BBQ Green Beans

There is something incredibly satisfying about the harvesting of these beans. I am in love with the festival of color. I don't think that one color tastes better than another, I simply plant all three because I love to pick them. When they cook unfortunately the purple ones turn green so I loose that visual gratification, but it's still fun to see two colors on the plate rather than only one.

At this point in the summer we have eaten beans in every way imaginable. We just alternate between beans and squash every night. I'm doing my best to use what the garden gives us, and at the same time trying to not get bored of the same food. So we eat the same food different ways :)

 This was almost like a double whammy in that first of all I didn't have to heat up my house to cook them because they cooked on the BBQ, and second of all it was a new way to eat the same food that we've already eaten plenty of this summer.

Before I began washing the beans I poured a couple of tbs EVOO in a bowl with a couple crushed garlic cloves and some salt and pepper. I mixed this and let it sit while I washed the beans. I did this hoping that the garlic would give some flavor to the oil.

I placed the beans on a double layer of foil, tucked some sliced onions into them and poured the oil mixture over the top. Wrapped the foil up tight and placed it right on the BBQ. I also made a kid friendly packet that only had some butter on it so that my kids would also eat their vegis.

I think it cooked for probably 20-30 mins on a mixture of high and medium heat. I cooked these one time before and let it burn a little (on accident) and I actually think I liked it better that way. Kinda caramelized the onions and gave it a little deeper flavor.

 The kid's packet.

So yummy, so easy, so healthy :)

Back To School Breakfast

My two oldest went back to school today so it was a big morning at our house.  One in 11th grade and another in 3rd. So I wanted to make something special. It needed to me yummy of course, but I also wanted it to have a little nutrition in it too so this is what I made.

It's a recipe for Blueberry-Swirl Coffee Cake but my kids like their food in muffin form better so I made it in muffin cups instead of a pan. I realize that it is a cake and therefore not terribly healthy, but at least I got a fruit in there, hehe.

Over the summer my now third grader was shopping with daddy and saw this magazine and insisted that they buy it for me because in her words, "mom always likes cooking healthy things" How cute is that? I love her!

Needles to say, I am glad they bought it because it's full of nice recipes and pretty pics.

This is where the recipe came from. I made this one other time and called it breakfast :) This summer while Rikard's family was staying with us I made it, and they all loved it too.

I didn't have lemon zest so I substituted almond extract and it was delish!

To make it into muffins instead of the cake I just layered it in the tins same as you would in the pan and sorta swirled it around with my finger. Worked fine.

 Maybe the best part about making this into muffins was that I had extra blueberries in the end. Of course I could not waste these sugared little beauties. They fit beautifully in a small baking pan and luckily I had a little batter left. Oh baby!

 I could eat the whole pan! Good thing it's small! It's almost like pie, maybe like a buckle? Whatever it is, it is definitely delicious! I may plan this little accident again by increasing the blueberries and decreasing the batter. It would be heaven with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce over it. But then I couldn't call it breakfast.

Here's the recipe:

Blueberry-Swirl Coffee Cake

2 1/2 c fresh or frozen blueberries

1/3 c packed light brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 c (1 stick) butter

1 c granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large egg white

1 tbs grated lemon zest

2 1/2 c self-rising flour

1 1/4 c reduced fat milk

Preheat oven to to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 13x9 inch baking pan. Toss 2 cups blueberries with brown sugar and cinnamon until blueberries are covered.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg and egg white beat another 2 minutes. Add lemon zest. Reduce to low speed and add flour alternately with milk, one-third at a time. Scrape sides down and do not over mix.

Spread half the batter into pan and sprinkle with blueberries. Spoon remaining batter on the top and swirl with knife several times. Sprinkle remaining blueberries on the top .

Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs clinging, about 40-45 minutes. Cool pan on wire rack 15 mins before serving.

I baked the muffins for 15-20 minutes. They needed to be in muffin cups because the ones that were not fell apart when I was trying to remove them from the pan. They also didn't work well as mini muffins. Maybe they would have if I would have used mini muffin papers but I didn't have any so they came out in a heap. Still tasted good but looked like a disaster :)

Enjoy!



Mandy

Garden Dinner

I love the meals that come right from the garden. From farm to table in a few minutes. This year my tomatos are a little slow coming, but for what it lacks in tomatos it makes up in cucumbers. So I'm getting a little creative in how to use up all the cucumbers that we have.

This is a super yummy fresh salad that we had last week paired with come grilled chicken. Yum!

Cucumber Salad:

Garden Cucumbers

Tomatos

Feta Cheese

Red onion

EVOO

Rice Wine Vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Combine all ingredients in proportions that you like. Toss and enjoy!

Cakes & Cupcakes

For my birthday I got a Cricut Cake. Oooh the possibilities :) I love decorating cakes. Mostly I love icing, but for me that has translated into a love of using the icing to decorate cakes.

This cake I made for Mandaline's 16th Birthday. It was so fun to make.

We were unsure how many kids would come so I decided to make a batch of cupcakes to compliment the cake and this is the cuteness that insued!

 I could very nearly die of cuteness - if that were at all possible, haha!

These are my first expirement with my new toy. I made them for Dawnie's Bridal shower. Orriginally I wanted to have a simple D & R on the cupcakes, but there is quite a learning curve with the machine so this is what resulted. I think they are darling!

Dawnie had some cute little metal tags that made all the difference in the packaging. I made them as a favor, not as a dessert so they needed to be portable.

A few notes on using Cricut Cake:

-For the sugar sheets that you buy at the craft store it worked best to not cut all the way through the sheet but only score it with the machine. This did make it so you had to finish punching the shapes out with your hands or a small knife but the success rate was a lot higher than when I cut all the way through because it would crack and chip and I would throw out most of the cuts. So I had it on medium presure and low speed.

-Also with the sugar sheets I left them on their plastic sheet and just stuck the plastic to the cutting mat with a little butter. This kept them from becoming to soggy with butter and made it so I didn't have to work so fast before the sheets became too soft to move.

-On my second try I just rolled out fondant instead of sugar sheets. The fondant is so much easier! Besides being more pliable you can also reuse the extra or the mistakes by simply re rolling it out. So this was better for me because I wasted much less.

Due to this I think that next time I use the machine I'll only use the fondant. I can easily dye it to any color I need, and I know I'll waste less.

The icing I love the most is here: Favorite frosting