Month: August 2020

We love a good grilled cheese. And my family has loved how I am always trying new ingredients in a grilled cheese. I always try my heat to top the one they say, is their favorite.

This grilled cheese has a pop of yummy flavor and if you’re looking for a comfort food. This is it!

Ingredients

Good thick bread of your choice

Eggs

White onion sliced

Ham

A really good Smoked cheese

Cream cheese

Jalapeño (optional)

Strawberry jam for dipping (optional)

First start by sautéing the onions or grill them. The Start by using a round cookie cutter and cutting out the center of one slice of the bread. Butter a skillet and each side of the two slices of bread. Add in both pieces of bread to the skillet. Once toasted flip both pieces and add egg to the bread without a center. On the whole slice of bread add cream cheese with jalapeños, grilled onions ham and smoked cheese add the egg topped bread to the other slice with other ingredients and cook until toasted.

We like to plate ours with a little homemade strawberry jam on the side for dipping and my family enjoys a runny egg to bite into. Yum 😋

Tacos! Tacos! Tacos! I think I’ve maybe mentioned my love for tacos a few times. This is a fast and super easy recipe I hope your family will enjoy.

Perfect for lunch or dinner with a side of Mexican rice or Mexican corn salad 😋

Ingredients

Pork or beef Chorizo

Corn tortillas

White or yellow onion

Fresh diced pineapple or 1 can of diced drained pineapples

Cook chorizo and onions add in pineapple. Spoon onto cooked corn tortillas and top with salsa and cilantro

Enjoy!

I love this Latin dish and the simpleness of the recipe. The flavors are tasty and slopping a tortilla into it is delicious. This is a dish that most countries have some form of it’s own version. I would love to try all the different ways to make this! Yum

Taste as you go! Don’t be afraid to add more seasonings or more pepper. You want the flavors to become deep and yummy. This dish is also good topped over rice or on the side.

Prep Time: 10 mins

Cook Time: 35 mins

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SAUCE

4 Tomatoes

!/2 yellow onion

1/2 cup of water

1 tablespoon Minced garlic

1-2 Jalapeno peppers

1/2 oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cumin

INGREDIENTS FOR THE MEAT

Cooking oil

Yellow onion Diced

1 pound ground beef

salt to taste

1-2 medium potatoes, diced

2-3 Carrots, diced

1/4 cup frozen peas ( optional )

For the sauce

Add all sauce ingredients in a large blender and puree until smooth. Add salt and taste adding more if need be.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat. When hot add in the cooking oil. onion, ground beef, and a pinch of salt. Cook breaking up the meat until lightly brown.

Add in the potatoes, carrots and peas. Mix together, cover with lid and simmer for 10 min

Add the sauce over the top

Remove lid and cook for another 10 mins.

Remove it from heat, taste and add more salt if need be.

As a gardener, you see change as a new season slowly creeps in. You notice a transformation in the Spring plants as they ever so slowly show signs of age. The leaves turn color as the summer heat eventually sucks the life right out of them. Some plants cling to the last bits of the glory in the soil, seeking the freshness of a cold drink and the life-giving rays of the sun. The plants each clinging onto what life it still holds, rushing to bare fruit in one last-ditch effort to put out seed.

I can’t help but to think it’s much like the seasons of our own lives. Like the garden, we often find ourselves in different seasons clinging onto the parts of life that give us glory and shedding those that don’t. Be cautious in what you allow to be planted in your life, just as you think and plan all winter on which vegetables and flowers you want to plant and where. What we allow in or around us can directly affect our path and growth. Fill your garden with those who will help you grow for the better and support you through your seasons and encourage your journey.  Like the heat of the summer sucking the life out of each plant, some people we spend our time with, and energy on, put into us things that don’t make us better people. 

As with the plants in the garden, each fighting for the soil and water stretching their roots in hopes to grow the biggest, the prettiest and the most fruit, there will always be those who will try to steal your soil, your water, and cast shade over you in hopes of dampening your growth, your ideas, and derailing your Journey. But, like the seasons of change, the heat of summer will get to the larger plants first and their shade will offer you the protection you need to keep growing. You will dig deeper into the soil, drink the freshness of the water more and continue on your Journey.

In the garden and in my life, I choose to embrace the Seasons of change. To dig deep into the soil, to drink the freshness of the water, and to continue on my Journey, wherever that may lead.

