The Harvest

Yesterday, I posted on my Facebook status that I froze 37 quarts of corn.  A friend of mine asked me if that was from my "small little garden".  Our garden is VERY small.  Praise the Lord for others who share their harvest.  My three stalks of corn did not product any edible corn.  I had two ears and both of them did not develop fully. 

I told her our pitiful little garden didn't produce much.  The Lord used her next comment to gently remind me of the more important harvest. 

She said to me "Tracy, your "pitiful" little garden (as you named it) grew more than you ate. It grew a lot of family time that will last forever. A plant will die. You gathered a crop and didn't even know it. :) ♥"

She is right.

Here are some pictures from our summer project. 

Michael built our garden box.

I helped fill the box with soil.

The girls helped plant.

I placed the markers.

Cari planted the potatoes.

Hannah planted the onions.

We planted some pretty flowers too. 

Who can resist all that beauty the Lord has provided?

I love these dirty little hands.

Our first tomato plant. 

The frost bit this one.  We moved it and planted a new one.  After some time though, this plant did produce two small tomatoes.

We planted some herbs too. 

We didn't use as much as I had thought, but the most fun we got out of these were picking them and sniffing them and rubbing them and smelling our hands every single time we walked out to the garden.  The girls would pick the little leaves or sprigs off and take them to people to smell.

Here is a picture after we planted it.

When the frost came, the next night, Michael built this extention and covered it with a tarp and placed to space heaters under it to keep it warm.  He doesn't do anything half way.  Space hearters??!!  Genius.

Our first sprouts.  These are green beans.

These are zuchinni.

Our first strawberry. 

We were waiting on this one to turn red.  I guess the mockingbird hanging out in our backyard tree had his eye on it too.  I caught him in action and ran him off before he ate the whole thing.

I carefully trimmed off the pecked part and washed and divided our first strawberry.  All four of us had a taste of the very first fruit that our garden produced.

The first sight of tiny tomatoes on the new plant.

I can already smell the zuchinni bread....

Tada... our first zuchinni.

These onions will find theirselves floating in some pasta sauce.

Cari is washing the onions.  She LOVES spaghetti, so she was more than happy to help.

These tomatoes are ripening in the sun by our back window. 

Here is the corn we froze.  Hannah helped me prepare it for the freezer.  Her favorite part was picking the silks off of the corn.  Again, praise the Lord for others who share.

Our garden grew...

Looking back through these pictures showed me just how much crop I really did gather. 

Crops of smiles, laughter, and memories.

Why I LOVE cooking (and freezing)

One of my MOST favorite breakfast meals is stuffed french toast from IHOP. 

This morning we had stuffed french croissants with apple butter and a side of bacon

and I didn't even have to change out of my PJs!!!

Another one of my favorite things to do is make meals ahead of time and freeze them. 

The entire meal took me around 15 minutes to prepare. 

(The girls had regular french toast - not stuffed - It's a shame... one day they will learn.)

Two weeks ago, I made two loaves of bread.  I freeze them in half loafs.  I moved one out of the freezer yesterday to thaw to make french toast with this morning. 

A month ago, I had a couple MONSTER croissants left over.  I stuffed them with butter and cream cheese.  I stuffed them inside of a ziploc freezer bag and stuffed them in the freezer.  Yesterday I moved them down into the fridge to thaw out some.  This morning I cooked them. 

VERY. VERY. YUMMY.

I also had homemade apple butter in my freezer.  I moved that into the fridge too. 

Then, Hannah said, "Mom, do you have any bacon to go with this?"  Guess what?  I had some bacon that I had already cooked and put into a ziploc freezer bag, in the freezer.  I had not laid that one out to thaw.  I laid out the bacon on my small stone and put it in the toaster oven to thaw and warm for about 5 minutes.  DONE. 

A quick and yummy breakfast.

Pita Pocket Bread

Are you sitting down?

I have learned how to make a new kind of bread!!!

Do you know just how excited I get over bread?

I think you do.

This is Pita bread. 

You may have heard of this kind of bread. 

Most resturants serve "Pita Pockets". 

So, I present to you, Pita Pocket Bread!!

Total Ingredients:

4 cups of flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1 package of yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar (or honey)

1 1/2 cups of warm water (divided) 110 - 115 degrees

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

You will need three bowls. 

Large - Medium - Small

In the small bowl combine:

1 package of yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar (honey)

and 1/2 cup of warm water

Mix until dissolved.  Then, let it sit uncovered for 15 minutes.

It will get foamy.

During the 15 minutes...

Combine in the medium size bowl:

3 cups of flour

(I use 2 cups of the whole wheat and 1 cup of white.)

and 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

Form a well in the bowl. 

