Lets dehydrate everything.

We have been trying to eat better. We eat much less meat and dairy than we used to. I am contentious of where our food comes from and better yet, we planted a garden with raised beds and all organic soil and seeds. I even purchase organic and free range foods for our pets. I think its important and I wanted to share some of it with you.
Since I don't feed our dog bones or any of those rawhide ears or snouts, I wanted to find him something he could chew on besides everything else that happens to be laying around the house. He loves veggies and fruit so I found some dehydrated sweet potato treats, and boy does he love them. I purchased several brands to be sure it was the potatoes and not the brand, but they are not cheap!

After the third bag, I decided that I could make these myself, so I purchased a food dehydrator and started dehydrating everything!

Here are dehydrated sweet potatoes, zucchini and beets. Oliver, our dog, loves all of them except the beets, which is fine, cause I love them!
After I tried this experiment, I decided that anything is game.

I started to look at other foods differently.  don't really like bananas unless they are green and crunchy, but for some reason I love banana chips! (The pets do too)

Here in Michigan, the summer has been really mild, we have a few warm days followed by cool days so our tomatoes are growing but not ripening fast enough.  We had a warm spell and they grew big but took weeks to ripen so they are large and mushy with not much flavor. Well... I stuck them in the dehydrator to see what would happen, and OMG tomato chips are my new favorite snack. The mushy tomatoes are crisp and bright with color and intense flavor and I can take them with me anywhere to snack on. Love them. Kale is another yummy treat when it is dehydrated. Oh and fruit leather.... throw your over ripe fruit into the blender with some lemon juice, into the dehydrator and boom, you have fruit leather the next day!

Fresh tomatoes with some salt before

A different variety

And after-so good!!

Behind again...

Sorry, I have been slow to post again.... Lots has happened so we will play catch up really fast.

Blueberry picking:

"Most of Michigan’s commercial blueberry production is located in Southwest Michigan where sandy glacial soils and high water tables result in excellent blueberry soils. These soils are moist with soil pHs in the 4.5 to 5.5 range. Over 20 blueberry varieties are grown in Michigan. The Michigan harvest season normally runs from late June through October." Taken from MSU.edu. 

 I have been picking twice at the Dexter Blueberry Farm and have had good luck finding the bigger berries since they are located at the top of the bushes and I luckily I am tall.

Here is what they look like on the bush.

Rows of bushes

My final amount, I think it was about 15 cups worth.

The blueberries were great, but the highlight of the day was seeing these Sandhill Cranes. This is the first time I have seen them this close up. Such graceful birds.

In case you were wondering, I made blueberry cobbler with 1/2 the batch, froze some for pancakes and ate the rest. Yum!

Pancakes for Chihuahuas

I love pancakes and I am lucky enough to have husband that is a great pancake maker. He has been making pancakes for me for as long as I can remember. My favorite is of course, blueberry.
I am not the biggest fan of maple syrup though. If I use it, it must be the light colored real maple stuff. Usually I use my homemade jam or jelly on top of the cakes or I make my own syrup with sugar, water and blueberries.
My husband has also been making chihuahua size pancakes forever. These are actually the test cakes, but after finding out our chi, Pico loved them, he has been calling them "chihuahua pancakes".
Our chi Speedy was never a beggar and never got any food other than his own, but after Pico passed away, we have been slipping....
And now Speedy is the recipient of the weekend chihuahua pancake. Which he loves!

Waiting patiently

Waiting not so patiently

Finally

Surreal AZ

I just got back from my visit to Arizona and had a really great time. 

This visit I got to see many of my friends, made some new ones, visit with the family, take a wonderful 3 day glass class, visit the Desert Botanical Garden and spend a couple days bead shopping in Tucson at the Gem and Mineral show. The worst part of my visit was that I caught a cold, and am feeling the brunt of no sleep, a head swimming with snot and a chill. Boo!

The surreal part is that nothing had really changed. It's weird, in MI, I am around change on a daily basis, wether its the seasons changing, or my daily struggles with adjusting, there is always change going on. In Arizona, I just kicked right into my usual routine. I am not sure if that is a good thing or not yet. I still need to ponder that one. Either way, I had a really good time and look forward to my next visit!

My incredibly adorable nephews

Beads from my class with Hayley Tsang.

Yummy food

Desert Botanical Garden

Winter gloom and food

Living in Arizona for a large chunk of my life, I have apparently taken several things for granted.
The first and most obvious is the sun.  I never realized until now that I could actually miss the sun and the heat. For the last couple weeks, the skys in Michigan have been grey. Sometimes the sun will peak through just long enough to taunt you and it seems to be mocking my sunglass collection that is in hibernation right now.
Today it finally snowed, as if the sky has been working on a stomach ache for weeks, and finally just purged. The weather channel said we should get less than an inch on our side of this state, which kinda bums me out. I would like it to really snow hard and stay until the winter is over. I don't really like surprises, this way, it puts it all out there right now.

Snow!

Pretty holiday decorations

See how grey the sky is?

