Monday, August 20, 2012

Flower Boxes from Repurposed Wood

We recently repainted our house from white to grey, and painted the door red.
newly painted!
We wanted to create accent pieces to complement the door, so we decided to make flower boxes (that would also hopefully block some of the ugly front steps!)

Resources: a 30.5" x 62" section of old deck lattice, an old pallet, an old fence section, and some lengths of square dowel
Tools: hammer, drill, miter saw, table saw, screws, nails, and a staple gun
First, Mike deconstructed an old pallet (sorry, no pictures of that...)
...then he cut up the base of the pallet, and mitered the edges to create a frame. 
Then we cut slats from the pallet, and nailed them on our frames to create two mini pallets. 

Then we cut the lattice in half, lengthwise, then into eight sections. 

Once we had all the sides measured and cut, we cut lengths of square dowels for the interior corners, to attach the sides to, and to provide stability.
Once the frames were constructed, we set them on top of the bases, to make sure they fit.
Next, we wanted to trim the corners for good measure, and to make them look a little neater.
Mike cut some  slats from an old fence section, and mitered them to create corner trim, and we attached them with screws.

 Mike is a master with a miter saw!
 The last step before painting was to make a trim for the top...
I almost liked it better before we painted...so nice and rugged!

Finally we got to paint them!
 
 The painting part took forever though!

Final step: find some nice plants and put these on either side of our from steps!



Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Homemade Yogurt! In a crock pot!

I recently tried my hand at making homemade yogurt in a crock pot.
I like it!
I used the recipe & method found on Our Life Simplified.
It really is simple!

Ingredients (for 2 quarts of yogurt):
1/2 gallon milk (not ultra pasteurized) ~ $4
1 c. yogurt with live, active cultures ~ $0.62
1/2 c. dry milk (makes it thicker, if using low fat milk) $0.81

Total cost = $5.43, or $2.715 per quart! (even using not-cheap local milk!)
 Pour the milk (just the milk) into a crock pot and put it on low for 2 hours, until it gets to 180 degrees.
 Thanks to Mike, I now have a candy thermometer, with which I can check the temperature!
 Once it reaches 180, you let it cool down to 115 degrees.
 Then you whisk in the dry milk and yogurt, wrap the whole thing in a towel, and stick it in the oven to incubate for at least 8 hours (overnight!). I checked mine after 8 hours, but left it in for another 2, because it still seemed pretty thin. Some people suggested leaving the oven light on during this process, but I didn't try that.
 This is what it looked like after 10 hours of incubation. :)
 Lastly, since I had some cheesecloth, I strained the whole big mess for a bit to drain away the excess liquid, and make it a little creamier. Cheesecloth is so handy!
Lastly, although I forgot to take pictures of this part, I divided the yogurt between to quart-sized mason jars, and stuck it in the fridge!
It was delicious with homemade granola!

Consensus: I will make this more often!

Tastes of Summer

I needed to make a post to highlight some of the fun summery dishes I have experimented with in the past few months, so here it is!

We grew some beets in our garden this summer, so I had to find delicious recipes worthy of the fruit of our labors. I had seen a recipe on the Barefoot Contessa at the gym one day for Summer Borscht, which looked surprisingly tasty. So....I made it!
We had some friends moving in with us, and to celebrate afterwards, we had a cookout, and I took that opportunity to test out this recipe. It was a hit!
 Also, it matched our picnic blanket, because it's HOT PINK! I mean, really, how awesome is that??? It's like you're slurping poster paint, but it's GOOD!
I had a lot of fun taking pictures of it...
This major flavors of this soup are: dill, cucumber, beet, lemon...reminiscent of tzatziki...

Another beet recipe that I tried and really liked (but forgot to take pictures of) is Beet and Brown Rice Salad with Goat Cheese. YUM!

Cool, Creamy, and Crunchy Vegetable Curry Salad
This summer I made a lot of rice & veggie bowls...
I wanted to try out some curries as tasty and healthy (and cheap) vegetarian dishes, but the one night I was going to go for it, it was too hot!

