Harvesting

How lame is it that I was excited about picking our first tomato today?  And it was just a tiny little cherry tomato.  Sad.  But we also picked 1/2 pint of raspberries and a couple of onions, so I guess that makes it a little better.  I was too lazy today to take pictures but just imagine the last pictures I posted, just fuller.

 In my last post, I mentioned my venture into Once A Month Cooking.  I have to say that we are all greatly impressed with how it all turned out!  Our grocery budget was cut by a few hundred dollars (yes, hundred!) and making dinner has been so simple the past few weeks.  I basically set aside one day when the kids were behaving, which usually only happens one day a month anyway, and went to work!  I had the hamburger buns mixing in the bread machine while I did my prepping and cooking, so it went smoothly.  I had a couple of days of spaghetti on the menu, so I just made enough for all of those days, divided, and froze them.  I did the same with the other ground beef dishes (like maidrites, etc.)  For my soups, I diced up all of my veggies and froze, along with meat for those that needed it.  For my pizzas, I make one batch of dough (bread machine) and one batch of sauce, each batch makes enough for two pizzas, then I package them up.  When I'm done I have a bag of dough, sauce, and shredded cheese.  Easy Peasy! 
I have not had to go to the grocery store at all for meals this month, only for milk, some fruit, and stuff for Jason's lunches.  And maybe a beer or two. :)  Like I mentioned earlier, I sit down with a calendar, write down a meal for each day of the month, and then make a list of ingredients needed.  To make it cheaper, I stuck to 7-8 different dishes and just repeated them throughout the month.  It saves alot of time and money to do it this way.  Then I divide my list into things I can order from my monthly Azure Standard order, which is most of my ingredients, and what I need to get from the grocery store, usually just meat, milk, and a few produce items.  When my Azure order drops, I take a day or two to whip up all of the meals.  Voila!
If you are interested in seeing my menu for July/August, shoot me an email and I'll send it to you.   You can copy my menu, and you've saved even more time! :)  I don't have any fancy meals on my menu, anyone can make these things people! 

Summer!

It's here.....finally!  Although I can't honestly say that I love summer like most people.  I hate temperatures of 100+ degrees, especially around here where the humidity makes it impossible to grab the mail without needing to change clothes.  Yuck.  But the kids have been enjoying the days, now that we don't have to worry about getting a nap in before picking M up from school.  So far we've gone to Jester Park to play at the playground and playscape, visited the Science Center, been to a few libraries (and signed up for the summer reading programs), and lots of other fun trips.
We started summer out with the kids making lists of "goals" they want to accomplish this summer.  It's mostly fun stuff, M's includes stuff like visiting Grandma for a week, learning to ride a bike without training wheels, visit the zoo, etc.  K's includes things like working on potty training, learning his colors, and of course a trip to the airport to watch the airplanes!
Speaking of K, his vocabulary has really picked up lately.....he's still way behind by most standards but that fact that he is learning is encouraging.  He knows most of his animal sounds (the elephant is his favorite) and, like any little boy, he knows all of the different vehicles.  He's obsessed with them to say the least. 


Let's see, what else is exciting here.....oh yeah, I'm going to make a feeble attempt at once-a-month-cooking this month.  I'm not following any particular plan and I have done zero research on the best ways to do it, but I'm still going to try, mostly to save from the typical 5-10 trips to the grocery store each month.  I wrote out my menu for the entire month and have my list all ready to go!  It does have a lot of repeat recipes, but I figure if I change it up each month we won't get bored quickly....or at least that's what I'm hoping for.  For anyone who doesn't know what this is, it's pretty self-explanatory.  I plan on cooking all of the meals for the month (or at least prepping the ones that can't be cooked ahead) and freezing them.  If this works out, I will share my menu, shopping list, and cooking steps here next month.
We order most of our foods from Azure Standard, and since we only get them delivered once a month, I planned my start day to coincide with that order.  Then I just have to get meats and fresh produce and dairy from the grocery store, although I'd really like to do some research and find a local farm to order fresh meat and dairy each month.  I'd love some suggestions if anyone has any!  Hopefully next month our garden with help with the fresh produce portion!

And a blog post from me wouldn't be complete with talk about the garden.  I don't have pictures this time, but the garden is doing well.  We only got about 12 strawberries this year, but they are new plants so we didn't expect much.  We've had lots of lettuce and snap peas already, and the herb garden has really been handy lately.  Also, we have tomatoes starting!

Search Amazon.com for once a month cooking

Garden Update

It's so exciting to finally see the garden coming together...with stuff growing in it!  I have everything planted that can tolerate a light frost, and I'll be planting the rest within the next few weeks.  I have updated pictures below.  I didn't realize that you couldn't see much with the covers on, but those covers have been a life saver.  The first week that I planted, the pesky animals (squirrels, rabbits, and birds) ate 75% off my seeds/seedlings :(  So the covers, while unattractive, were necessary.  Anyway, this is what it looks like today:

 This is the first box on my deck.  The back row is/will be:  Rosemary, Cilantro, Basil, & Dill in the back row.  All of the front row will be lettuce

This is my other deck box.  It is/will be Oregano, Parsley (cut out of picture by accident), Radish, Thyme, Lettuce, Chives, and two squares of spinach.

 This box is/will be cauliflower, cabbage, red onions, white onions, peas, and green beans.  The box to the right is empty but will be all sweet peppers.

This is ALL strawberries!! YUM!!  The box to the right is completely empty but will be all tomatoes.

This is my larger box for things that need deeper root space.  This will have a pumpkin and butternut squash plant up against the fence, I'll use the fence as a trellis to grow these two things vertically.  The next row forward will be carrots and celery.  The next row will be all potatoes.  The row closest  is broccoli and green onions. 

All of these lovely green plants are raspberries!  It started about 2 years ago as 3 raspberry bushes and has easily grown to about 50 of the little guys.  These grow well here, I usually pick a 1/2 pint a day!

As you can see, the garden is still covered in black weed fabric.  We should be getting our mulch soon.  I'll take a picture of the garden at that point so you can see the boxes all together.  Other than what you see here, I have 4-5 rhubarb bushes in the yard, they are small and I won't get much fruit from them this year, and a blueberry plant that could very well be dead.  :/

And in case that isn't enough pictures for you, I have these pictures of my plants still inside! :)

 The small ones are lettuce.  The red cups are tomatoes, and the others are a mix of basil, sweet peppers, and cucumbers, along with the various herbs.

The little cups are more lettuce and lots of chives.  The bigger plants are mostly celery with a few sweet peppers mixed in.