(Push the flour and salt mixture up on the sides of the bowl and make a hole in the middle.)

Pour yeast mixture and 1 cup of water in the middle. 

Mix until it is well combined.  It will be a very sticky dough.

In the largest bowl, pour 1 Tablespoon of olive oil.

Pour the dough on top the oil and roll around so that all the dough is coated with oil.  This will prevent it from sticking to the sides of your bowl while it is rising.

Cover and place in a warm place to rise.  I normally turn my oven on 'warm' during the 15 minutes the yeast is foaming.  Then, I turn it off.  This provides a warm place for the dough to rise.

Let it rise for 3 hours.

I KNOW!!!

3 WHOLE HOURS!!!

Who can stand it???

Prepare your 'kneading place'.  I use my bar pan to knead in so I don't get flour all in the floor.  I dump the last 1 cup of white flour onto my bar pan.

The dough will triple in size. 

Knead the dough for 10 minutes.

Don't kid yourself - Knead for 10 WHOLE minutes!!

Roll the dough into a log shape.

Cut into 16 even sized pieces. 

These will make sandwich size pita breads.

Roll into balls.

Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

During the time, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Make sure to PREHEAT YOUR BAKING PAN!!!  This is an important step - otherwise, your first two pita breads will not make pockets.

Roll out into discs about 1/8 inch thick. 

Make sure to put enough flour down and flour your rolling pin so they do not stick.

Place two in the oven at a time and bake for 4 minutes.  I bake on a stone, so I do not turn mine.  You could bake on a wire rack or turn them half way through baking.

They will puff up like little woopie cushions. 

SO FUN!!!

Remove from oven and cool on a rack. 

Don't worry - no matter how perfectly you follow the recipe, some will make a pocket and some will not.

After they are completely cool, you can store them in any kind of air tight container. 

I am sure they would freeze perfectly and thaw. 

However, we never have any left over for me to freeze!

When you slice them in half, you will see the fun little pocket these breads make.  You can stuff whatever you LOVE inside of them.  Anything you put between two pieces of bread, you could stuff inside of these. 

In honor of my aunt Willa's favorite, we had "scrambled egg sandwiches" for breakfast.

Cari LOVED them!!!

I did too - my picture just didn't turn out quite so cute.... haha...

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have been.

One of the most recent suggestions I have had was to make a pizza crust out of them.  This would be PERFECT for the ones that don't puff up so well.

Stuffed French Croissants

One of my all time favorites.

So easy and so yummy.

And - to answer your burning question -

NO - I did not make the croissants. 

I love to make bread, but I am not THAT talented.

This recipe will cover at least two large croissants.

I bought my monsters at Sams Club.

I share with my husband.  I am nice like that.

Or, you could just eat a whole one all by yourself. 

You know he is not home ALL the time.... haha.

Most of the time, you can find smaller ones in the bakery section of
your local grocery store.

Things you will need:

2 monster size croissants

2 Tablespoons of butter (apx.)

Cream cheese

2 eggs

1/2 cup of milk

2 Tablespoons of sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Filling:  Strawberry Jam, Apple Butter, Peach preserves,

or whatever your favorite is. 

(Jelly is a little too runny, but jam and preserves work perfectly.)

PREHEAT YOUR SKILLET NOW!!! 

You do not want to start with a semi-hot skillet.  I put mine on medium low
(number 3)  and make sure it is good and hot before I begin to fry.

Slice your croissants in half.

 Slice off little pats of butter to put inside.

 Slice off some cream cheese to put inside - 

depending on how much filling you want, and what size your croissants are.

 Spoon in your jam or preserves.  I used my homemade strawberry jam.

 Close. 

I also smash a little with my hand to make sure it doesn't run out too much
when cooking.

 Mix eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla extract in a bowl big enough to
dip your croissant in.

A little something that happened in between these pictures:  I melted a little butter on my cast iron skillet to make sure it doesn't stick.  I picked up the stuffed croissant and dipped it and flipped it and made sure it was covered all over with the egg mixture.  I normally hold the bowl over the pan while I am dipping so I don't string egg mix all over the counter.  So, both of my hands were busy and I didn't have a free one to take a picture.

Fry on both sides.
 I flip over and over to make sure both sides get cooked evenly. 
I also fry it on a lower temperature (number 2)
so the cream cheese and butter have enough time to get warm and melty.  

 I am constantly smashing it with my spatula.  Don't smash too hard, you don't want
your filling to end up on your skillet. 
When both sides are about this brown, it is done.

 You could take the extra step to sprinkle some powdered sugar
 on top to make it pretty. 

But, who really has time? 

You are going to want to eat this as soon as it hits the plate!!!

Enjoy!