So instead I made a "cool, creamy, and crunchy vegetable curry" as I called it.
Unfortunately, I forgot to write down my recipe right when I made it, so here it is as best as I can recall!
Cool, Creamy, and Crunchy Vegetable Curry Salad
Ingredients:
1 Tbsp oil for sauteeing
1 small onion
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp curry powder
1/2 package silk tofu 

1 small head broccoli, chopped into small florets
2 carrots, thinly sliced, shredded, or chopped
1 small green pepper, diced
2 green onions, thinly sliced

1 c. cooked brown rice

In a skillet, saute the onion and garlic for about 6 minutes. Add in half the curry powder and stir, cooking 2 more minutes. Transfer the onion mixture to a food processor, and add the tofu and curry, and blend until smooth. In a medium bowl, combine the veggies, then toss with the creamy curry sauce. Serve over cooked brown rice, and enjoy!

Other things that would be good in a dish like this would be: red peppers, peas, cilantro, ginger, sprouts...etc.

Sushi extravaganza!
We made veggie sushi rolls the other day, and I attempted to make a quinoa version, since I had just defrosted some frozen quinoa...
 It looked good to start off...but my quinoa did not have the nice sticky quality of sushi rice...
 This is the nicest it looked...attempts to slice up the roll, however, were rather disastrous...

Mike had an interesting idea too, which was more successful: banana-avocado-cucumber sushi roll!
it was surprisingly delicious!

Grilled Yogurt-Marinated Mediterranean Chicken
We also got our grill going this summer! One of my favorite meals that we made on the grill was yogurt-marinated chicken with homemade tzatziki sauce and cucumber-tomato salad, on homemade pita bread, served with grilled corn! YUM!

Yogurt marinade:
1/2 c. yogurt + lemon juice, oregano, garlic, salt, paprika (1/2 tsp?) and garam masala (1 tsp?)

Tzatziki (from this recipe):
1/2 c. grated English Cucumber
3/4 c. Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh herbs (such as oregano, dill, or mint)
1/2 tsp salt

So there's a little taste of our summer.... :)

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

All things bright and beautiful...

...all things great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God made them all!

This was going to be a post about some fun and useful ideas that I had come up with, but then I was struck with the realization that all our "great" ideas stem from the Only Wise God from whom flows all understanding and wisdom and cleverness...

So, with that said, here are some ideas that I had, and fun things I've gotten to try out recently, thanks to God's great gifts and his grace for each moment!

I have a huge oregano plant in my herb garden, and every now and then I need to hack it down to size. That leaves me with a LOT of oregano, though, and I don't know what do do with all that oregano...

I needed a way to store it for later, but I don't like dried herbs... SO, I washed it all and pulled all the leaves off the stems, then stuffed them into an ice cube tray! I was able to fit a lot of oregano into the tray.
I put plastic wrap on top , pressing down a little in each section, to keep the leaves from poking through the surface (they need to be completely surrounded by water to store well as an ice cube). 

Then, I popped it in the freezer, and out came...oregano cubes! Ta da!

A similar idea, which I was pretty happy with, was using lemons that I had no immediate use for, and squeezing them into an ice cube tray with more oregano, so now I have lemon-oregano cubes, all ready to become marinades or sauces, or whatever! =)

Mike and I really like to add sprouts to things (sandwiches/wraps, Thai pizza, stir fries, etc.), so I finally decided to grow my own! Why didn't I do this earlier???

I bought a good-sized bag of mung bean seeds for sprouting at The Common Crow natural foods market in Gloucester - $2 for probably 2-3 cups of seeds!

On Monday I soaked 1/3 c. of seeds in 1 c. of water for about 10 hours, and this is what they looked like afterwards:
Then, I rinsed them (with fairly high-pressured water) and drained them (as thoroughly as I could, shaking out excess water), morning and night, and this is how they looked this morning, two days later!
My only equipment is a pint jar with a screw-top and a square of cheesecloth...
 Pretty cool! I am looking forward to eating those up!

My last idea of this post is a DIY Dollar-Store message board.

It's a lot of fun to use!