This is a family favorite and even to the non chicken lover in the family (the husband) he talked about this pulled chicken sandwich for weeks.

Ingredients

The garden gave us a wealth of Habanero peppers this season. So I have been doing a lot of different recipes that includes them or canning them for winter. (If you don’t have habaneros fill free to leave them out.) Also, this is a perfect recipe to throw all in the crockpot for a delicious and Easy lunch or dinner.

• 3-4 lbs. Chicken Breasts
• 16 oz. Prepared Coleslaw
• 2 cups Pineapple Juice
• 1 ½ cups Barbeque Sauce
• 1-2 Habanero peppers (optional)
• 1 cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 tsp. Minced Garlic
• 2 tsp. Salt
• 1 Onion sliced
• 2 Tbsp. Of flower to thicken the sauce or I like to use a little cornstarch and water mix.

CROCKPOT- Mix all ingredients but the chicken and onion in a bowl. Add chicken and onions and pour sauce over the top. Cook on high to medium for 4-5 hours. Thicken sauce after cooked if you needed.

STOVE TOP – I like to season my chicken first, cook each side until it gets a nice crust. Take the chicken out to cool and then shred the chicken. Add sauce and onions to the pan cooking on medium heat for 5 min. Add the shredded chicken reduce heat to low. Allow it to cook soaking in the flavors for 10 minutes. Add in your flour or cornstarch water mixture to thicken. Cook for another 10-15 minutes until thickened to your liking.

Add the pulled chicken to a yummy bun and top with slaw mix. Enjoy! 😋

If you have a love for bagels like my family does. Then this is the perfect recipe for Homemade bagels. This recipe will give you flaky, soft and a delicious crispy crust EVERY TIME!

The thing I love about this recipe is the dough can be made by hand or toss the ingredients in the bread maker and enjoy a cup of hot tea while it does its magic.

For this recipe I opted to use the bread maker on the dough setting.

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1 1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon bread machine yeast
• 1 egg for egg wash
• 1 tbsp water for egg wash

Instructions

• Place first 5 ingredients in order listed above into the bread machine pan.
• Do not mix it
• Insert baking pan securely into baking unit, close lid.
• Select dough setting on breadmaker, push start button.
• When cycle is complete, remove dough from pan and transfer to lightly floured surface. (Lightly is so important!!!)
• Divide dough into 10 -12 equal portions.
• Roll into balls, then using thumbs make a hole in the center of each ball, working dough until hole is about 1 inch.
• Place on a greased baking sheet.
• Grease top of each bagel with soft butter. Cover with wax paper and dry towel, let rise for 30 minutes.
• Meanwhile, bring 3 quarts of water and 1 tablespoon sugar to a boil.
• Reduce heat, lower bagels into water, as many as can fit
• Simmer 1-2 minutes per side.
• Drain on paper towel, then, place on greased baking sheet.
• Brush lightly with egg wash. Prepare egg wash by whisking together 1egg and 1 tbsp. water.
• Bake 400º F for 25 to 30 minutes until golden brown.

I topped my bagels with sesame seeds. To do so lightly toast sesame seeds in a pan. Once done set them aside. After placing egg wash on the bagels. Sprinkle with seeds and bake. You can use so many other yummy seasoning! Just get creative 🙂

Isn’t it funny how much we learn from the things around us? The garden is that place for me and for my kids. I feel like there are so many teaching moments it offers.

As you walk around the gardens you can feel the energy, the calm and the peace. But what you feel most is those teaching moments. From the different insects in the garden to the birds enjoying the seeds of the now dying sunflowers. Each plant gazing its beauty at you and sharing information.

The garden shows you signs of needing water, if it’s had to much water, the overall health of the plant and if it needs maybe a little boost of fertilizer.

Although, those are all teaching moments I share with my kids. The real teaching comes in taking in its complete energy. Listen as the plants move in the wind, hear the sounds of the insects, feel the soil in your hands. Breath in the calmness it gives you and embrace the beauty that surrounds you.

I often state that the garden is my little slice of heaven right here on Earth. And if I had to imagine what heaven might be like. It’s those moments in the garden. I am thankful for the teaching lessons and for it’s wealth of giving. It gives in more ways than an abundance of veggies to cook. It truly gives us an awareness of our spiritual self and God’s beauty.

Today, as we harvested and shelled bush Lima beans. I am Thankful for the lessons the garden shares with us here on the homestead.