Sweet nectar of the Gods!

Guys, Chris and I got ourselves a juicer!  It's something I've been wanting for several years, but like a rug for the dining room or new potholders, I just never got around to buying one.  On Friday night we watched Hungry For Change while eating our buffalo chicken tenders and it really put some things into perspective.  I don't eat as badly as I once did, or as some of the people around me, but there's still plenty of room for improvement.  So I figured one step in getting healthier was adding even more veggies and fruits, and a juicer just seemed like the perfect tool!

This is the first glass of juice I've ever made, and I'll be honest, I was pretty nervous.  I didn't want it to taste like a glass of turds because I don't have the strongest stomach, and also because I knew Chris would want a taste and I want to seem like a pro at everything in his eyes; and I didn't want to waste perfectly good food in my quest for a healthy glass of homemade juice.  I'm here to tell you my friends that I was successful!  I juiced half an apple, a carrot, a celery stalk, and a few kale leaves.  It sounds kind of like a weird combination, but it tasted really refreshing; kind of like the sweet flavor of the apple with a little bit of the cool zest of the celery.  I plan to put a few strawberries and oranges in today's juice, and later this week I'm getting some cucumbers, beets, and pineapple to add to my juice.  This is going to be fun!

So are you a juicer?  If so, what is your favorite or least favorite combination?  I feel like the possibilities are endless, so I want to start off slow with things I already know have a good flavor before I get brave and branch out.  I also want to use spinach, but I'm not sure how well that will go with fruit.  Thoughts?

If you follow me on twitter, then you probably know we FINALLY got snow!  Unfortunately it's pretty much all melted now, but while it lasted, oh it was beautiful.  I love snow so, so much.  I am eagerly awaiting spring and bare legs again, but I still can't help wanting about a foot of snow before then!

it's orange, it's delicious, it isn't pumpkin: a recipe

i'm almost embarrassed to admit it, but up until this weekend, i was a butternut squash virgin. of course i knew what it was, and i'd seen recipes for it here and there, but for some reason, i just never tried any - until last week. i'm guilty of finding recipes i kind of like, and then basically rewriting them to suit my tastes. so i saw a recipe for butternut squash (where, i can't remember) and knew that i liked some of the ingredients, but not others, so i figured i'd give it a go and make up my own. i wasn't disappointed!

we'll call it crusted butter nut squash. oh, and before we get to the details, i have to tell you this: chris is what you might call a food snob - he'll say he doesn't like a food without ever trying it, or if he didn't like a food fixed a certain way twenty years ago, he doesn't want to try it fixed another way now. anyway, when i told him that i was going to fix butternut squash he turned his nose up and said it didn't sound good. obviously the man's crazy. when he cut a bite to put in his mouth, the look on his face suggested he was about to eat a turd, but once he started chewing, he realized it was actually good and told me the only way he'd eaten it before was when his mom would bake it with cinnamon. so the moral of the story is, don't say you don't like something without at least trying it!

for this recipe you will need:
-1 butternut squash
-1/3 cup bread crumbs
-1/3 cup parmesan cheese (the real kind, not the powder kind)
-1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
-1/2 teaspoon oregano
-1/2 teaspoon basil
-olive oil

*i think the next time i make it i'll use a little more garlic and spices, but you should make it according to how much you like the spices.

cut the squash into slices about 1/4" thick (you can go thicker, but it will take longer to cook) and peel the skin off. pour some olive oil into a large freezer bag and toss the squash in; be sure the squash is coated in olive oil so the crust will stick. mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and dip the squash in making sure to cover it well! bake at 400 degrees for about 20-30 minutes or until the squash is done.

then serve it to your husband and tell him he better like it or... i'll let you finish that part. if you decide to try it, let me know what you think!

our never-ending bounty

from about july through september, it would be absolutely impossible to go hungry around here. from squash, to zucchini, to corn, to a variety of different peppers, to watermelons, to okra... okay, you get the point, we grow a lot of stuff. in addition to a garden large enough to feed three families for a year, we also have bees. a few weeks ago chris and i spent about seven hours stealing honey from the bees, straining it to remove little pieces of the comb, and then pouring it in jars. in the end, we'd taken off about 130 pounds of honey which translates to several boxes of honey in two closets. and you wanna know a secret? i don't even like honey! it's still neat to know that the honey in our cabinet isn't from the grocery store!

last night chris and i took a walk to the garden to get some green bell peppers to use with dinner and also came home with a lot of tomatoes and a few ears of sweet corn. luckily, i do like what we pick from the garden, so i don't mind smelling like an armpit for that work. most all of the tomatoes are regular and round, but occasionally one will be kind of wonky, or even heart-shaped like this one!

although my summer has been fun, it's also been work. but at least it's yielded some pretty good rewards (with the exception of honey, of course). gardening aside, i've spent my morning sewing, and i'll spend my evening talking about mudbound! that's right, it's book club night again! i was a little nervous about mudbound as it's hillary jordan's first novel, and sometimes firsts aren't the best, but this book was great. i'll say though, if you're considering it, the accuracy with which she portrays racism in 1940's mississippi is kind of disturbaing and upsetting, but it's a part of history, and she does an amazing job of story-telling. have you read any good books lately?