Supplies: 
1 Dollar-Tree picture frame
Paper (plain, pretty scrapbooking paper...whatever you want!)or Contact paper (or fabric!)
Dry Erase Marker

Directions:
Take off the back of the frame, and trace the cardboard backing to get your paper to the right size. 
Cut out the paper, and insert it into the frame just like you would a photo.
Use just like a dry erase board, to leave messages for your household!

**behind the frame you can see my other project, which I didn't like as much...a DIY magnet board, using a steel cookie sheet from the dollar store...I covered it with pretty contact paper (also from Dollar Tree!), but now it just looks like a cookie sheet covered with contact paper....it does work as a magnet board, though!


Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Camping Weekend in VT

This past weekend we got a chance to go camping in VT for three whole nights! It was my first time staying in VT, and I was very excited! Since our tent is a very small 2-person backpacking tent, we rented one from EMS for $25! Such a deal! We packed up our car with all sorts of yummy camping food and backpacks and a sense of adventure, and headed off for the Green Mountain State!

As you know, I have a tendency to take pictures of the food that we make, so I made a collage of our camping food attempts.

Breakfast:

  • French press coffee (boil enough water for the coffee + oatmeal and you're good to go!)
  • Oatmeal (2 servings: 1 c. oats + 1 3/4 c. water, top with brown sugar & cinnamon!) 
  • Eggs (this was new to us...and we had them three different ways! I think fried was the tastiest, although hard-boiled was way easier to clean up afterwards!)
Dinners:
  • Grilled fish (in foil) & veggies with lemon & fresh herbs
  • Hot dogs on a stick + baked beans (or in this case, Hebrew National Knockwurst, since they are plumper for skewering)
  • Vegetarian Chili  + baked potatoes with slits for onion slices (consensus: would have been really good if I hadn't cooked them way too long!) 
    • our chili recipe: one can kidney beans + one can diced tomatoes + 1 Tbsp. chili powder + 1 Tsp. cumin + 1 green bell pepper, 1/2 red bell pepper, 1 small diced onion, a few cloves of garlic, and  1-2 hot peppers + 1/2 c. corn...saute the onion & garlic, set aside, saute peppers & spices, add the onion/garlic, beans, tomatoes, & corn. Heat until simmering for 10 min.
Desserts:
  • S'mores (of course!) except we like to use Resse's pb cups as an extra special treat! 
  • Chocolate-chip-stuffed grilled bananas (consensus: YUM!)

On Friday, we decided to challenge ourselves with a hike up to the summit of Camel's Hump, which we kept seeing from the highway and admiring. In Mike's words, "I saw it and I immediately though, 'I want to be on top of that!'" We had looked up some hikes and considered a few "moderate" options, but based on the description of the Camel's Hump hike, we decided to go for it. It was described as a difficult-but-rewarding 5.8 mile loop with scenic vistas approaching  and along the summit.

We braced ourselves for the hike of our lives, and set off!

Along the way we saw some curious sights (caterpillars)
and beautiful views!

At one point, we got our hopes up, thinking that we were nearing the summit...but were sorely disappointed. 

 Later, after climbing the false summit, we came across the real view of the summit...still quite far away!

In this shot that we took from the highway, you can see the ridge that we climbed along, including the false summits (we hiked from right to left in this picture):

Finally, we made it to the top, and the view really was quite spectacular! 360 degrees in all directions, with nothing else up there other than bare rock and you! I couldn't get enough of the layer upon layer of blue hills fading into the distance like waves in the ocean, and the dramatic effect of the clouds! 



Could you ask for a better place to eat a pb&j?

Here's a collage of some of my faves...

After the hike, we cooled off (and cleaned off!) with a dip in the reservoir that our campsite was on, then cooked up some hot dogs and baked beans, paired with Long Trail Double Bag....perfection!

The rest of our trip went something like this: 
Saturday: Explore Burlington (check out all the shops on the pedestrian street, browse the huge farmer's market, gaze out at Lake Champlain), play a round of disc golf, and tour the Ben & Jerry's factory (and sample ice cream, of course!)
Sunday: Take a nature hike/run at our campground (after packing up our campsite), tour & samples at the Long Trail Brewery

Finally, here are our other Vermonty pics to share...