The second thing I have taken for granted is Ethnic food. This week I have been craving mexican food. All I can think of is eating a chorizo, egg and potato breakfast burrito. Damn, I miss those. Those breakfast burritos were so good and not good for you, that I reserved eating them to twice a year, when I went to Yuma, AZ to visit good friends, and when I was in Tucson at the Bead Show, again with good friends. So, not only do I crave the taste, but also the friendships that surrounded me while enjoying those greasy things. 

This week, I thought about things that would make this gloomy weather easier, and the first thing that popped into my head was to cook! Since I really wanted something to warm me up, I thought of Mexican food. Well, where does one shop for Mexican groceries in Ann Arbor??? I did end up finding 2 small Mexican grocery stores, with an emphasis on small, but I found what I needed and made Red Chili Colorado with beef and pork chorizo. The red chili sauce was so rich and spicy, it really hit the spot. But, the chorizo has to sit for another 12 hours before I can enjoy it......

4 heads of garlic made into puree, yes, heads.

Chili before

Chili after!

Chorizo resting before it's big day tomorrow- when I finally get to enjoy my BREAKFAST BURRITO!!!!

I am so looking forward to my huge breakfast burrito tomorrow, I only wish my friends were with me to enjoy their company too. 

Finally...the cookies

I finally had some time to bake the cookies. I made 2 flavors of Biscotti from this fabulous cook book:

Hazelnut and Chocolate Biscotti

And

Almond and Orange Biscotti

 This year I also made something different. I am not a fan of fruit cakes, but I have always loved candied fruits. I guess I could blame it on the German or the Italian in me, so I tried Ina Garten's Fruit Cake Cookie recipe  Oh yum!!! They are shortbread cookies with dired and candied fruits that have been soaked in Sherry.  Did I mention they were yummy?
Here is a link to the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/fruitcake-cookies-recipe/index.html

Happy baking!

It's beginning to look a lot like....Cookies

Here in Michigan, it's beginning to look a lot like winter, at least like winter that I am used to. There is frost on everything and it is cold, but no real snow yet. Other parts of the state have gotten snow that has stuck, but not the Southeast side. Yesterday, as I sat making new jewelry for the trunk show this weekend, there were large, soft, gorgeous snow flakes just blowing around outside. I felt like I was inside of a snow globe.

This year I decided to break out the apron and bake some cookies and other treats. As I went through my recipe box, I came across recipes from my childhood. Grandma Zimbaro made lots of cookies, but my favorite were her Church Window Cookies and the press cookies. They were not really cookies, but a chewy, chocolatey treat. They are basically colored mini marshmallows held together with melted chocolate chips rolled into a log and sliced to look like stained glass windows. The press cookies are a basic butter cookie shaped with a cookie press much like a calking gun. They were in the shape of trees, wreaths, and stars.
Grandma Kern made lots of candy. My favorites were Peanut Butter Bon Bons and Chocolate Covered Cherries. I have made these in the past, and they are not easy to make.
My mom carried on some of these traditions and added Sugar Cookies, Fudge, Biscotti, Zucchini Bread and Cranberry Orange Bread.

Reading these recipes not only made me hungry, but really home sick. This year we will be spending the holidays without our family, so I think making some of the family recipes will help.

I will take some photos, so stay tuned.

Green tomatoes and the end of summer

It's hard to believe that it has been almost a month since my last post. I have been very busy with life and friends.

My last post was all about the tomato crop that we had this summer, well, fall is here and it has dropped below 30degrees F a few times and we still had about 30 pounds of green tomatoes on the vine that I did not want to throw away, so I searched far and wide for ideas and asked friends for green tomato recipes.  Here is what I came up with.

Thats a huge bowl of chopped tomatoes. 

I chopped 5 pounds of green tomatoes, 6 onions, 3 red bell peppers, 1 head of garlic, jalapeños, and cilantro, cooked them down and make salsa.

Here is the caned salsa.

And there was another 20 pounds of tomatoes left, so I pickled them.

Spicy dill cherry tomatoes.

And bread and butter tomatoes.

And still I had more tomatoes....... So the remaining green tomatoes are in the cool basement where they are slowly ripening. It was sad to see the tomato plants go, as it is a reminder that the winter months are upon us, but that means we can eat winter squash and pumpkin pie!
Good bye summer, see you next year.

Seasons

Living in Arizona, the changing seasons were less obvious. It was pretty much hot and not so hot. Living in Michigan, I have become aware of the weather, trees and plants changing to get ready for the next season.
Right now the weather is brisk, you could be wearing long pants and a sweater, but I refuse, knowing that winter is right around the corner. The squirrels are gathering food and burying it for the winter.
Our tomato plants are still producing tomatoes, but I am not sure if they will ripen in time.
I have been so impressed by the growing season here, and I wanted to share a couple pics of our tomato bounty.

Cherry tomatoes

Homemade tomato sauce

We are so lucky to have a great farmer's market right downtown. Since we are renting right now, we cannot have a huge garden, only potted plants right now, and the market is a great place to get fresh, local and organic veggies throughout the summer.

Amish grown heirloom tomatoes with locally made mozzarella and basil from our garden. Yum!