I’m Still Here!

Hi everyone!  Miss me?  I know my blogging lacks….consistency. But I look at other blogs, and it’s tantamount to trying on bathing suits with Heidi Klum- I’m intimidated.  But I will persist!

I have also had a stinky summer.  Two deaths in my family, helping with funerals and cleaning and hosting relatives, lots of driving, and right before the kids came home from grandparents’ house my hubby hurt himself at work and has been way-laid on bed rest and loopy pain drugs!!  So I’m striving to “let go, and let God.”  At times you really need to just surrend and realize you have no control over life.

Moving on- school has started, and I found a great granola bar recipe.  I tried it last night- in true Sam-fashion, my changes are: grape nuts and milled flax seed instead of wheat germ (didn’t have any in the pantry), 1 cup of Craisins for the dried fruit (decided to guess an amt.) and I threw in a small handful of choc. chips I had left over from another recipe. Yummo!  Next I will make a tropical dried fruit and nut bar with coconut.

If you still have real tomatoes available, I suggest making pasta sauce. The other week I made tomato sauce the crockpot.  I didn’t follow a recipe- I just blanched*, peeled, seeded** and chopped up tomatoes, threw them in the crockpot with some sautéed (in olive oil) onion, green pepper, garlic and carrot (all diced in food processor), some tomato paste, fresh rosemary, s&p, bit of sugar, Italian seasoning, red wine and a few meatballs for flavor.

* Cut a shallow X in the bottom of the tomatoes, drop in a pot of boiling water for 15-45 seconds, then quickly drop in ice water.  the peel will slide right off. Works the same with peaches.

** Just squeeze a cut tomato till the seeds squoosh out!

If you have access to REALLY good real tomatoes, I suggest making an open-faced tomato and feta sandwich with basil.

It’s quite scientific- mix some feta with mayo, pepper and chopped basil.  Slather the mixture on your bread (this was homemade bread), place a layer of tomato on top- CHOW DOWN!

Back soon with a new post- I want to show you some of the junk wonderful new treasures I acquired this summer.