Pizza on the grill makes me happy.
Lovely Fan Potatoes
This recipe is one that has been calling to me from one of the cookbooks I have in my stash. It seems so simple, yet interesting enough to make dinner seem a little bit special.
To make them, slice as thinly as possible, but leave the bottom intact, so you can fan out the slices. Add a bit of butter or olive oil to each potato ( in this case, I used 1/4 stick of butter for 7 potatoes), and applied it with a basting brush.
Sprinkle with sea salt/seasonings and bake in a 450 degree oven for 1 hour. Then remove from the oven and shred just a bit of cheese onto each potato. Pop back into the oven for about 5 minutes to melt the cheese.
Serve!
Filed under farming kitchen, scratch cooking
Warm Pasta Salad With Mushrooms and Sausage
When all else fails, make pasta! I often cook a meal, knowing there will be leftovers. Pasta salad is a great recipe to make a nice dinner and at least one lunch for everyone, and I can put all the vegetables into it that I have on hand.
This salad was served warm, and included:
- 2lbs pasta
- 5 links Italian sausage, frozen and sliced thinly
- 1 bunch green onions(I used walking onions from the garden)
- 1/2 red onion, chopped fine
- 8 ounce pkg sliced mushrooms
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1Tbsp olive oil, to sauté veg
- 2 (or more) Tbsp Balsamic vinegar
- chopped basil, other herbs as desired
- salt/pepper (the sausage is salty, so use caution)
In a cast iron pan, sauté onion, garlic and any other vegetables until almost cooked through.
Meanwhile boil pasta in salted water, until al dente.
Combine pasta, meat and veg, additional olive oil and vinegar.
Taste and adjust salt/ pepper.
Serve with a garden salad and bread.
Leftovers of this salad, are delicious when server cold. Enjoy!
Filed under family dinner, home cooking, scratch cooking
Garlic and Rosemary Crusted Pork Roast
With DH’s job, his schedule is all over the board. This week, we had our family dinner (tablecloth, Blue Willow) on a Tuesday. worst day of the week for me, but thanks to an awesome boss, I was able to make it work.
On the menu, pork roast with oven fries, and kale with red onion. To make the roast, I puréed garlic clove, rosemary, salt and pepper in a little olive oil, to make a loose paste. Then I injected it in about 6 or 8 places and rubbed the rest onto the top. It looked like this:
Then, since I have nothing that fits in my roaster, to hold the roast off the bottom, I improvised. That’s how a farming wife rolls.
The roast sits perfectly on the canning jar lids, and they wash up easily. Here it is ready to roast. I like to let it sit for 30 minutes before placing in the hot oven.
After it became all yummy and browned, it looked much nicer.
The sides were lovely as well, and they are recipes for another day.
Filed under farming kitchen
Grocery Day!
Obligatory kid photo
No one else ever seems as excited about grocery day as I am. It has always been a day to look forward to, but maybe it is because I go about it in a different manner than most. I wouldn’t dream of going to the store without these three things:
1. A Plan – Where am I going and in what order. I do not run willy-nilly around town.
2. A List – What am I shopping for? Food, clothing, bits and pieces of some project, things the family members requested. Some items get checked off of a big list, others stay on until I find just the right item.
3. A Calculator – Shopping ends when the calculator says so. I do not use credit cards, payment plans, rob Peter to pay Paul, or any of that business. The top of my list has the total amount that I can spend for the day. When that is gone, I go home.
Does this sound overwhelming? Really, it’s not. Instead of being bothersome, shopping with some sort of guidelines, gives me a sense of security. I can then focus on buying what I need and not worrying if there is enough to cover it in the bank.
Today, I am going to be buying 7 breakfast/lunch/dinner meals, some pantry items, a few herb plants and perennials that are on sale locally, and looking for a recliner and/or couch for the livingroom. We have two thrift stores on my route, that take a mere 5 minutes to blow through. It’s pretty simple when looking for furniture. Clothing needs much more concentration.
So, enough chit chat. This is cutting into my shopping day! Have a joyful and fun filled Sunday, everyone.
Filed under Uncategorized
I Made A Pledge: How About You?
Homegrown Across America, is fast becoming my obsession. Within my own town, I share the info at every opportunity, and practically plead with members of my community to take a look.
Today, I made a pledge to become a financial backer on Kickstarter.com. If you have been reading long, you know that I budget every bit of our money, right down to the penny, so this decision was not taken lightly. I felt that if I was going to get out there and bug, harass, share with my social media stream about this upcoming program, then I would have to put my money where my mouth is, err-open up the canning jar and take out my own pennies.
Homegrown Across America will bring the small farmer some much needed press. Imagine millions of people watching every week, as people just like themselves go to work full time and then come home to take care of business on the farm? Of course, Yours Truly will be there a few times, taking some of the mystery out of the art of Canning and Preserving, Eating Wild Food, Herbs, and other Farming Wife topics.
Please, if you haven’t taken a peek, check out the link on Kickstarter, and share with your social media stream. This could change the lives of hundreds of small farmers across the country.
As my way of saying Thank You, If you pledge $50 or more, I will send you a signed copy of my book:
Canning and Preserving For Dummies
The book covers everything you need to know about food preservation and even has recipes that include the preserved foods. Fill your pantry and actually use it! What a novel approach. 
To get your copy, please send me your name and address privately, once you have made your pledge.
Thank you for any love you can give to this exciting project! I look forward to sharing this new facet of The Farming Wife’s journey with you.
Filed under Uncategorized
Wild salad
This is a lovely Wild Food salad, that someone brought to the Homeschool prom yesterday. Isn’t it pretty?
It had delicious violets, wild garlic, and lambs quarters in the mix. So awesome to see wild bits on the menu.
Filed under Homeschooling
