Watermelon!!

Who doesn't love watermelon!? 

 Sometimes those big slices can get messy

I cut them in cube shapes and everyone grabs a piece.

yum! 

seeds and a jar

This spring we decided to grow some more veggies

In order to study the way the seeds sprouted and rooted

we put some wet paper towel in a jar

and one seed on each side

Jalepeno

corn

eggplant

and garden bean.. 

(the bean was put in because I was told it would be the easiest and fastest to watch)

..

it wasn't.

The Corn was the winner in our little experiment!

The Jalepeno & eggplant 

trailing a bit for both second place

and the sad sad bean

just sat there.. slowly rotting. 

(not sure what happened there.)

Once the corn was declared definite winner

we removed them and planted them in some nice

juicy dirt.

Hopefully we can have us some good sweet corn this summer from our yard! 

:)

beauty berries...

 Ever seen these beauties?

I found them growing in our current back yard

when we moved in last year.

So very pretty!

I wanted to eat them..

but of coarse I first had to figure out what they were.

Then how I can use them.

 Turns out these amazingly gorgeous berries are not so tasty

But they make a great jam.

The only problem is they lose their color 

*sad face*

Has anyone ever used these for any other purpose?

There has to be some sort of recipe to find a use for them.

Even holistically speaking.. 

Let me know what you think?

Homemade granola

Dry Ingredients:

3 cups Quick Oats

1 cup slivered almonds (or cashews)

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut 

1/2 cup brown sugar

mix seprately

Wet ingredients :

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 maple syrup 

mix seperately

Mix dry & wet ingredients together

then spread out on baking sheets 

and bake at 250 degree oven

 Stir every 15 minutes till golden brown

It usually takes @ an hour

Once done you can add in raisins

cranberries or any dried fruit bits.

We like to mix in Blueberry flavored Craisins

This makes a great snack & super yummy cereal! 

stuffed peppers

  Got a bit of extra veggies you want to use up before they go bad? Stuff them into a pepper :)

We have made variations of this before.. but its always a crowd pleaser. Even for our picky eater.

Couscous, beef, corn, kale ...etc. all stuffed into green peppers and sprinkled with cheese.

Even the as leftovers. yum! 

Monday nights dinner...

So my youngest native wanted to make dinner

we happen to have a bowl of feta cheese 

ready to be stuffed into shells.

We had some super large pasta shells

And boiled them for about 2 minutes..

 

We then drained the shells and she began stuffing them 

full of cheesy goodness

This was quite fun for her

and easy enough

  

A little time consuming

but she made conversation

and had herself some

serious concentration going on

while she filled each shell 

as full as possible

She placed each shell

carefully into an oven safe dish

Once done she covered the shells in a pre-made pasta sauce

And a LOT of mozzarella

Then we put it in the oven for about half an hour 

and tada!!

A delicious meal 

and a very proud little native!

win win