What I Wore Wednesday

We have had a ton of wind here lately.  A ton!

The forecast for this whole week looks beautiful...except for the wind!

It's been doing all kinds of crazy things to my hair...

For example, my side bangs, have become real bangs when the wind picks up.

I snapped a picture when I was outside the other day to see what I looked like with bangs.  What do you think?  I toy with the idea of bangs every once in a while, but then I chicken out.  I'm afraid they would drive me crazy.  But my sister-in-law just cut some light bangs (the "Jennifer Lawrence" hairstyle) and she looks gorgeous.

It's making me consider it again...

A few weeks ago, Old Navy had their "stuff and save" sale.

As much as you could fit in the bag was 40% off.

I saw this shirt on the manikin and liked it, but they only had it left in an X-Large.

So I bought it anyway.

My little sister never looks at sizes...she says you can always make it work :) 

I'm also wearing my favorite JOLT jeans from Nordstrom.

Love them!  So comfy!!!

They also have "butt lift" in them.

I guess they have a little tighter elastic in the bum to give it a little lift.

I was excited about it because I used to have a bum, but it went away after I had kids.

When I first saw this picture of myself, I thought:

"It worked!  It looks like I have a bum!"

...

Then I remembered that I had stuck my phone in my back pocket so I wasn't holding it in the picture...so I guess it didn't give me a bigger bum.

Oh well.

They're still my favorite jeans.

And, I'm standing in my soon-to-be-garden.  Soooo excited!!!

Herb Gardening

It's that time of year to start the garden and I am soooo excited!

 

I spent all day on Friday running around to every greenhouse and nursery in town trying to find the best deals.  We finally found what we were looking for and I was so excited to get started.  The weather has been consistently nice, but when I checked the forecast, it said that Saturday night would be 36 degrees.  That's a little too close to freezing for me to risk all of my baby plants.  So instead, we just planted our herbs on the balcony.

 

This is my third year planting herbs and they can be a little tricky.

The first year, our basil turned into a giant bush and the cilantro turned into a massive weed.

The next year, our basil did great but I killed off our camomile and cilantro almost immediately (I don't know what happened.)

I think we've finally mastered growing basil, but I'm branching out and trying cilantro (again), rosemary, and parsley.

I also planted wildflowers, but if they don't grow, I'm picking up some more herbs.

Here's some helpful tips I learned about planting herbs:

-It's better to buy herbs at the greenhouse and then plant them.  You can grow them from seeds, but they can be fragile and take along time to be big enough to use.

-If you're new to growing herbs, start with basil.  It's pretty easy to grow and easy to use.  

-Make sure you cut from your herbs often or they can get out of control.  My first basil plant was great, but it was massive and started flowering.  You don't want it to flower because then it will put all of it's effort and flavor into the flowers and not the leaves.  Plus, it attracts a ton of bees.  If you trim it regularly, you will be able to clip off the flowers right as they start before it gets out of control.

-Trim from the top, not the base.  Even though the top leaves are newer and smaller, you don't want to end up with a skinny stick with leaves on top.  Plus, the big bottom leaves soak in all of the sun for the plant.

-I found this great blog called The Skinny Gourmet that explains 10 mistakes that herb-growers make.  It's worth reading.

-I have been reading a lot lately about growing cilantro.  Apparently there is nothing you can do to keep it from bolting.  Every plant wants to reproduce.  Some tips to help are to keep it trimmed, keep it cool and shaded, and grow it close together so that they can shade each others roots.  When it gets too hot, it knows it will die soon and it starts to reproduce and then your cilantro is useless.  Cilantro seems to be a pretty high maintenance plant because everything I've read suggests that you replant every few weeks so that when one starts to go to seed, you can pull it up and use the next one.  Then you always have one ready.  Hmm...seems like a ton of work.  We'll see how it goes this year. 

- One thing to be aware of is choosing the right herbs.  Make sure that you choose things that you will use, or that you can dry or freeze for later use.  Make sure that you are choosing the right kind of herb for what you want.  For example, in basil alone there is sweet basil, lemon basil, purple ruffled basil, etc.  This year, I picked a curled parsley because it looked like what I would have bought it the store.  However, upon further research, I read that Italian parsley is the way to go if you are using it for cooking, curled parsley is more of a garnish.  Oops.

-Don't waste your herbs.  Make sure that you dry them or freeze them if you can't use them in time.  They are too great to go to waste.  I learned from my husband (who lived in Italy for 2 years) that you can freeze basil.  Right before the end of the season, we picked all of our basil leaves off and put them in the freezer.  Now we have garden fresh basil all winter long.

