Summer Salad July 1, 2009

This is in response to the challenge my friend Tami posted on her blog.  She has shared a few summer salad recipes and asked us to do the same.  I got the idea to substitute pureed beans for mayonnaise from a cookbook so this isn’t entirely my idea, but I have tweaked this recipe quite a bit.  I’m still trying to perfect it.  Enjoy!

Chicken Waldorf Salad

2 to 3 Chicken Breasts

 1 cup dry white beans (I use navy beans)

1 tart apple

a bunch of grapes (red or green, seedless)

walnuts (or almonds or pecans)

celery

lemon juice

Mayonnaise or Mustard (optional)

I soak the beans overnight in the crock pot.  In the morning I change the water, add the chicken and turn in on low for several hours.  When its done I turn off the crock pot, drain the water and allow it to cool for a few minutes.  Cut up the apple, grapes, and celery and place in a large bowl.  Cut up the chicken (It should fall apart pretty easily at this point) and add to the bowl.  Add walnuts.  Place the beans in the food processor with lemon juice.  You can use canned beans, rinse the beans several times (this takes out some of the salt) before use.  Puree the beans, adding as much water as needed to make a somewhat runny paste.  Add either a little mayonnaise or mustard for flavor, if desired.  Add the beans to the bowl and mix well.  This tastes the best once its rested in the fridge for a while.

Sorry there are no pictures of this yet.  I made this two days ago, before Tami’s challenge, and didn’t take a picture.

My Garden June 30, 2009

In order to give you an idea of how far the garden has come this year let me take you back to last year.

I really wish I had a picture of the “garden” when we moved in.  It was half the size it is now and had a tree growing (well dying actually) in the middle.  There were two ornamental grass bushes under the weeds.  I’m not sure of their proper name, you can see them in the picture.  We moved them to the back yard where they are growing nicely.  There was also a varigated hosta that I thought I had killed but it came back nicely.  I moved it to the side of the house. 

The big green bush in the front right corner is potatos.  Take a good look at it.    On a whim, my husband planted some potatos that had sprouted in the pantry.  They grew very quickly and had beautiful flowers when they bloomed.  I dug down at least a foot to pull up all the potatoes when we put in the raised bed.  Apparently I didn’t get the all out because I keep finding the potatoes trying to come up right under my strawberries!

The Garden Today

We inherited the wood to construct the long skinny bed (in the back) from some neighbors when they moved.  It is roughly 2 ft by 8 ft.  This bed contains my tomato (3 varieties), oregano, basil, garlic, summer squash, and zucchini.  Each of the two front beds were made from wood we bought at the hardware store, they measure roughly 4 ft square.  The right bed is home to flowers, strawberries, lettuce, and carrots.  The left bed  is home to basil, oregano, cucumbers, peas (snap and sugar), parsley, garlic, and a few flowers.

My “vine wall” is home to some ivy, morning glory, and hopefully some sweet pea.

I had planned to show close ups of all my plants but I have way too many pictures.  I will try to post about the plants one at a time this week.  Also shots of the back are to come soon!

My Child Today June 26, 2009

So this blog isn’t supposed to be about BeBop, but this was too cute to keep to myself.  I normally only clean when he his napping because I don’t like to use chemicals around him.  But today he refused to nap so I decided to clean the bathrooms anyway.  BeBop jumped right in to help.  Hopefully he will still want to help when he is older.

Diaper Swap May 1, 2009

We use cloth diapers and have since BeBop McDudley came home from the hospital.  I love them!  We started just using prefolds (flat diapers).  Once BeBop started walking, I started having trouble getting the prefold tight around his legs, resulting in a mess on more than one occasion.  I recently started sewing diapers so I could experiment with different styles.  I signed up for Diaper Sewing Divas and have learned all I know from the various tutorials and suggestions.  Thanks Ladies!  I also signed up for a diaper swap this month.  A friend in California made a pocket diaper, a mini diaper and a cover for me.  She also sent me some fabric that will become a diaper soon.  I have no pictures of the pocket diaper because BeBop has immediately pooped in it every time I put it on him.  The mini diaper is a little too big so we haven’t used it as a diaper yet, however it has spent some time as a toy:

And the cover: 

In return I made a pair of wool shorts for her daughter.  I hand dyed the yarn in the crock pot and I am very pleased with how it turned out.  The colors are a little off in the picture but is mostly two shades of green with specks of blue and white.  The drawstring and flower are navy blue.  I used the curly purly waist band (adding an eyelet row after round 7) and the Aubry Doodlepants pattern for the bottom.  I used a picot bind off to create a small ruffle.  I am very happy with the result.

I used the left over yarn (plus my various wool scraps)  to make a set of dryer balls.

I have one more surprise planned that I hope to finish up over the weekend.  Thanks for looking.

Hello – Again!

I started this blog a few months ago and tried to do way too many things.  So I have decided this will be a craft and gardening blog and I will leave the family stories to be posted on our family website.  On that note, I’ve also decided to use the name we gave our son before he was born (and also before we knew he was a boy), a nickname that we still use… BeBop McDudley.  Enjoy.