinach, carrots, and sunflowers. Hopefully we get a good crop this year!

Homemade Blueberry Bagels

At least once, I have mentioned that I would like to try to make my own bagels. David takes a bagel for breakfast every day and I enjoy the occasional one myself. They aren't overly expensive (we get them for 30 cents a bagel) but I wondered if I could make them cheaper, healthier, or just plain better! It turns out, you can do all of the above!

We like blueberry best and don't usually top them with anything so I knew I had to find a good recipe if I wanted these to replace our store bought bagels. I thought about using our bread maker to make the dough but it turns out that it didn't really save me any time so this is without the maker.

This recipe is what I found. It's really rather simple with few ingredients, all of which you probably already have on hand! It is kind of time consuming, mostly because of the time it takes for the yeast to rise. I also did this with an infant on my hip (she was having a crabby day and would scream bloody murder if I put her down even for a second, let alone the 15 minutes of prep work) so my kneading was not the greatest. I also ran out of flour. I am still not sure how this happened because I usually keep plenty of it around but it happened anyway. I had enough for the recipe but was left a little skimpy for the kneading, making it that much harder.

I had a difficult time shaping the dough into bagel form because it was so sticky (probably my lack of flour's fault. Oh I will also mention I didn't toss the blueberries in flour first either but DEFINITELY will next time). It turns out it didn't really matter though. They just don't look like bagels. 

I wasn't sure what the boiling step was for. The recipe says it takes 3-4 minutes but they're done when they float. My bagels floated almost instantly so I took them out and it worked out great. This makes them not as stuck to the pan and much easier to handle. Don't even think about skipping this step! 

My batch made 10 bagels instead of 8 but they are a little bit smaller than the store bought size. Next time, I will try to make them a little bigger. I will also have more flour on hand and knead without a baby in my arms. Also, I want to try using at least half wheat flour (we usually do half wheat, half white in recipes but I try to follow the original recipe first). After that, they're perfect! They're brown on the outside and chewy on the inside. Mine are kind of lumpy but you could try to cut them in half to spread them with cream cheese or something. I will definitely be making this again, but more than one batch at a time since it's like a 3 hour process. Then I can just freeze the excess! 

Recipe, Running, and Sewing

This is going to be a bit of a long post (just a warning) because I haven't blogged in a few days.

First of all, I am back running again. I haven't ran since I was about 5 months pregnant. I only did about a 1/2 mile. I actually could've gone longer but I got a side stitch I couldn't breathe away. Also, one of my knees has really been acting up a lot lately and that makes it hard to exercise (running, wall sits, squats, etc). I am excited I am back though because I have actually missed it. I don't have a jogging stroller so I have to wait for David to come home from work before I can go out.

Secondly, I made a pacifier leash/clip last night! It took me about 5 minutes, but I did have a piece of binding for the fabric so that made it go fast since I didn't have to make the bias tape or anything. You use a suspender/mitten clip for one end and since we have Soothie pacifiers (they have tiny holes), I used a loop of 1/4 inch elastic.

So you take your strip of fabric (11 1/2 inches by 3 inches), and fold in the raw edges. Then fold in half (like you would to make bias tape. If you have a bias tape maker, now is the time to use it). Then, take about 3-4 inches of 1/4 inch elastic and put one end through the hole in the pacifier and make a loop. Put the ends of the loop in one end of the fabric (maybe I forgot to mention you keep your two short sides raw, not folded in). Next, top stitch around all 4 sides, going over the elastic a few times to secure it well. Then loop the other end through the suspender clip and stitch (have the fold be on the backside of the clip). And you're done! I hope that wasn't too confusing without pictures. If you have questions, you can ask me in the comments. I'm a little out of practice of doing tutorials.

Lastly, I found a good recipe for Meatless Mondays. It's even vegan!

• 1 can garbanzo beans, drained
• 1 small-medium onion, chopped
• 1/2 bell pepper, chopped
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 1 tablespoon corn starch
• oil, for sauteeing
• dash of paprika, chili powder, thyme, and parsley

Heat up your oil and saute the onion with the bell pepper until soft (about 5 minutes). Put the beans and the saute veggies into a blender and combine just a little (you still want chunks but you want it well combined). Mix in spices, flour, and corn starch.

Then the recipe says to put it in the fridge for a half hour. We did this but found it totally unnecessary. Also, the recipe then wanted you to form into patties and fry. This didn't work at all. No matter how much flour and corn starch I used, I couldn't make patties. I recommend dropping them on a greased cookie sheet and broiling, flipping once. I also would add garlic next time.

These are very quick and easy (especially if you don't refrigerate). The spices can also be substituted out for ones for your liking. We didn't add any extra salt since the beans were canned. 

Cute Mother's Day Gift

Yesterday was Mother's Day. David and I were looking for something easy and DIY to give our moms. Since this was their first year being grandmas, we decided a gift from our daughter would be the cutest.

I am not sure if David came up with this on his own or if he found it somewhere but I can't take any credit for it. We have a lot of embroidery hoops at our house (don't ask) so we took some canvas I had leftover from a project, inked up our baby's foot and made a footprint. Then we added the quote with fabric markers "Only the best moms get promoted to grandma" and added our daughter's name and the year. Put the canvas in the hoop, clean the foot, and you're all set! We would've done her hand print since their valentines from her already had her footprint but she keeps it in a fist too often and that would've been much harder.

I also apologize for not putting a picture of it on here but for my daughter's privacy, I don't want her name out there and since it's on the gift, I can't post the picture.

It's very simple (and cheap if you happen to have everything on hand like we did!) and cute.

I hope all you moms out there had a nice day yesterday. I know I had a very nice day!

Enchilada Stuffed Pasta Shells

I apologize for all the recipes lately but with baby taking up a lot of my time, cooking has been my only other "hobby".

As usual, I had some things to use up so that is where this recipe came from. I needed to use up some black beans (I only used half of my container in the salmon tacos) and about 1/2 cup of sour cream.

I found a recipe for enchilada stuffed shells but I had to modify it to what we had on hand so it's really become mine now. It's also DELICIOUS! Both David and I rate this 8.5-9/10 stars! This is what I used and had on hand but you're welcome to modify it (as always).

• 1 cup of beans
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1/2 can corn (I would've used frozen but I wasn't sure about thawing it before baking with it or not)
• 3 ish tablespoons of sour cream
• 1/2 box (6 oz) of jumbo pasta shells
• 1 cup cheese
• 1/2 can enchilada sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Make the shells according to the box. Rinse thoroughly with cold water, so you can handle them.  Mix the beans, salsa, corn, sour cream, and half of the cheese in a bowl. Stuff shells with bean mixture. Pour a few tablespoons of enchilada sauce in a 9x13 pan and spread it with the back of a spoon. Add the stuffed shells (in rows). Add remaining sauce and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Salmon Tacos

Over the weekend, I made salmon tacos. It sounds a little strange but was actually pretty good.

1 can salmon (we eat a lot of canned fish around here because it still has the nutrition but it's much cheaper than buying the fresh fish)

1 can black beans (we actually finally got around to cooking our bag of beans the other day so I just pulled a 2 cup container out of the freezer)

1 cup salsa (I didn't measure. I just used enough so it didn't look dry)

1/2 cup cheese (I also didn't measure this. You may want more or less due to your liking. We used colby jack.)

Combine everything in a bowl and serve in shells or with tortillas. We ate it cold/ room temperature the first night but the leftovers got warmed up and that made it a little better. I also added sour cream to mine since they suggest adding regular taco toppings.

It was pretty good and really easy and extremely quick. I think I'd make it again but it wasn't fantastic. Maybe only 7/10 stars.