If you're new to gardening start with an herb garden.  It is fun, simple, and you don't need a lot of space.  I keep mine right on the balcony.  Plus, it's portable so you can bring it inside if you need to.  Herb gardens are fun because they force you to be a little more creative with your cooking if you want to put them to use :)

Harvest Butternut Squash Soup

This is one of my favorite recipes!

First of all, because I can grow almost all of the ingredients in my garden.

Second...because my kids will eat it too!

Here's what you need:

1 medium sized butternut squash (you can use a bigger one, but you may need to add more vegetable/chicken broth)

3 carrots

1 medium sweet onion

5 cloves garlic

1-2 Tbsp. olive oil

48+ ounces of vegetable/chicken broth

1 Tbsp. Curry Powder

salt to taste

1 loaf whole grain french/sourdough bread

Start by chopping up your garlic and onions.

Saute them in the olive oil in a pot.

Make sure you are using a big enough pot...there are a lot of vegetables. 

While the onions and garlic are cooking, cut up the carrots.

Add the carrots to the pot, sprinkle with salt, and put the lid one.

I turn the heat down and just let everything start to steam.

While the veggies are cooking, start cutting up your butternut squash.

I've found that the best way is to peel it with a vegetable peeler, then start slicing it and cubing it.  The round part does have seeds, like a pumpkin, so you'll have to scoop those out.

Once you are finished, add the squash to the pot.

Mix everything up and sprinkle with a little more salt.

I also add a tablespoon of curry powder.

McCormick Hot Madras is my favorite because it's really strong so you can use less.

Other brands seem to need more than a Tbsp. in recipes to be able to taste it.

I let everything cook for about another 5 minutes.

Then I add the 48 ounces of chicken/vegetable broth and bring it to a boil.

Cover and simmer for 45 minutes - 1 hour.

After it's done simmering, I put it in the blender and blend everything together.

The squash and the carrot together make the perfect "creamy" soup without any cream.

If I used a particularly big squash, or extra carrots, I often need to add more chicken broth so that it doesn't get too thick.

After blending it (it takes several batches in the blender to do it all), put it back in the pot and simmer for another 15 minutes.

There you have it...

The best Butternut Squash Soup Ever!

If you feel like it, add a squirt of cream and sprinkle some toasted pumpkin seeds or pine nuts.  I only did it for the picture LOL.  We don't use cream, but if you like cream, give it a try!

I always serve it with toasted slices of multigrain french bread.

This is the key to getting the kids to love it...dipping :)

There you have it...

Harvest Butternut Squash Soup straight from the garden :)

Harvest

I sent my husband down to the garden to check if there was anything ready to be picked.

This is what he came home with:

He told me that he couldn't get it all because the bag was getting too full and he didn't want anything to get squished.  Oh wow!  I couldn't believe how much there was.  This is one of the reasons we love our garden.  All of the hard work all spring of planting and weeding and watering finally pays off...and in a big way.  Not everything works.  Our carrots aren't looking great and our pumpkins are taking over and threatening to strangle some of our other plants.  I fail every year with my cilantro.  Is there a secret to growing cilantro?  If there is, please fill me in... 

But for the most part, everything is looking beautiful!

There is just something fulfilling about the law of the harvest.  You reap what you sow.  When we work hard to plant this garden and take care of it, then we end up with enough vegetables for our family (and neighbors).  Plus, I have to get creative with my cooking.  Last year, I even tried canning :)  This year, we want to try canning salsa.  I'm still looking for a good recipe though...

And this is what happens when you leave your harvest on the table for too long before you wash it and put it away:

Somehow my baby helped himself to the biggest Roma tomato of the bunch and was walking around the house munching on it.  We could see everywhere he had been by the trails of tomato juice on the carpet...

It took him about a half hour, but he actually ate the whole thing!

What's your favorite thing to grow?

Starting the Garden

On Saturday, we were finally able to make it out to work on our garden.

The weather was perfect and I've been dying to get my onions and carrots started.

We spread out a blanket for the babe:

Bridger helped bury the drip lines...

And Saxon helped sprinkle the bunny poop.

Yes, bunny poop.

Isn't that gross?

Everyone I've talked to swears that it makes the garden grow better than anything else.

Since my cousin has lots of bunnies, and lots of bunny poop, we borrowed some.

I'll let you know how it goes :)

Has anyone ever tried it before?

Of course I had to take a few breaks to sunbathe with my baby-cakes.

After 3 hours of working in the garden, all we got planted were the onions.

Ha ha.

I'm still new to gardening and forget how long it can take.

We'll have to continue where we left off this weekend.

And speaking of gardens, remember my greenhouse garden on my balcony?

It is doing AMAZING!

I'll take some pictures and post them because it was too easy and so fun!